Scenes 21 to 30

[Not a single word is spoken in this scene. A few soldiers and a huge crowd of people – mostly old people, women and small children, because many young men are still with the military – are waiting for Mao Zedong to arrive. Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De and Ren Bishi are waiting as well. Mao finally arrives in a jeep, on which an American and a CCP flag are fixed. Mao says goodbye to his comrades and waves to the crowd; all the time he is laughing and chuckling with confidence. This scene once again puts Mao in the role of the national hero, boarding the plane to Chongqing to bring peace to his people. The crowd is slowly pushing towards him, still gazing at the miraculous plane while it is vanishing into the sky. The scene ends with an old shepherd singing a folksong that halls back from the mountains. The lyrics of the song are adjusted to praise Mao: “The hearts of the people in the mountains and that of Chairman Mao are one”].

Miss Tong enters the office, wondering why no one of her colleagues goes to the airport to report about the important event of Mao’s coming to Chongqing. The editor-in-chief, Tao Xisheng 陶希圣, and the manager-in-chief, Hu Jianzhong 胡建中, remark that Miss Tong would most probably already be on the CCP’s black list because of her acrimonious articles. They doubt that Mao would ever welcome her presence. Then Chen Bulei 陈布雷, a high official from Jiang’s personal adjutant office, calls Hu Jianzhong, warning him not to send anybody to the airport to report about Mao’s arrival; otherwise he would remove him from office. Miss Tong, though, wants to go. The editor warns her that she will not be able to pulish anything on this event in their paper. Stubborn and self-confident as she is, Miss Tong declares that if she cannot represent the “Zhongyang Ribao”, she would just represent herself. But she wants to join this event on which many foreign journalists will report as well.

Jiang Jieshi has not yet entered the room; but some of the officials are already involved in a discussion about Mao. The head of the Legislative Yuan, Sun Ke 孙科, says that by sending three telegrams to Mao, the GMD would have put Mao on the spot. Another official argues that by coming to Chongqing, Mao now would have, on the contrary, put them on the spot. The question everybody has on his mind is why Mao actually did come to Chongqing, even though Jiang had assured them that Mao would not dare to come. Jiang, entering the room, tells them that Mao’s coming is actually a good sign for the GMD: Mao wants to negotiate, which shows clearly that the CCP troops cannot rival the GMD army.

Miss Tong is interviewing Guo Moruo 郭沫若, a famous Chinese writer and Communist. She asks him about his having a connection with Mao Zedong or why he came here. Guo says that he has worked under Zhang Zhizhong in the ministry for cultural exchange, but now that this ministry has been closed down, he is just coming as a “normal citizen” (老百姓). When Miss Tong reveals that she is working for the “Zhongyang Ribao”, Guo tells her that the “Zhongyang Ribao” never writes the truth. He wants to walk away from her, but Miss Tong runs after him, telling him she knows about his inclination towards the Communists. She then tells him that before Mao decided to come to Chongqing, she had thought he only aimed at enlarging the territory under Communist control during the surrender of the Japanese. She muses that the only reason why Mao has probably decided to come to Chongqing now is that he has been forced by the people and that he thus did not have any choice but to come. However, she doubts Mao’s good intentions. But Guo comes up with a counter-argument: Mao, as the leader of the Communist party, obviously did not care the least about his personal safety, as is demonstrated by his coming, which makes it difficult to suspect his good intentions. And what is more, Miss Tong should think about the fact that except her, there are no other Chinese reporters around. How could it be that in such a critical phase of history, with foreign reporters and officials all around, there are nearly no Chinese journalists to even report about Jiang’s and Mao’s meeting? He wonders whether Miss Tong would dare to report about that!

Mao Zedong’s plane arrives at Jiulongpo airport. A huge crowd of foreign journalists, politicians and curious people surrounds him as he is welcomed by Zhou Zhirou as representative of Jiang Jieshi. Zhou Enlai meanwhile delivers pamphlets to the crowd, and Patrick Hurley remarks that Mao in fact is received like a star by the crowd. Miss Tong, identifying herself as from the “Zhongyang Ribao”, manages to get the first short interview with Mao and asks him whether he does not fear this could be a meeting contrived as a trap. But Mao, hinting to the fact that the meeting gets the attention of the whole Chinese populace, says he is not afraid in the least. Mao is then led to the car of ambassador Hurley, and together they drive up the way to Jiang Jieshi’s residence.

Finally, after 19 years, Mao Zedong and Jiang Jieshi meet again. The historical importance of this meeting is emphasized by a slow-motion while the two leaders are shaking hands. Both of them show themselves happy that they meet again. [Flying doves, symbolizing the chance for peace, are shown after the handshake]. Then, Mao and Jiang are taking a little walk in the park of the residence and have a small talk about food. (Mao is looking forward to the spicy Sichuan food, which Jiang, who comes from the southeast, does not like too much). Jiang shows Mao the villa which he had “assigned” to Mao for his stay during the negotiations. Mao, jokingly, says he will of course follow Jiang’s orders.

Jiang Jieshi is talking to his wife Song Meiling, who is bemoaning that Mao by now can meet with Jiang on equal terms. Jiang says that it was not Liu Zhidan 刘志丹 [who received the people from the Long March in his base] who laid the foundations of Mao’s rise, but it was the Japanese. Ever since the incident at the Marco-Polo Bridge, things have gone wrong for Jiang. Mao proclaimed to fight against the Japanese, and Jiang had no choice but to ally with him. During all this time, Mao enlarged his military power, and it would be impossible now to just “swallow him with one bite”.

The commander of the American forces in China, Albert Coady Wedemeyer, is on the phone in the presence of Hurley, giving order that the GMD troops have to be lifted from the Southeast to North China and to the big cities in the centre. The negotiations would only be a rest between two wars, and nothing would come out of them, he states. [This scene stresses that the US clearly favour the GMD and are not really aiming at peace]!

Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai arrive at the negotiation hall. Outside, they meet with their negotiation partners Zhang Qun 张群, Wang Shijie 王世杰 (the foreign minister of the government in Nanjing), Shao Lizi 邵力子 and Zhang Zhizhong. The two parties sit together at one table to start the first round of the negotiations. Zhang Qun, GMD party chief of Sichuan, underlines the importance of that day and hopes that it will turn out a glorious one. Wang Ruofei 王若飞 (who also represents the Communists in Chongqing), and another Communist make up the Communist delegation together with Mao and Zhou. Thus, each side has four representatives sitting at the table; Jiang Jieshi is not taking part personally [to stress his supreme position]. After a little procedure of courtesy about which party should first start to articulate their points of view, the GMD side emphasizes that though Truman and Stalin both care a lot about the talks of the two parties, the GMD has the feeling that resolving China’s problems can only be achieved by the Chinese themselves; foreigners do not understand Chinese politics. Mao says that though this can be seen as a common ground, it should not be forgotten that at the same time the foreigners supply the GMD with weapons and ammunition and transport their troops to the north!
Zhou Enlai then starts proclaiming the eight points the CCP had already published three days before in a public declaration, mainly asking for: stop the civil war, accept the liberated areas and the legality of their anti-Japanese troops, give every party a legal status, dissolve the secret services, liberate the patriotic political prisoners, and establish a democratic coalition government. The GMD then declares that it will not accept point number one, because presently there is no civil war. Then a discussion about whether the present situation can be called “civil war” evolves. The CCP delegates state that it is just Jiang who refuses to admit that there is any civil war. Mao says that Jiang in fact prefers calling his military actions “purging of the bandits” rather than “civil war”. Ever since 1927 the GMD has tried to get rid of the Communists, and even the second United Front after the Xi’an Incident did not work out. Even now, Jiang thinks he is sitting at the table with “bandits”. But, Zhou adds, if it were not for avoiding a civil war, why would the CCP have come to Chongqing then? The GMD was in fact preparing for a civil war while the two parties are negotiating. Wang Ruofei states that various GMD divisions are just about to penetrate into the areas that have been liberated by the Communists! Regarding this claim, the GMD side is pretending not to know anything about these ongoing military aggressions. The first round of the negotiations thus ends with the Communists demanding an answer to the question of the civil war.

An adjutant of Jiang Jieshi is working on a re-edition of a proclamation Jiang has made 19 years before, in which he called the Communists “bandits”. In order to counterbalance the CCP’s argument that the GMD had always called them “bandits”, one could erase that word. Jiang, though, opposes this proposal and decides not to change anything!

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