The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 117
117 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN was cut off, except the weekly air service from Calcutta. Being in China, and wartime China at that, not a drop of milk was procurable. The Chinese themselves do not use milk, so that it was not that milk was rationed: it was just not obtainable. We had taken some Lipton's tea with us from Calcutta, but we had to take it without sugar and without milk. The lack of sugar was no privation in my case as I had given up sugar because of my diabetes. Tea of any kind was scarce in China. The Third Secretary in the Australian Embassy, Keith Waller, who is now the Australian Ambassador in Moscow, used to walk a couple of miles along the ridge of the southern range of hills, where our bungalow was situated, and bring me as many books as I could read, mostly Australian fiction. His visits were a great delight and were most welcome. We insisted on keeping him with us for an hour or a couple of hours, and all we could offer him by way of hospitality was sugarless and milkless tea, and he drank quantities of it, as if it were ambrosia of the gods. When we left we still had some half a dozen tins of Lipton's tea left. We gave them to Keith and Keith felt that we had bestowed a whole fortune upon him. You can judge from that what conditions were like in Chungking. The political and other conditions perhaps deserve an observation or two. I reported to the Viceroy from Chungking, and reaffirmed when I came back and had a long talk with him, three matters which he was rather surprised at, and I in turn was surprised that he was surprised. I told him, first: that as soon as Japan was defeated, I was quite sure that the Communists would be on top in China. He nearly jumped out of his chair and exclaimed, "Why do you say that?!" I replied, "It is perfectly obvious. They are the only organized party in China, and they are the only people who are putting up any resistance to Japan, whether it will do any good to China at the moment or not, they are getting trained and they are undergoing all the hardships. They are already very well trained. Secondly, on the Kuomintang side, at the top, with the exception of Chiang Kai-Shek himself, and men like K. C. Wu, who had been Mayor of Shanghai but was then in Chungking and had a very high reputation, and perhaps half a dozen others, everybody else was steeped in corruption. For instance, the finance minister was Kung, brother-in-law of Chiang Kai-Shek, and he had the reputation of being the biggest crook in Asia. The man went about loaded with gold watches, chains, and knick knacks. Even his mouth was full of gold; most of his teeth,