4 INTELLECTUAL COOPERATION IN WAR-TIME AND PLANS ... 377(1) What steps can jointly or severally be taken by the United Nations...
to aid in the better prosecution of the war and in the establishment
of conditions of racial, political and economic justice and welfare?
(2) How far and by what means can the conclusions drawn from the
discussions under point (1) above be made the basis of a practical
program for the United Nations during and after the war?^100Although the Declaration of the United Nations was viewed as a major
advance in the joint conduct of the war, it was recognised that as a
nominal association the United Nations fell far short of being a func-
tioning executive body. Both Walter Nash, the New Zealand minister
to Washington, and Soong, who was now the Chinese foreign minister
(and who in May 1931, as vice-president of the Yuan Executive Council
and finance minister, had initiated a programme of technical cooperation
between China and the LON with a view to China’s total reconstruc-
tion), had called for the transformation of the United Nations into an
active policy-making entity, comprising at least the larger members of the
United Nations and with a view to not only the better prosecution of the
war but also to post-war planning.^101 Alfred Sao-ke Sze, the acting chair
of China Defence Supplies in Washington, was a former ambassador to
London and Washington and had been the head of the Chinese delega-
tion to the Washington Conference which took place from November
1921 to February 1922. In September 1931, Sze had served as the chief
delegate of China to the LON Assembly.^102 On September 14, 1931,
China was elected as a non-permanent member of the LON Council
and it was in that forum that Sze, following the capture of the city of
Mukden by Japanese troops on the night of September 18–19 and fur-
ther incursions by Japanese forces into Manchuria, had vigorously prose-
cuted the Chinese case against Japan.^103
In one of two opening addresses at the conference at Mont
Tremblant, Sze, the head of the Chinese delegation, noted that in a
speech in New York on October 10, 1942, Soong had advanced a pro-
posal in favour of the establishment of an executive council of the United
(^100) Ibid., vi.
(^101) International Secretariat, Institute of Pacific Relations, War and Peace in the Pacific, 2.
(^102) Ibid., 155.
(^103) Morley, The Society of Nations, 435.