88 The China Quarterly diplomatic recognition to the DRV so that it could participate in international society.8 Before Luo actually went to Vietnam,however,Ho Chi Minh,after walking for 17 days,secretly arrived in China in late January.Liu Shaogi immediately received him and reported his visit to Mao Zedong,who was then in Moscow.Meanwhile,the CCP Central Committee established an ad hoc commission composed of Zhu De, vice-chairman of the Central People's Government and commander- in-chief of the People's Liberation Army(PLA),Nie Rongzhen,acting general chief of staff of the PLA,and Li Weihan,director of the United Front Department of the CCP Central Committee,to discuss with Ho his mission in China.Ho made it clear that he came to obtain a substantial Chinese commitment to support the Vietnamese Communists.10 He also wished to meet Stalin and Mao in Moscow and obtain Soviet and Chinese military,political and economic assistance.Through arrangements by the CCP and the Soviet Communist Party,Ho arrived in Moscow in early February.I Ho's secret trip to Moscow brought mixed results.While the Soviet Union decided to recognize Ho's government,Stalin had interna- tional priorities in Europe and was unfamiliar with,and to a certain extent even suspicious of,Ho's intentions.He was therefore reluctant to commit the strength of the Soviet Union directly to the Vietnamese Communists and turned Ho to the Chinese.12 To Ho's great satisfac- tion,Mao and Zhou,first in Moscow then Beijing (to where Ho 8.Mao Zedong to Liu Shaoqi,17 and 18 January 1950,Mao Zedong's Manuscripts, Vol.1,pp.238-39;see also Zhou Enlai's statement recognizing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam,18 January 1950,Xinhua yuebao(New China Monthly),February 1950,p.847.When deciding to recognize Ho's government,CCP leaders understood that this would inevitably make an early French recognition of the Chinese Communist regime unlikely.They still believed,however,that recognizing the DRV was in the fundamental interests of revolutionary China.Following the example of China,the Soviet Union and other Communist countries quickly recognized the DRV.The DRV government later named 18 January as the day of"diplomatic victory."See Hoang Van Hoan,A Drop in the Ocean,pp.255-56;Renmin ribao,7 February 1951. 9.Luo Guibo,"Comrade Liu Shaogi sent me to Vietnam,"pp.234-35;see also Hoang Van Hoan,A Drop in the Ocean,pp.254-56 (in his memoir,Hoang recalls that Mao held a banquet in Ho's honour after Ho reached Beijing,but as Mao was then in Moscow,this was impossible);The CMAG in Vietnam,pp.1-2;Han Nianlong et al., Dangdai zhongguo waijiao (Contemporary Chinese Diplomacy)(Beijing:Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press,1988),p.55. 10.Hoang Van Hoan,A Drop in the Ocean,pp.254-55;Huang Zheng,Ho Chi Minh and China,p.125. 11.Luo Guibo,"Comrade Liu Shaoqi sent me to Vietnam,"p.235;Hoang Van Hoan,A Drop in the Ocean,pp.254-55. 12.For a plausible analysis of Stalin's attitude towards Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh in the early period of the First Indo-China War,see Gary Hess,Vietnam and the United States:Origins and Legacy ofWar (Boston:Twayne Publishers,1990),p.37.For Stalin's attitude toward Ho during Ho's visit to Moscow,see Li Ke,"Chinese military advisers in the war to assist Vietnam and resist France,"Junshi lishi(Military History), No.3(1989),p.27;Wu Xiuquan,Huiyi yu huainian (Recollections and Commemora- tions)(Beijing:Central Party School Press,1991),pp.242-43;my interviews with Chinese researchers who had access to archives in May 1991 and August 1992 also confirmed that during Ho's visit to Moscow Stalin refused to offer direct military and financial support to the Viet Minh