Career in China
Service was first assigned to a clerkship position in the American consulate in the capital of the Yunnan province, Kunming. Two years later, Service was promoted to Foreign Service Officer and sent to Beijing for language study. In 1938, he was assigned to the Shanghai Consulate General under Clarence E. Gauss. When Gauss was promoted to ambassador, he made Service Third Secretary of the American Embassy at Chungking. As time progressed, Service was eventually promoted to Second Secretary.
During the early war years, Service wrote increasingly critically harsh reports on the Kuomintang and Chiang Kai-shek. Service criticized the Nationalist government as "fascist," "undemocratic," and "feudal,". This caught the attention of John P. Davies, a Foreign Service Officer working as a diplomatic attaché to General Joseph Stilwell. In the summer of 1943, Davies managed to have Service, among two others, assigned to him to assist him in his duties. When the U.S. Army Observation Group, also known as the Dixie Mission, was formed to travel to the Communist territory, Davies selected John Service to be the first State Department official to visit the region.
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