But the budding Sino-American romance did not last. The two leaders failed to hit it off at their only wartime meeting, in Cairo in November 1943. At the Mena House Hotel, in the shadow of the pyramids, Roosevelt sought Chiang’s support for his trusteeship scheme, but Chiang resisted, expressing a preference for outright independence for Indochina and other Asian colonies. To FDR’s claim that he supported the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule, Chiang said he would have no reply until the president first discussed the colony’s future with the British.
