861.77 Chinese Eastern/261
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
The Japanese Ambassador came in at my request in regard to the Manchurian situation. He told me that he had just received from the Japanese Foreign Office a message from Mukden to the effect that on August 24, Mr. Ho,68 the personal representative of Chiang Kai Shek, had told the members of the staff of the Japanese Consul General in Mukden that China had decided to accept in principle the restoration of the status quo ante in respect to the position of the general manager and assistant general manager of the Chinese Eastern Railway property provided that this did not mean the restoration of the same Russian general manager and assistant general manager who were formerly in chargé. They said that Mr. Emshanov, the former manager, was not acceptable to them. Mr. Ho, the authority for this information, was the representative of Chiang Kai Shek at the Tsinanfu negotiations, so the Ambassador said.
In the second place, the Ambassador had a cable from Tokyo to the effect that on August 25 the Chinese Foreign Minister, Mr. C. T. Wang, had informed the Japanese Consul General at Shanghai that conversations between China and Russia are steadily progressing and that according to the opinion of C. T. Wang formal negotiations might be held in the course of one or two weeks. Debuchi himself guesses that the conversations are now going on at Berlin.
Third. From these despatches, as well as from general information, Debuchi is optimistic. So far as the territorial situation is concerned he believes that no territory of either nation has been invaded by the forces of the other. He believes that there has been no clash between their forces except at Dalainor (Jalainor, Thalainor). He bases this in part upon the fact that when the Chinese Minister in Tokyo came to announce to Baron Shidehara, the Japanese Foreign Minister, the clash at Dalainor he admitted to Shidehara that no Chinese territory had been invaded.
Debuchi commented on the despatches to the effect that 60,000 Chinese troops were being sent in to Manchuria to reinforce the frontier. He does not believe that this is true. Among other reasons he does not think that the present Governor of Manchuria69 wants to have southern troops in Manchuria.
I told him I was very glad to have this information and that I regarded the news about the restoration of the status quo ante as particularly important and that it followed the line of the representations which I had made to Dr. Wu.
[Page 303]I told him that his report about Dalainor rather followed my own conclusions because that was the only clash which had been reported to me by the Chinese.