861.77 Chinese Eastern/257: Telegram
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 26—1:30 p.m.]
760. Legation’s 757, August 25, noon, paragraph 2. Japanese Chargé d’Affaires informs me that Wang told Japanese Consul General at Shanghai yesterday that he expected negotiations with Soviet Government to take place within a week or two but that he had no definite plan whether at Berlin or some other place. Wang would not commit himself with regard to the appointment of a Russian general manager of the railway, but an important member of the Chinese Government at Nanking intimated to the Japanese Consul in that city that the Chinese would agree to a Russian manager. Japanese Chargé d’Affaires said that within the last few days Nanking had sent instructions to Mukden of a more conciliatory character and that it was his impression that the Nanking Government was prepared to take a less unyielding attitude than hitherto, in view of the Government feeling that it could not count with certainty upon the allegiance of Feng and other military leaders nominally subordinate to it.