793.94/4457
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Castle) of a Conversation With the Japanese Ambassador (Debuchi)
The Ambassador said that he had a telegram from his Government asking him to inform the Department that reinforcements were being sent to Shanghai “for the protection of Japanese life and property.” I told him that this was confirmation of what the papers had already said. He said that the Japanese were in very bad position in Shanghai and that it was necessary for them to get themselves out of this position, that they had supposed Chiang Kai-shek was more or less indifferent and that it had been a surprise to them to find his troops among the defenders. I said that it seemed to me quite natural that this should be the case, that possibly Chiang Kai-shek’s indifference, as he called it, meant merely that he had to move very carefully as he hoped the dispute could be settled without [Page 199] violence, that on the other hand after the Japanese had delivered an ultimatum which had been fully accepted and then, in spite of the acceptance, had proceeded to attack the Chinese,26 Chiang Kai-shek might well have thought that there was no use any longer in temporizing. The Ambassador said that he did not see how the Japanese troops could get out at the present moment because the Chinese would kill Japanese residents remaining near Shanghai. I told him that I appreciated this, but that I, nevertheless, had no sympathy with it for the reason that when the Japanese had told the Chinese to retreat for 20 kilometers leaving that space as a neutral zone, the Chinese said they would do this on condition that the Japanese Army also moved away. I said this had given the Japanese an opportunity to get out and to clear up the situation which they had not taken and that now it was, of course, difficult to see how they could retreat. I told him, further, that the apparently indefensible actions of the Japanese in Shanghai seemed to me to be having the almost unbelievable effect of really uniting China, that China was being united against Japan and that the result of this would presumably last for a long time.
The Ambassador asked me what I thought the future would bring. I said, of course, that it depended largely on Japan’s actions, that it seemed to me that this sending of new troops would probably have a very disastrous effect from Japan’s point of view at the meeting of the Assembly of the League. The Ambassador said that he fully agreed to this. I said that I thought the League would declare that Japan was carrying on aggressive warfare and that they might then proceed to sanctions. He asked me whether in that case he was not right in thinking that, whether or not the Congress declared a boycott on Japan, it would not lead to a virtual boycott. I told him I thought he was undoubtedly right and I said also that the whole thing made me unhappy, liking Japan as I did, because it would mean a world united against Japan on account of the utterly unwarranted actions of its military and that the result would be to put Japan back for a generation in the progress which had been so encouraging and really inspiring. The Ambassador said that when I was in Tokyo I had used the phrase “that Japan was the stabilizing influence in the Far East,” that he felt this to have been a happy phrase at the time and that we must look forward to the Japan of the future as still a stabilizing influence. I told him that I thoroughly believed that I was telling the truth at the time, that I hoped it might be so once [Page 200] more in the future, but that at the present moment Japan was not only not the stabilizing influence, but was the most utterly disturbing influence. He said that the Shanghai incident was, he knew, an accident not in any way part of the plan of his Government, that the commanding officer of the Naval Forces had landed troops which had immediately got themselves into a bad position and had to be helped out. I said that, so far as I knew anything about it, I agreed with this, but that it seemed to me that one of the most tragic aspects of the whole miserable matter was that there was no strong government in Japan. I said that a government was hardly worth their name which could allow itself openly to be defied by the military, especially when this defiance was not apparently the action of the entire military, but merely of the younger officers. The Ambassador had nothing to say to this except that he could not refute a just observation.
As to the political situation, he said that, although the Seiyukai Party was full of die hards, he was nevertheless, glad that Seiyukai now had a real majority in the Diet. He was glad of this for the reason that while they did not have a majority they were trying to make all the trouble possible, that now, having a majority, they would feel the weight of responsibility and would probably be more reasonable. I told him that naturally I hoped this was the case, but that I thought reasonableness was not enough, that there ought to be also courage to oppose and punish those who were in the long run working against the best interests of Japan.
- See third report, dated February 20, 1932, of the Consular Committee appointed to report on events in Shanghai and the neighborhood, League of Nations, Official Journal, March, 1932, p. 381.↩