693.001/475
Memorandum by the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
In my conversation today with the Minister for Foreign Affairs which lasted for an hour, he said that he had no concrete questions to discuss but thought that periodical talks might be helpful and that he had therefore asked me to come to see him before the holidays.
[Page 819]The Minister expressed his regret that the American press apparently failed to understand the assurances he had given me that Japan has no intention of closing the door to foreign trade in China. I replied that while, as the Minister well knew, the American press is not controlled by the American Government, I believed that I could accurately explain to him why the American Government and press and public and I myself found it very difficult to appraise the assurances which he mentioned. This difficulty arose from the fact that every official utterance of the Japanese Government since the Prime Minister’s statement of November 3 had been so circumscribed by qualifying phrases as to leave the real intentions of the Japanese Government quite nebulous. I said that at least in this respect Japan had left the door wide open for her own interpretations and to suit her own convenience as occasion might arise. As a concrete illustration I referred to the last two paragraphs of the informal memorandum which he had handed to me on December 8 (our 773, December 8, 7 p.m. Appendix One)39 in which there occurred at least five qualifying words or phrases such as “certain industries”, “within the scope of the established plans”, “as a rule”, “any special discrimination”, “undue discrimination”, et cetera. I said that we were naturally more interested in results than in expressions of intention especially when these expressions were so hemmed around with qualifications as to afford complete latitude in the Japanese interpretation thereof. The Minister apparently saw the absurdity of this situation and asked if he might copy down these phrases underlined by me which he thereupon did.
I then said that I had repeatedly made the position of my Government abundantly clear both orally and in writing and that this position had not changed. The position of the Japanese Government, however, was very far from clear. In this connection I read to the Minister my memorandum of the specific assurances given me by the Prime Minister acting as Foreign Minister in our conversation of October 3, repeating and confirming the assurances with regard to the Open Door and equal opportunity which had been given me by all of his predecessors since the current hostilities began, and I observed that it was very difficult for my Government and the American public and press to understand the sudden withdrawal of those assurances as announced by the Prime Minister on November 3 and by Mr. Arita himself to me.
The Minister said that as he had pointed out to Mr. Dooman in their conversation on November 19 his predecessors had not given these assurances in bad faith. They had simply tried without success to reconcile principle with actualities. He himself had therefore [Page 820] decided to avoid trying to reconcile the irreconcilable and had declined to confirm those assurances. Nevertheless Japan has no intention whatever of closing the open door.
I replied that as regards principle, our two Governments are in radical disagreement. As regards actualities, Japan cannot expect the American Government or public or press to appraise his statements of intention until they become patent in practise. I thereupon itemized the outstanding points of Japanese discrimination against American interests in China in favor of her own interests, especially stressing trade and navigation interests on the Yangtze River, and once again urged in emphatic terms that steps be taken to meet our desiderata forthwith.
The Minister said that he was doing his best to bring about results to meet our wishes and authorized me to tell my Government that he will continue to do his best. He said that the new “China Board” is now considering these matters. Before the creation of the “China Board” progress was difficult on account of the considerable number of different authorities involved. He thought that the Board as a unit would overcome this handicap and that favorable results would soon transpire.
The Minister did not directly refer to the recent American credit to the National Government of China39a but did so indirectly by observing that he understood that Mr. Chen was still in the United States and that Chen was in close touch with our Secretary of the Treasury. He then said that according to his information Chiang Kai-shek would collapse very soon. He made no statement to which I could take exception. I said that I had no information to substantiate any of these observations.
The atmosphere and tone of this conversation were noticeably more conciliatory and resilient than in our former talks.