711.94/1373: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
392. Reference is made to conversations between the Ambassador and the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs on December 4 (see telegram 656, December 4, 10 p.m.) and between the Counselor of Embassy and the Director of the American Bureau of the Japanese Foreign Office on December 6 (see telegram 666, December 7, 2 p.m.28).
[Page 47](1) The two telegrams cited were read with interest in the Department, which approves the Ambassador’s attitude during his conversation and concurs in his points made at that time.
(2) With reference to the Ambassador’s request for the Department’s comment and instructions, it is suggested that the attitude and position of the United States Government continue to be accurately represented by the viewpoint and desiderata which were set forth in the Department’s telegraphic instructions prior to the Ambassador’s conference with General Ugaki on July 4, 1938,28a and in the American notes to the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs on October 6 and December 30, 1938.29 The Department expresses confidence in the Ambassador keeping in mind this attitude and position
(3) Respecting the procedure outlined by Director Yoshizawa, the Department states that naturally it has no objection to classifying problems in such manner as may seem helpful to the Japanese Foreign Office in considering the situation, but the Ambassador is asked to avoid an expression of approval of or agreement to any special classification. The various problems involved are conceived by the Department to be integral parts of a single larger problem, which is unwarranted interference with American rights and interests in and concerning China. With reference especially to Yoshizawa’s proposed categories, it is the opinion of the Department that without involving in a fundamental fashion “basic principles” there could scarcely be effected a fair adjustment of problems which have to do with Yangtze River navigation, Shanghai’s International Settlement, Chinese maritime customs, Chinese currency, etc.
(4) Reactions of the Department to statements made by the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs are indicated in the comments given below, while the Department’s reaction to his statements regarding American claims has been telegraphed separately.30
Regarding the Minister’s reference to a decrease in instances of American properties in China being bombed by Japanese military airplanes and of instances of American citizens being insulted and affronted, the Department observes that, although a complete cessation of these occurrences naturally is essential to improving Japanese-American relations, the stopping of direct physical attacks on American citizens and property would be purely a negative development.
Regarding commerce, it was pointed out with some evidence of satisfaction by the Foreign Minister that certain shipments of lace and drawn work from Swatow and of wood oil from Hankow indicated a Japanese wish to facilitate American enterprise in China. If viewed [Page 48] in a perspective that includes the normal free movement of Chinese-American trade, to call attention especially to the isolated instances just mentioned of cargo shipments (which were subject to various restrictive conditions) is to emphasize the enormous damage inflicted and continuing to be inflicted by Japanese military operations in China upon general American interests in and concerning China.
Regarding the Minister’s indication that military operations have resulted in limitations being placed upon American commercial activities in China, that such limitations are temporary and exceptional, and that upon the coming of peace these American rights will be restored, does he suggest that official companies under Japanese Government control (namely, the North China Development Company and the Central China Promotion Company) and the growing and extensive monopolistic control by these companies of various phases of Chinese economic life are only incidental to Japanese military operations and upon cessation of such operations will vanish, together with their subsidiaries in China? The Japanese authorities, or regimes which function with their support and under their guidance, are attempting the establishment in China of currencies which are linked with the Japanese yen in such manner and with such trade controls discriminatory in character that, though there is comparative freedom of movement for commodities and funds between Japan and its occupied areas in China, there is a serious disruption of the normal flow of Chinese-American trade. Is it suggested by the Foreign Minister that these developments also are temporary in nature?
While the United States Government appreciates fully the efforts being made by the Japanese Government to ameliorate the material damage being done in China to American interests, it is constrained to observe that these efforts thus far are felt to have little more than touched the fringe of the problem.
(5) The above suggestive comments are offered to the Ambassador as of possible assistance in his further conversations with Japanese Foreign Office officials.
Repeated to Chungking and Peiping.
- Not printed; see memorandum of December 6, 1939, supra.↩
- See memorandum of July 4, 1938, by the Ambassador in Japan, vol. i, p. 605.↩
- Ibid., pp. 785 and 820.↩
- Not printed.↩