793.94/5658½
Memorandum by the First Secretary of the Embassy in Great Britain (Dooman) of a Conversation With the Japanese Ambassador (Debuchi)
As I have known Mr. Debuchi for many years and as we have always maintained fairly cordial relations with each other, particularly when Mr. Debuchi occupied various subordinate positions in the Foreign [Page 460] Office at Tokyo, I asked Mr. Debuchi whether he would receive me. He invited me to call on him at the Japanese Embassy on December 28 at four o’clock.
After a few remarks of a personal nature Mr. Debuchi asked me whether I could not bring forward a suggestion for the solution of the trouble between China and Japan. He said that his stay in Japan had convinced him of the impossibility of expecting any material concession from the Japanese people. “Any government”, he added, “which would seriously consider a substantial withdrawal from the position which Japan has now taken would be overthrown in a moment.” Even though he knew this to be a fact, he was nevertheless glad to have an opportunity to return to the United States, as he thought he would be now in a better position to interpret Japan to the United States and the United States to Japan than someone like Mr. Matsuoka who knew only one side of the question and would be tempted to be too brusque. He despaired of being able to see any solution to the difficulty in the immediate future, and he would therefore apply himself to the task of improving the psychological atmosphere. He wondered, however, whether I had any suggestions to offer.
I said that the many years I had spent in Japan had enabled me to understand the Japanese people perhaps a little better than others who had not been in Japan or who had not resided in that country so long as I had; and it was for this reason that I felt constrained to say that, however sympathetic I might feel for the complaints which Japan had against China antecedent to the incident of last year, I did not believe that Japan was going to profit either materially or morally from the manner in which she had proceeded to settle her accounts with China. I reminded Mr. Debuchi that the intelligent classes in Japan were fully aware that Russia was not a cause for any serious anxiety and that, as Russia was not able and would not be able for many years to come to threaten Japan’s security, the political importance of Manchuria to Japan is now very much smaller than it is made out by Japanese to be. There remain therefore only Japan’s economic interests in Manchuria; and I could not see that they were of such importance as to warrant the enormous cost of the military operations and the cost of maintaining order in Manchuria for years to come. Nor did I think the economic interests, which might well have been conserved by other methods, sufficient compensation for the injury to Japan’s honor and prestige.
Mr. Debuchi said that he agreed with everything I had said. However, he had just passed through Germany, and he was convinced that it would be a very long time before Germany would be able to threaten the security of France; yet when he passed over to France he found the entire nation obsessed with the idea of security against Germany. [Page 461] In the same way the intelligent classes in Japan realized that their country was perfectly safe so far as Russia is concerned, but that the masses of people, who had been indoctrinated with the idea of security against Russia, did not realize this fact, and that for this reason Manchuria would continue to have a political importance in the minds of the Japanese people. A state of mob psychology prevails in that country and not one of order and reason; and until normal conditions were reestablished he did not believe that it would be possible to rationalize with any good results.
I then asked Mr. Debuchi if the Japanese, who say with confidence that they will be able within a short space of time to place “Manchoukuo” on a firm foundation of popular support, would be prepared to abide by a neutral and impartial examination of the will of the people. I pointed out that the Chinese assert that the vast majority of the people in “Manchoukuo” have never withdrawn their allegiance from China; and it seemed to me that if both sides were confident of the justice of their contentions they would be willing to put their convictions to a test. Mr. Debuchi replied that he thought that this was a good suggestion in principle, but that China and Japan could never agree upon a suitable method of sounding out the will of the people in Manchuria, and that furthermore the Chinese were so lacking in political education and in personal morality that votes could be bought too cheaply and too freely to make a test of this type worth anything.
He said that unfortunately there were always objections to the many suggestions brought forward for a solution. So far as he could see the question could only be solved by the passage of time; and he was certain that within a few years Manchuria would become the paradise of the Far East. He hoped that until then the United States would “close its eyes for a few years and then give its decision”. I said that he was laboring under a delusion if he thought that the American people would be tempted by material consideration, certainly by any material consideration which Manchuria could hold out, to disavow their allegiance to a principle. Mr. Debuchi protested that this was not at all what he had meant to imply. He hoped that the United States would stand fast by the doctrine of nonrecognition, which he characterized as a very wise policy because it had averted the head-on collision which threatened last autumn. All he had meant was that the United States should close its eyes for a few years, after which it would have the necessary proof that Japan had acted wisely in severing the cord which tied Manchuria to the trouble-making Nanking Government.
As he saw it, the United States and Japan had accounts against each other; he thought that the wise thing to do would be to leave the accounts open for the time being and not to attempt a settlement immediately, [Page 462] as this would only create the risk of another head-on collision. He said that Japan had an account against the United States with regard to the exclusion law,87 which Japan charged was a violation of the principle of international amity and the spirit if not the letter of the commercial treaty between the United States and Japan.88 Japan, he thought very wisely, had left the account open because it did not affect its vital interests; and in the same way he thought that the United States should leave its account open with Japan over Manchuria as Manchuria did not affect the vital interests of the United States. He thought that in time a favorable opportunity would be found for the settlement of both of these questions.
As I was leaving, Mr. Debuchi said that he had been very much surprised by the practice of the Department in publishing in the Foreign Relations records of conversations between the Secretary of State and foreign ambassadors. He thought that it was quite proper for the Department to publish official notes and even memoranda of conversations that had been approved by both parties; but he thought that it was hardly fair for the Department to publish records of conversations with foreign ambassadors until an opportunity had been had by each ambassador or chief of mission to see whether or not the record was accurate. He remarked that the last issue of the Foreign Relations extended only up to the year 1918, but he said that someday perhaps his son might have to come to the State Department and protest against the records of conversations which Mr. Debuchi had had with Mr. Stimson and Mr. Castle.
- Approved May 26, 1924; 43 Stat. 153.↩
- Signed at Washington, February 21, 1911, Foreign Relations, 1911, p. 315.↩