894.00/521
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Consul at Geneva (Gilbert)16
Dear Mr. Gilbert: I acknowledge with thanks the receipt of your letter of April 5, together with a copy of your strictly confidential despatch No. 858 Political, dated March 28, 1934,15 which I have read with great interest. In answer to your letter and in compliance with the suggestion contained therein I shall endeavor to outline briefly the present political situation here with particular reference to the Japanese attitude towards international cooperation both at present and in relation to the basic Japanese policy of dominating East Asia. I enclose also a list of subjects,15 copies of our despatches on which have been sent to Berne. No doubt you have seen many, if not all, of these.
[Page 182]In your letter you remark that “one gains the distinct impression that having achieved to such a large degree their objective in Manchuria, the Japanese are now endeavoring to effect an appeasement of the feeling against them in every direction possible.” That is, in fact, the specific task which Hirota has set himself as Foreign Minister. Accordingly—to use the phrases current in the Japanese press—for the “desperate diplomacy” of Count Uchida18 there has been substituted the “national defense by diplomacy” of Mr. Hirota.
In promoting his policy of conciliation Hirota has shown force and ability. He came into office last September at a moment when the pendulum of public feeling was tending to resume the norm. Already Shiratori, the aggressive spokesman of the Foreign Office, had been forced out. The resignation of Count Uchida was in itself a blow to military influence. Within a few weeks commenced the momentous “Five Minister’s Conference” at which Hirota by confronting Araki with pure common sense is believed to have won his pledge not to interfere in matters of foreign policy. And then in January, Araki himself, the high priest of the military cult, found he could not redeem the pledges he had made to the army and resigned. Furthermore, through public utterances and in the Diet, the voice of public opinion revealed dismay at the size of the military budgets and an inclination to blame the army for the unnecessary and dangerous state of agitation into which the nation as a whole had been led. Business men and capitalists wished to be free to reap the profits of the export boom. During all these months Hirota worked steadily, and I believe sincerely, to create a friendly basis upon which to deal with China, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, and the United States. His hand was manifest in an immediate toning down of anti-foreignism in the press; it was revealed in the renewed efforts to solve the current problems between Japan and Soviet Russia one by one; and it was emphasized to me in conversations in which Hirota showed an eagerness to explore any possible avenue which would lead to an improvement in American-Japanese relations. Certain people considered him a genuine liberal and the strongest Foreign Minister since Komura and Kato.
Nevertheless, many believe Hirota’s moderation to be one of manner and strategy rather than substance. Certainly no one could have come into office last year unless he was pledged to support Japan’s continental adventure and unless he profoundly believed in Japan’s “mission to preserve the peace of East Asia”. It is precisely here that we find a deep-rooted antithesis. The Japanese Government is at present struggling to escape from the dangers of international isolation and yet substantially every Japanese—in the Government and out—is determined that their nation must realize its long cherished [Page 183] ambition, hegemony over East Asia. It is for this reason that the Japanese Government finds it difficult to bid for the world’s friendship with anything more tangible than words. One cannot avoid the suspicion that at heart a great many here—we might even say a majority—view the treaties and international commitments to which Japan is a party as just so many obstacles in the path to Empire. Of course there are reasonable-minded elements, and the older statesmen, Saionji, Makino, and others who influence the Throne, do not share these somewhat unscrupulous views without many reservations, but they are old men and we cannot count on their restraining influence much longer. It is simply that the nation, with the goal in sight, is reluctant to admit that the period of consolidation, customary after each wave of Japanese expansion, is now in the best interests of the country.
It immediately comes to mind that this incompatibility between the desire of Hirota to win friends for Japan and the fundamental ambitions of the nation has already been illustrated by the justly famous “Amau Statement” of Japan’s policy towards foreign assistance to China. It has already proved a source of great embarrassment to Hirota’s policy of friendship on the one hand, and yet, on the other hand, no one, no government official even, has publicly denied that this statement represents the genuine policy of the Government. It happens, as a matter of fact, that the original Amau statement was an instruction to Japan’s diplomatic representatives abroad and that its public announcement did not have the approval of the Foreign Minister, but this circumstance is beside the point. Japan has revealed herself as firmly opposed—say what she may—to the objects and purposes of the Nine Power Treaty and the efforts of the League of Nations to extend international (and Occidental) assistance to China. In fact, I believe that it was largely the work of Rajchman and Monnet that worried the Foreign Office into issuing such instructions for the guidance of its Minister in China and other representatives elsewhere.
With Soviet Russia Japan is trying to keep the peace at present. Viewing the situation from Tokyo neither side has now any stomach for war nor are there indications in Japan or Manchuria of preparations pointing to imminent warfare. For the time being at least we need only fear a frontier incident of unusual gravity. Although Hirota has taken up the Chinese Eastern Railway question, the yenruble exchange question, the fisheries dispute, and the boundary problems one by one with an evidently genuine desire to remove them from the slate, progress has been very halting and bids fair to continue so. The rumors that the U. S. S. R. is contemplating joining the League have not aroused great attention here although such comments [Page 184] as have come to light interpret the step as prompted by considerations of national safety. Undoubtedly the Japanese realize that the League’s influence in the Far East would be strengthened by the entry of the Soviets, but the possibility seems too remote to have aroused any great degree of apprehension as yet. Incidentally the Soviet Ambassador recently told me that he had no reason to believe that Soviet Russia was about to join the League but that he did not know what might come about in future.
So far as the question of a non-aggression pact between the U. S. S. R. and Japan is concerned, Hirota has stated that it is his policy first to remove the specific points of conflict between the two nations before taking up the question of a general pact. It is believed that a strong minority, notably the army, opposes such a pact and that to ignore this minority would court the risk of reversing the present trend towards a more normal national psychology. After these specific points of conflict have been removed, the minority would retain no valid reason for continuing their opposition.
In concluding this letter I refer to the portion of your despatch outlining the position which Japan is taking at the present time in Geneva, namely, the wish to be represented on League bodies in return for Japanese cooperation, the alternative being withdrawal from all League treaties. Writing from Tokyo I should be inclined to question the value of Japanese cooperation in the first place (except in social matters such as narcotic’s control) owing to the exclusive character of Japanese ambitions in the Far East, and in the second place I should question whether withdrawal from all League treaties would create a situation entirely distasteful to the majority of the Japanese people. That the technical and political difficulties involved in securing acceptance of the Japanese reservation should be envisaged in Tokyo as providing plausible reasons for not withdrawing from the League next year, I am inclined to doubt. Japan has burnt her bridges behind her so far as the League is concerned. The Government has repeatedly indicated that Japan’s withdrawal from the League was necessitated by a fundamental divergence of views and, only two weeks ago, the Foreign Minister—the spearhead of the conciliatory forces now articulate—said publicly:
“Our proposition having been rejected by the Powers, we were compelled to serve notice of withdrawal from the League of Nations, with which we had maintained close cooperation for so many years. However, that step was one which Japan perforce had to make in order that we might fulfill our mission and responsibilities in East Asia.”
Any Japanese Government which attempted to retain Japan’s membership in the League would court the danger of denying Japan’s [Page 185] “mission and responsibilities in East Asia”—one of the terms in which the conviction of Japan’s “Manifest Destiny” is expressed. If, then, Japan’s secession from the League and League activities should be definitive, it would of course carry with it the inevitable corollary that Japan would be estopped from making use of the League as a medium for the manipulation of the balance of power.
The arguments of the foregoing pages indicate the nature of the problem which confronts the present “Cabinet of Old Men”. The Saito Government is trying, so to speak, to keep the brakes on. Furthermore, having survived recent political crises with increasing difficulty, the Cabinet is racing against time. Will the common sense of the nation reassert itself with sufficient celerity or will the Government succumb to death by attrition before the forces of moderation have gained the upper hand? At the present time it is only the liberal, super-party advisors to the Throne who are keeping the Government in power in the face of dissatisfaction in many quarters. Should they fail in the near future the succeeding Government would almost inevitably be more reactionary. For the real good of the country they must hold on as long as possible. In any event, the mantle of government will not again fall on the generation which was at the helm when Japan rose to the position of a world power. We shall sooner or later be seriously concerned as to whether the new generation will acquit itself successfully of the gigantic task to which the nation seems committed because American and Japanese policy in the Far East will directly conflict—unless someone puts the helm over hard.
I found your despatch extremely interesting and helpful.
With kind personal regards,
Yours very sincerely,