761.94/720
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Phillips)
I asked the Soviet Ambassador this morning whether he had any news from the Far East of interest and if he would care to give me his views concerning the Russian-Japanese relations.
The Ambassador replied that he thought things were going better and he clearly indicated that he did not expect any war in the immediate future; while some of the hot heads in the military party were undoubtedly [Page 97] in favor of early hostilities, the Ambassador felt that the Japanese Government and people as a whole were too sensible to take such a drastic step; he had recently received a letter from a high placed Japanese, an old friend of his, who had made a similar remark to the effect that the nation as a whole was too sensible to risk war at the present time.
Mr. Troyanovsky thought that the Japanese ambitions were directed in a more southerly direction and that the ultimate goal was to put Pu-yi on the throne at Peiping, thus establishing a northern Chinese empire under the domination of Japan; some Japanese, he said, went even further than this and would be satisfied only with the domination of the whole of China. I asked the Ambassador whether, in the event of Pu-yi transferring his residence to Peiping, Manchukuo would retain its present entity or slip back within the Chinese boundary. The Ambassador did not reply directly other than to say that, no matter what happened to Manchukuo, it would always remain Japanese in fact.
I asked the Ambassador whether he thought there was any possibility of Russian recognition of Manchukuo in the event of a successful termination of the railway negotiations. Mr. Troyanovsky’s comment was merely that recognition of the independence of Manchukuo was utterly impossible while the Japanese armies remained in supreme control; he intimated that, should the Japanese armies retire from the field, the question might be open for consideration.