793.94/7431: Telegram
The Counselor of Embassy in China (Lockhart) to the Secretary of State
[Received 7:50 p.m.]
176. Embassy’s 175, November 25, noon. The new regime was inaugurated this morning. The participants passed four resolutions as follows: (1) to organize the new administration; (2) to free the area under the present regime from the Kuomintang; (3) to maintain peace and order; and (4) to protect the lives and property of foreigners. Yin Ju-keng informed a local foreign press correspondent that his regime will collect all taxes except salt and customs, that a committee is being organized to administer the railways (probably this means control of revenues primarily), that there will be no interference with the Kailan Mines, that he has no Japanese advisers as yet, and that he has at his command 100,000 rifles (mostly irregulars) to defend the area.
- 2.
- This correspondent said that Tungchow, near Peiping where the inauguration took place, was quiet, with the people seemingly uninterested, that Yin and his Chinese colleagues seemed not very sure of themselves and that a number of Japanese in ordinary clothes were in evidence assisting Yin.
- 3.
- Doihara returned to Peiping from Tientsin this morning. Subversive handbills were distributed this morning in Peiping.
Repeated to Nanking and Shanghai; by mail to Tokyo.