Office of the Historian

793.94/8170: Telegram

The Consul at Hankow (Jarvis) to the Secretary of State

Hankow, September 23, 1936—10 p.m.
[Received September 23—2:50 p.m.]

Two Japanese destroyers arrived from Shanghai yesterday and last night disembarked fully equipped landing force of 180 men. I was informed at the Japanese Consulate General that this force has been sent here temporarily and will be relieved shortly by larger contingent from Japan and that it is the Japanese intention to keep a permanent landing force at Hankow.

2.
Miura, the Japanese Consul General, had a lengthy conference yesterday afternoon with Yang Yung Tai, the Hupei Governor. From Chinese and Japanese official sources I learn that Miura demanded that the Chinese accept full responsibility for the killing of the Japanese policeman and that the Governor declined to do so. Miura pressed [Page 306] for acceptance of his theory (see first paragraph of my telegram of September 21, 4 p.m.8) that the policeman was killed in the so-called Japanese extension and that the Chinese are responsible for patrolling this area, to which the Governor replied by producing a letter written by one of Miura’s predecessors refusing a joint survey of the concession boundary and stating that the limits [of] the concession include the so-called extension. Most of the conversation was given over to a discussion of the status of this area and the responsibility for policing it, and the question of who killed the policeman appears to be of less interest than where he was killed.
3.
I saw Miura this morning. He was tired and anxious. He reiterated the Japanese version of the shooting, already mentioned. This theory is contradicted by the evidence of the Norwegian lady, referred to in the second paragraph of my September 21, 4 p.m., who states that she heard two shots and saw the policeman fall at his post in the Japanese concession. Miura has been informed of her statement (which was made in writing to the Norwegian Vice Consul yesterday) and has been shaken by it. The lady was questioned by the Mayor of Hankow in the Norwegian Consulate this afternoon; Miura was invited to be present or send a representative to interrogate her but refused.
4.
The Japanese concession is quiet. The landing force was not in evidence this morning.

Sent to the Department, Peiping, Nanking, Shanghai.

Jarvis
  1. Not printed.↩