793.94/8175: Telegram
The Counselor of Embassy in China (Peck) to the Secretary of State
279. Our 278, September 24, 9 a.m.10
- 1.
- We are reliably informed that the Ministers of Industry and Education are proceeding today by plane to Canton to confer with Chiang Kai Shek concerning the negotiations between the Japanese Ambassador and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and that they have been sent by the National Government because the Government believes that the negotiations so far have been fruitless and have reached or will reach a deadlock. From reliable information available to us, we are convinced that Kawagoe has presented no demands or threats to Chang Chun but the Chinese Government has conceived from the three conversations here, from reports from the Chinese Minister at Tokyo and from Japanese news sources (which most probably have had tacit approval of some Japanese Government officials) what it considers to be the present objectives of the negotiations which the Japanese Ambassador initiated September 15 ostensibly over the Chengtu incident. These objections [objectives?], as reportedly conceived by the Chinese Cabinet ministers are: (1) the alienation of [Page 308] China from dependence upon foreign countries other than Japan and specifically an open stand on the part of the Chinese Government in favor of Japan against Communism and, by implication at least, Soviet Russia; (2) Sino-Japanese economic cooperation in North China to be developed within a political framework which will virtually create a five province buffer region; Chinese administrative organs will, independently of Nanking, control such Chinese troops as are necessary to maintain peace and order in that area.
- 2.
- In an informal discussion incident to a call by myself and Atcheson upon the new British Ambassador11 and his Chinese counselor this morning the two latter stated that last night at a dinner for the British Ambassador given by Chang Chun there was some discussion among Chinese Cabinet Ministers of a possibility they envisaged that a deadlock in the Sino-Japanese negotiations would result in a break with and Chinese resistance to Japan. The Ministers felt that the Japanese were segregating the incidents from the main [part of?] the negotiations and that the former could probably be settled one by one but China could not passively allow Japan to achieve the two objectives outlined in paragraph 1.
- 3.
- The British officials stated to us that British interests in the Far East made it plain that their own role should be to calm the Chinese at this time with a view to warding off a definite break between China and Japan or the development of any major Sino-Japanese hostilities since British as well as other foreign persons and property would suffer in such case. The British Ambassador had therefore advised Chang Chun to meet Japanese wishes to the last point possible.
- 4.
- There has been during recent months so much talk by Chinese of armed resistance against Japan that we are inclined to believe that (1) too much importance should not be attached to what the British Ambassador was told, (2) this information may have been given him in the expectation that it might through him reach the Japanese Embassy and possibly influence the Japanese Ambassador to continue the attitude of obvious caution with which he has been approaching Sino-Japanese problems.
- 5.
- The Japanese Ambassador informed an American newspaper correspondent at midnight last night that (1) the Shanghai murders greatly increased the gravity of the situation and it would now be necessary for Japan to adopt a much stronger attitude in order to achieve Japanese desires; (2) it now depended largely upon the Minister for Foreign Affairs whether the conversations with him would be continued.
- 6.
- To Department and Peiping.
Peck