793.94/8389
The Chargé in Japan (Dickover) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 30.]
Sir: [Here follows summary of events reported in the Japanese press.]
There is enclosed a memorandum of a conversation59 which Mr. Ballantine and I had with the Counselor of the Chinese Embassy at an informal dinner given by the latter on November 8. He gave reasons which he thought were responsible for a moderation of the Japanese stand in the negotiations, but he felt that the crisis over the Japanese demands in relation to North China and the anti-communist defense question had only been deferred until next spring or summer, when he anticipated that war was inevitable.
The only thing that occurs to me now to add to the comments contained in my previous despatches on the subject is that it is even more pronounced that Japanese public opinion evinces a steadily calmer and less truculent attitude toward the Chinese questions. This may be attributed to the following causes: (1) the public feels that it has not been taken into the confidence of the Government in regard to the objectives sought by Japan in China; this renders the public apathetic to the outcome at Nanking; there has been no intelligent discussion in the press, due to lack of authoritative information, of what is involved in the North China and anti-communist defense issues and why Japan is so intent upon them. (2) Among the more thoughtful of the public there is a dawning realization that the North China and anti-communist defense questions have nothing to do with eliminating the cause of anti-Japanese outrages in China, which renders this group unsympathetic with the Japanese conduct of the negotiations. That is to say, there is an opinion, suggested by the continued recurrence of anti-Japanese incidents, that the Japanese Government made a serious error in judgment at the outset of the Nanking negotiations in insisting that its demands be dealt with as a whole, and that the negotiations should have disposed first of the settlement of the incidents and of the demands having a direct relationship to them, such as the elimination of anti-Japanese propaganda movements, and leaving the other questions to be taken up at a later day. (3) For a long time past the public has been kept at a high tension by the army through its activities on the continent and its propaganda at home to keep the nation alive to the necessity of preparing for a national crisis, which seems to come no nearer. Public feeling has become apparently jaded to a point where it would [Page 378] require some unusual stimulant to revive interest in Chinese questions. (4) The army, furthermore, in an effort to recover ground lost as a result of the February 26 incident, has been trying to consolidate its position in domestic politics by a campaign for a so-called “purification of national politics” which calls for far reaching changes in the administrative and legislative structure under which the Cabinet would be organized and function like an army general staff. This campaign coupled with the new defense estimates, which are of staggering proportions and which necessitate a sharp increase in the already heavy tax burden, has resulted in diverting public attention to domestic politics.
Respectfully yours,
- Not printed.↩