Office of the Historian

793.94/11068: Telegram

The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State

Tokyo, November 11, 1937—7 p.m.
[Received November 11—9:36 a.m.]

532. Our 510, November 2, 3 p.m., and 524, November 6, 6 p.m., paragraph 3.

1.
A highly reliable and responsible Japanese official when speculating to us on possibilities of peace parenthetically stated in the strictest confidence that the Japanese high command has decided to meet the “challenge” of the Chinese Army to transfer the principal theater of operations from North China to Shanghai and the Yangtze area. He said that it would be unwise were the Japanese Army to [Page 674] penetrate very deeply into China from the north as the Japanese right flank would then be dangerously exposed to attack by Russia. He referred also to the fact that the best trained elements of the Chinese Army are collected at Shanghai and he remarked that the will to fight of the Chinese Army probably could not be destroyed until those elements could first be destroyed.
2.
The Military Attaché’s office has confirmed the enlargement of the Japanese forces at Shanghai by units taken from the North China front. One division which was definitely known to have been operating previously as far south as Chengting on the Peiping–Hankow line has just been identified as taking part in the recent landing operations near Shanghai. Conclusive evidence of movement of Japanese units can be obtained only by laborious sifting of fragmentary information such as casualty lists. We believe that further investigation will disclose that substantial movement is taking place of units from the North China front to Shanghai.
3.
The views of our informant with regard to prospects of peace resolved themselves to emphasizing that the Japanese Government cannot entertain for the present any proposition looking toward peace except one coming from the Chinese Government which would provide for direct negotiations.

Repeated to Nanking.

Grew