793.94/11761: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:15 p.m.]
97. Peiping’s 836, December 20. Exhortation of Terauchi to the Chinese population to cease from friendly relations with distant nations which violated the sovereignty of China is direct incitement to Chinese to hate and molest foreigners. Foreigners in China have long anticipated that the Japanese would endeavor to create sympathy between Chinese and Japanese by appeal to pan-Asian sentiment and by fostering promotion of and hatred of white races. No one doubts but that these methods will be used as part of Japanese effort to eradicate and supplant European and American enterprises and prestige with Japanese. I desire to point out that in the light of statements like this one, the looting of foreign property in the Shanghai area by Japanese, and the repeated attacks on foreign ships, it would be mere credulity to rely on promises to respect American life and property such as were reportedly made by Ambassador Saito in recent radio broadcast. The real policy of Japan in China is planned and executed by the Japanese Army which is guided only by its careful estimate of the military obstacles to be expected and ignores as entirely irrelevant the protests of foreign governments and the promises of Japanese diplomats, neither of which the army believes has any bearing on its purely military problems. The undoubtedly friendly feeling of the Japanese people and Foreign Office for the American people has thus far had no effect on the policy of the Japanese Army in China. It is my considered view that as long as Japanese policy is dictated by the army the representations of foreign governments to Japan on behalf of their respective rights in China will prove of no value unless accompanied by unmistakable evidence of intention to make Japan suffer in some way for violation of such rights. In addition to the effects already described the success of the Japanese Army policy will mean the destruction of those influences which have served to draw China into cultural and emotional sympathy with the liberal democratic countries of the Occident and leave China to fall a prey to the communism of Russia or to the military despotism of Japan. It is of course a matter of opinion whether it is worth while through military and economic sacrifices to endeavor to influence the course of history. These are based on observations [of] the United States representatives in China and are of course offered with due deference to the opinion of Grew.