793.94 Conference/143: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Bingham) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9:37 p.m.]
681. The Japanese Ambassador45 made an appointment for 11 o’clock this morning and talked for an hour about the situation in the Far East. He said he had seen Eden yesterday and had told him what he was now telling me. The Ambassador began with the statement that while his Government had felt it necessary to decline the invitation to the Nine-Power Conference, the Japanese Foreign Office had nevertheless informed the American and British Ambassadors in Tokyo that the Japanese Government wished to bring about a cessation of war in the Far East and would welcome an opportunity to discuss the matter with the representatives of the American and British Governments. I talked with Eden over the telephone immediately after the Japanese Ambassador left and when I told him this he said that his Government had certainly received no such information. Neither he nor I, of course, know whether any such information had come to the American Government.
Yoshida stated further that his Government had felt it necessary to send a punitive expedition to China on account of Chinese hostility and boycott but especially did not intend to attempt to hold Shanghai, and that public sentiment which had backed up this expedition so far had now turned in the other direction feeling that the army and navy had gone too far.
But the main point which he wished to get over was that if the Brussels Conference adopted a resolution condemning Japan outright it would be very difficult to conduct the peace negotiations which his Government was eager to begin. On the other hand, if a subcommittee was formed on which the American and British Governments would be represented, the Japanese could confer with this subcommittee as, he said, behind a “smoke screen” and without publicity as to the character or scope of the negotiations. A foundation [Page 127] could thus be laid for a peace conference in which his Government would participate with a desire to bring the war in the Far East to an end. He said further that the army and navy, which prior to 1930 had taken no part in politics, were very much alarmed at that time at the reduction in the budgetary allowance for the army and navy; that this had led to the assassination of one Prime Minister, attacks on two others, and the assassination of elder statesmen by army elements; and that the army especially, with support from the navy, forced the attack on Manchuria. Since that time the army had got the upper hand by continuous propaganda that the Japanese people were in great danger; had forced the former attack on Shanghai and had forced the present attack on China, which attacks had been supported by the majority of the Japanese people as a result of propaganda on the part of the army and navy. Now public sentiment has turned, the people feel the army and navy have gone too far and they want the war to end, being influenced by the additional heavy taxation imposed on behalf of the army and navy. Yoshida recited the fact that when the punitive expedition against China was proposed the cost was presented to the Diet by the army and navy chiefs, as very much smaller than had been found necessary later. The Japanese had believed there would be a short and swift punitive expedition which would not be too costly and in view of what he called the “Russian menace” they had sent a comparatively small number of troops, and not their best troops, to China in the beginning. The resistance by the Chinese was unexpectedly strong and had forced the Government to send a larger and stronger army while at the same time building up a very large and powerful army for protection against the Russian menace. All of these factors, he said, had had their effect on Japanese public sentiment to such an extent that the desire of the people of Japan, now reflected by the Government, was for a cessation of hostilities as soon as practicable.
I repeated to Mr. Eden over the telephone especially that portion of the conversation suggesting the possibility of Japanese representatives meeting with representatives of a subcommittee at Brussels, particularly if representatives of the British and American Governments were on the subcommittee and the meeting could take place before the announcement of any finding by the Conference as a whole. Eden said that the Japanese Ambassador had made the same statement to him yesterday and that he would be glad if I would transmit in this despatch his feeling that it was worth while giving anything a trial; that naturally both the American and British Governments wanted to bring Japan into Conference; that this seemed to be the only practicable method of doing so, and that he thought a resolution condemning the Japanese outright, which might well come out of the [Page 128] Brussels Conference, could be held over the heads of the Japanese representatives who conferred with the subcommittee. At any rate Eden said he felt it was worth trying and that his Government would be entirely willing to go along with our Government if the United States should approve an effort along the lines suggested by Yoshida.
Eden reminded me of what I know so well from my frequent contacts with educated cosmopolitan Japanese like Yoshida and his predecessor Matsudaira and others, that no one can accept a statement from this type of Japanese as really representing the attitude of the Japanese Government. I agreed with Eden altogether in this although I agreed with him also that Yoshida must have had some definite instructions from his Government to try to bring about an opportunity for Japanese representatives to confer with the subcommittee of the Brussels Conference before final action should be publicly announced by the delegates to that Conference.
Copy to American delegation, Brussels, by pouch.
- Shigeru Yoshida.↩