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The Consul General at Hong Kong (Southard) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 21.]
Sir: I have the honor to report that Mr. G. Cora, Italian Ambassador to China, is at present spending a few days in Hong Kong. His arrival here coincided with that of Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, the new British Ambassador to China, who stopped in Hong Kong three days en route from Europe to Shanghai.
Mr. Cora was my colleague in Addis Ababa and we are somewhat intimately acquainted. In the course of a general conversation which I had today with him he remarked that he had in effect advised General Chiang Kai-shek, on the occasion of their last meeting, to get together with the Japanese and thus save what he could for China; that the battle was inevitably a losing one (just as was that of Haile Selassie against the Italians in Ethiopia!) and the longer it went on the less China would have at the end. Cora further remarked to me that he couldn’t see why the Chinese continued to resist; that they must have some one to help develop their country, and why not have the Japanese who were so well situated and equipped for the purpose.
These particular comments of Mr. Cora are repeated because I am impressed that they represent, although he did not specifically so state, thoughts inspired by his official instructions from Rome. The Italian Ambassador is leaving Hong Kong on February 25th, 1938, to return to Shanghai.
Very respectfully,