893.61331/235: Telegram
The First Secretary of Embassy in China (Smyth) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 17—9 a.m.]
454. Peiping’s 450, November 14, 3 p.m. and Tokyo’s 1143, November 13, 10 a.m. via Peiping. The information reported in Peiping’s telegram under reference is further proof, if such proof is necessary, that the Japanese Army is in paramount control of activities in the Japanese occupied areas of China. An interesting sidelight on [the slight?] respect entertained by the Japanese Army in China for Japanese Foreign Office personnel in China was reported to this Embassy yesterday by Mr. Christian: in a conversation he had recently with Major Kato the latter brought up the subject of a local Japanese Embassy official who as commercial secretary of the Embassy had taken some part in the tobacco negotiations; Major Kato stated that this Japanese official might do very well as a diplomatic secretary in Washington or elsewhere abroad but that he had no knowledge or appreciation of the “realities” here; Major Kato then remarked that he [Page 550] might find it necessary to have the diplomatic secretary in question removed from China.36
In view of the paramount control exercised by the Japanese Army in the occupied areas of China and the Japanese Army’s manifest disregard for representatives in China of the Japanese Foreign Office, the Embassy here does not believe that bringing the matter to Mr. Matsuoka’s attention would have any satisfactory effect. Mr. Matsuoka may desire and intend to obviate so far as practicable interference on the part of Japanese authorities with American rights and interests in China but the record of 3 years of generally futile American representations to the Japanese Foreign Office where Japanese military restrictions in China are concerned does not inspire any optimism that Mr. Matsuoka will be any more successful than his predecessors.
The Embassy here remains of the opinion (expressed in Peiping’s 251, July 24, 4 p.m.) that representations to the Japanese Government where the Japanese military authorities are concerned will be ineffective and futile unless backed up by a definite intimation that a refusal to remove the present impediments to American trade in the occupied areas will result in the prompt enforcement of counter measures against Japanese trade with the United States.
Sent to the Department. Repeated to Chungking, Shanghai, Tientsin, Tsingtao, Tokyo.
- In telegram No. 468, November 20, midnight, the First Secretary of Embassy reported that this diplomatic secretary had been transferred from Peiping to Shanghai (893.61331/230).↩