Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1941, The Far East, Volume IV

740.0011 Pacific War/1106

Memorandum by Mr. William R. Langdon, of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs⁵⁴

[Washington,] October 25, 1941.

Observations on the Far Eastern Situation and on American Policy in Relation Thereto

Probably because of uncertainty over the future in the face of physical isolation from her Axis partners, sustained resistance by China, economic sanctions by the democracies, and our lend-lease program for China, Japan is understood to have solicited our mediation in a settlement of the war with China. Confronted with this request, we ought to know every aspect of the situation with which we have been asked to deal. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing some of the most important aspects. There is basis, however, for what would seem to be accurate estimates of a number of factors.

The main factors of the Sino-Japanese conflict would seem to be:

(1) The intentions and plans with regard to China of the controlling elements in Japan;

(2) Japan’s relations with and commitments to the Axis;

(3) The physical involvement in China of the Japanese nation;

(4) The vested interest in China of the Japanese Army;

(5) The intentions, determination and degree of endurance of the Chinese.

Owing to the suspicion with which the diplomatic missions in Japan of the democracies have come to be viewed in recent years because of the conflict between Japan’s policies and those of the democracies, these missions have been confined within a narrow compartment of Japanese political life and been held quite incommunicado as it were from the dominant compartments, the Axis compartment and the military compartment. Thus these missions for reasons beyond their control have not been in a position to enlighten their governments on fundamental features of current Japanese political life. We have no way of knowing where Generals Minami, Umezu, Ishihara, Itagaki, Doihara and their kind, the men of influence in Japan, stand in regard to, or how they will react to, possible abandonment of this or that plan of empire.

With regard to the physical involvement of the Japanese nation in China, we have a clear idea. We know that since 1937 hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians have gone to China and have occupied on a permanent footing the controlling position in the community. We know that this mass movement of Japanese has not been purely a carpet bagger’s or a camp follower’s movement, but a movement of the strongest elements of the Japanese race having the fullest support of the Japanese Government administered through the China Affairs Board and the Manchurian Affairs Board of the Cabinet. As proof of the national character of the plans for consolidating the Japanese position in China, we know that in addition to the creation of the two Boards just mentioned the Japanese Diet since 1938 has enacted organic laws^* for the machinery of Japanese economic exploitation of China on a national scale. We know that the administration in occupied China and Manchuria down to small detail of all railroads, electric communications, transportation services, public utilities, banks, currency and exchange, mails, customs, power industries and public markets has passed into Japanese hands.

With regard to the professional Japanese army, we know that it has a vested interest in continued military occupation of China and that it is in business and “rackets” in China on an all-out scale, and that the money is rolling into its pockets. We know that the army is enjoying power, wealth, authority and good living undreamed of before, and therefore we may be certain that the army is not going to give up China lightly.

Of the Chinese intentions and endurance, we know that they are sufficiently important factors not to be overlooked in the question with which we have been asked to deal.

The Japanese request for mediation at this time, when the tide of success is showing signs of turning against Japan, is understandable. Possession being nine points of the law, the Japanese are in an excellent position to get a good bargain in a settlement made at this time: recognition of “Manchukuo” and possibly “Mengchiang” (the Inner Mongolian puppet state), right to maintain garrisons in this region and that, right to operate this public utility and that, concessions for “joint Sino-Japanese” exploitation of this enterprise and that, and other special rights derogatory in varying degrees of Chinese sovereignty. The Japanese nation would endorse a settlement of this kind, as it provides the concrete advantages the Japanese people are capable of understanding, perpetuates in the main the social and economic position of the new Japanese communities and the Japanese military regime in China and Manchuria, and furnishes some legal and moral justification for continuation of the conquest of China at an opportune moment in the future. It will be recalled that a similar maze of garrison, railroad, mining, Sino-Japanese joint enterprise, sphere of influence and other special rights in a corner of south Manchuria acquired by Japan at an earlier period justified in the Japanese mind the wresting from China in 1931–32 of all of Manchuria and the province of Jehol. A settlement that sacrificed any of the more important Japanese gains since 1937 would be likely to be repudiated by the Japanese people, and any government which attempted to make such a settlement would not only court defeat but expose its members to assassination. Even assuming that such a settlement was supported by the majority of the Japanese civilian population in the homeland, it is difficult to see how it could be enforced against the army and the swarms of Japanese office holders in China.

In the presence of this Japanese request for mediation we are confronted with the question of the proper course for us to follow in respect to such request. It would seem that two considerations of important national interest should guide us in setting our course: (1) the effect of the sort of settlement the Japanese nation is now willing to make on our future tranquillity in the Pacific area and on our future peaceful commercial and cultural expansion in China; and (2) the effect of such a settlement on our task at hand of bringing about the destruction of Hitler’s armies.

The Japanese program of restricting Chinese sovereignty after partially dismembering China and of excluding non-Japanese commercial and cultural enterprise from China both blocks our commercial prospects and cultural projects in China and contains the seeds of future disturbance in the Pacific area. Japan in her present aggressive, predatory state of mind constitutes a threat to Great Britain, the Netherlands and the Soviet Union, fighting our common foe Hitlerism, and might attack them if not fully engaged in China as she now is. Besides, in her present mood Japan has designs, which her present situation prevents her from carrying out, on many raw materials essential to our own defense industries and normal economic life, Our interest therefore dictates that we should follow a course that will (1) defeat Japan’s program in China, (2) immobilize Japanese military strength while the war on Hitlerism continues. Accordingly, we should either flatly decline to mediate between China and Japan, meanwhile increasing our help to China and continuing to have no commercial intercourse with Japan, or make our mediation (and cessation of aid to China and resumption of commercial intercourse) conditional on the acceptance by Japan of peace conditions meaning to her so great a sacrifice at this time that we know she will refuse them.

The terms of peace on condition of acceptance of which we might agree to mediate at this time need not be intrinsically harsh or unfair to Japan. On the contrary, these conditions should be so essentially just to both Japan and China that they will constitute the framework of an enduring peace between them, with its beneficial influences on our future tranquillity and commercial development. For the first time in modern history China is displaying the attributes of a sovereign nation and fighting resolutely to defend its integrity and freedom. At the same time, Japan, for the first time in her modern history, is suffering from her aggression—heretofore she has only prospered. There seems to be every reason that the fight should not be interfered with. I predict that, given a continuation of the present economic isolation, some building up of Chinese armament, and confinement of German military power to Europe, the Japanese nation by 1943 will accept the terms of peace they would reject now if proposed to them as a condition of our mediation. These terms in general outline might be:

(1) Withdrawal of all Japanese troops from China south of the Great Wall, including Hainan Island, except those provided for in the Boxer Protocol⁵⁶ and small landing forces for the protection of Japanese and international settlements;

(2) Restoration of the administrative and ownership status quo in intramural China as of July 7, 1937, viz.: recall of all Japanese officials except those whose services are retained by the Chinese Government, restoration to China without compensation of all railroads, electric communications, public utilities and services, banks, public enterprises, and Chinese national, provincial, local government and private properties seized by Japan since July 7, 1937; also disavowal by Japan of any special rights or economic concessions obtained from puppet governments since July 7, 1937, or of claims to any special economic position in any part of China (the repeal of the organic laws of the North China Development Company and of the Central China Development Company, see footnote page 3, might be urged as a token of good faith);

(3) China to give to Japanese nationals the right of residence and of ownership of real property everywhere in China;

(4) China to amnesty all puppet officials, puppet armed levies, etc.

(5) The future status of Manchuria to be determined by an agreement with the lawful Government of China negotiated in a conciliatory spirit.

As an inducement to Japan to accept the above terms, we might promise to resume commercial relations with Japan and even conclude a new treaty with her on performance of the first two articles and on conclusion of a settlement with China of the Manchurian question. Our promise might include a commitment to give special consideration to Japan’s industrial needs in the administration of our export control and defence economy. For instance, we might suggest the conclusion of a contract like that made in 1917–18, whereby we supplied Japan with steel in return for so many tons of ships built in her yards to our specifications.

The idea is current in a school of political thought that Japan might be lured away from aggressive policies in the Far East and won over to cooperation in bringing about an era of peace in the Pacific by attractive offers of greater participation in the resources and markets of the democracies, especially the colonial territories of the democracies in Asia. While economic factors possibly played some part in starting Japan on her aggressive course, it is not believed that they were the paramount cause, Japan never having seriously complained about the treatment of Japanese trade, enterprise and capital in neighboring states and European colonies. If Japanese enterprise had been severely restricted in those lands, Japanese, to give a few examples, would not have become the principal producers of hemp and the principal fish suppliers of the Philippine Islands, as well as the chief purchasers of Philippine iron and manganese ore; they would not have occupied first place (ahead of England) in India’s piece goods trade; they would not have been accorded special commodity, shipping and exchange agreements by the Dutch East Indies Government; they would not own mining properties in Malaya; they would not occupy second place after the sovereign in the trade of every Far Eastern colony.

Thus as economic difficulties generally and restrictions on Japanese trade and enterprise in neighboring colonial lands in particular were not chiefly responsible for Japan’s actions in the past decade, we must look elsewhere for the main causes. On the basis of observation, I attribute Japan’s policies since 1931 to more elemental factors; desire for possession, power, and territorial expansion, the cult of war, a revolutionary spirit, compression of population. Be the causes of Japan’s aggression what they may, there seems to be no doubt that the dominant forces in Japan at the moment are possessed of a primitive mentality both incapable of understanding concepts of liberal statesmanship and enlightened political economy and indifferent to mercantile benefits. The foregoing remarks do not imply that the commercial policies of colonial governments in Asia are perfect or that Japan could not at the proper time be given a greater share of the resources and markets of those lands. The point of the remarks is that the time for offering commercial blandishments would be ill-chosen, both because such blandishments, attractive to a capitalistic mentality, hold no appeal for the real leaders of Japan, who lean toward controlled economy, economic autarchy and state capitalism, and because mercantile problems have not been the basic cause of Japan’s actions.

It has been advocated in the foregoing passages that in the national interest we either allow the Sino-Japanese conflict to run its course, meanwhile continuing to arm China on the one hand and disarm Japan by economic isolation on the other, or agree to mediate in the conflict on condition of acceptance by Japan of terms involving the sacrifice of everything gained since 1937 and of compromise on the Manchurian question, or terms which we know Japan will not accept. There is a school of thought which is of the opinion that, faced with the alternatives of losing every gain in China as well as compromising the status of “Manchukuo” and of progressive loss of offensive and defensive strength, Japan will strike out in new directions, especially Malaysia, in order to secure and maintain her military position. I am of this opinion also, but only on one hypothesis, namely, that the new regions at which Japan will strike will be vacuums from the point of view of military resistance like French Indo-China. I am convinced on the other hand that Japan will go nowhere where her keen intuition will tell her she will be challenged by force.

The conviction that Japan will go nowhere where she will meet with “shooting” resistance comes from my belief that Japan is incapable at present of conducting a war on two widely separated fronts: incapable because of insufficient manpower and military equipment. If additional manpower and arms with which to equip such manpower were available, it is safe to assume that such manpower would have been mobilized long ago to crush Chinese resistance. A labor shortage exists at present in Japan despite the closest regulation of industry to prevent non-essential production, and it is obvious that any large induction of additional manpower into the Army would seriously dislocate an already sensitive economy. There is also the question whether Japan’s war industries, which have been deprived for so many months of essential replacement equipment and materials obtainable only from abroad, would be capable of arming additional troops and maintaining them in the field in a campaign of modern warfare. Thus it is believed that new wars can be conducted only by employing troops now used in China, viz., by abandonment of given occupied areas in China or by a general shortening of the front in China, which in either case would mean the exchanging of one productive bird in the hand for two uncertain birds in the bush.

The powerful Japanese Navy has not yet been taken into account in this discussion, which now is concerned with the threat of the Japanese so-called “southward advance”, if Japan’s position should be forced into a static condition by reason of an inflexible stand on our part. To a layman it would seem that as the “southward advance” involves a large expeditionary force of land troops, which are not believed available, the question of the Japanese Navy does not enter into the discussion because a navy by itself cannot occupy defended territory. Assuming for purposes of argument, however, that Japan can equip an expeditionary force of several hundred thousand men for conquest of Malaysian territories and that this force is convoyed by the Japanese Navy, would not the whole armada run the risk of destruction from the air provided the owners of the territories to be invaded sent their respective air force to intercept it at sea?

Japan no doubt has several divisions of troops to spare for easy conquests overland, specifically, for overrunning and occupying Thailand, and there is a strong probability that Japan may yet seize Thailand when her intuition tells her that Great Britain, the United States and the Netherlands will react to such seizure only in some measure short of war.

As will be concluded from the foregoing passages, the view is held that Japan does not constitute a threat to the democracies as long as China engages the Japanese Army. The chief reasons for this view are the belief that Japan cannot fight on two fronts, the Chinese front and a Siberian or Malaysian front, lacking the necessary war industries to equip new armies assuming that she has the manpower available for such armies, which is doubtful. Of course, by two fronts is meant two fighting fronts, not one fighting front in China and the other a marching front like Indo-China or, as may later be the case, Thailand. Consequently, if the democracies are steeled in their inner consciousness to strike hard and immediately at any intruder into their common zone of security and at any armed assistance to their enemy—steeled in such a way that Japan will sense their determination—, they may safely leave Japan out of their war plans, allow their estrangement with Japan to run on indefinitely, and continue with increasing intensity to rearm China. A negative policy of this sort will confine Japan to a bare subsistence sphere and progressively reduce her war-making capacity. In this helpless and hopeless position, as Japan’s war industries stagnate from lack of new equipment and essential raw materials while the war output of the democracies assumes Titanic proportions, we may expect to see Japan grow progressively anxious about her outlook and disposed to abandon her program of making China a Japanese dependency.

In conclusion, it should be emphasized that control of China, including Manchuria, is the beginning and end of Japanese policy, and that the “co-prosperity sphere”, “Greater East Asia”, the “southward advance”, and the “new order in East Asia” are nothing more than catchwords of very recent invention to keep the Japanese people keyed up. These catchwords have never been defined by the Japanese Government spokesmen and are not taken seriously by the Japanese people. The seizure of Indo-China was not part of Japanese polity, but was the result of French helplessness and of the need in the Japanese mind of preventing Indo-China from falling into other hands, while the present Japanese covetousness of territories south of Indo-China is a temporary development due to the cutting off by the democracies of supply to Japan of products of those territories. Japan’s membership in the Axis too is not believed to be of fundamental significance in Japan’s polity, but a passing development arising from the needs of the moment. Thus a fundamental adjustment of the democracies’ relations with Japan lies, it is believed, in the satisfaction of Japanese claims in China. At the moment these claims are incompatible with China’s national existence as a sovereign state and with the general interests of the world at large, including our own interests, but with the pressure of developments it is believed that these claims will be boiled down to the question of the ownership of Manchuria.

The Manchurian question is susceptible of settlement in a number of ways. The settlement that would be most conducive to lasting peace between Japan and China would be the liquidation of “Manchukuo” by an act of cession of sovereignty to Japan and China by Pu Yi⁵⁷ and the subsequent division of Manchuria between Japan and China, China getting back the old provinces of Jehol, Chinchow, Fengtien and Kirin, thickly settled with Chinese, and Japan getting approximately the eastern half of Manchuria, which is sparsely populated and richly endowed with timber and minerals, and which would constitute a great frontier region in which the Japanese race could expand.

54. In an attached memorandum dated October 28, the Chief of the Division (Hamilton) wrote: “At my suggestion Mr. Langdon … has set forth his views in regard to various aspects of the Far Eastern situation. In his memorandum Mr. Langdon has advanced a thoughtful, reasoned point of view, based upon years of observation and study of Japan and Japan’s adventurings on the Asiatic mainland. Other equally qualified specialists in the Far East would not agree with some of Mr. Langdon’s opinions and conclusions. However, whether one agrees entirely with Mr. Langdon or not, I feel that there is much in what he says which warrants serious consideration.”
55. Law of the North China Development Company, capital Yen 350,000,000; law of the Central China Development Company, capital Yen 10,000,000, holding company of enterprises and properties taken over from Chinese and capitalized at some Yen 400,000,000. [Footnote in the original.]
56. Foreign Relations, 1901, Appendix (Affairs in China), p. 312.
57. “Emperor of Manchukuo”.