393.115/1223: Telegram
The Counselor of Embassy in China (Butrick) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:17 a.m.]
347. Department’s 624, September 27, 8 p.m. to Tokyo and Tokyo’s reply 1539, September 30, noon.43
Japanese reply to communication handed by Secretary of State to the Japanese Ambassador August 13 in regard to Japanese interference with American rights and interests.44
This office circulated the Department’s reference telegram to concerned offices in China as directed and also to Dairen on October 23 after it received a copy of Tokyo’s despatch transmitting a copy of the reply. Dairen and Swatow have replied telegraphically and Tientsin, Mukden, Chefoo, Tsinanfu and Tsingtao by despatch; Tokyo should by now have copies of all these communications and the Department has or will have them either directly or via this office.
These responses and numerous other reports on freezing restrictions from Consular offices show that the treatment of Americans in North China and Manchuria still cannot be said to correspond to that accorded Japanese nationals in the United States. The principal causes for complaint now are travel restrictions (notably in the Tsinanfu consular district), interference with official and private mails, and unsolicited guarding of American properties for [inspect]ing or controlling the movement of American staffs. The limited relief from said interference, which has been forthcoming, has been largely confined to specific cases which have been the subject of official protests. The responses and reports of the Consuls refute the repeated statements in the Japanese reply to the effect that matters reported by American consular officers were “not facts.” In this connection, a consular officer remarks that the Japanese reply implies “—that American consular officers in China are unreliable if not outright [Page 805] prevaricators” and such he considers “—to be distinctly understood as an affront to every officer of the American Government concerned”. A second consular officer states in a despatch in regard to the reply of the Japanese Foreign Office to a protest on freezing restriction (Tokyo’s despatch No. 5903, October 7, 194145) that “the Japanese attempt to explain the illegal entry on American property and the stationing of police guards over American premises as protective measures is not opposed and probably was not intended to receive any credence”.46
Sent to the Department. Repeated to Chungking and Tokyo.
- Neither printed.↩
- For communication of August 13 and the Japanese reply of September 16, see Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, Vol. i, pp. 908 and 917.↩
- Not found in Department files.↩
- For Ambassador Grew’s comment, see his telegram No. 1846, November 25, 6 p.m., Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 924.↩