393.1115/4–2749: Telegram
The Consul General at Shanghai (Cabot) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 27—6:41 a. m.]
1389. Trust Department is considering what effective measures it can take insure protection American citizens and officers in Communist-dominated areas China. Virtual internment our consular officers Mukden73 and now apparently our Embassy staff Nanking74 is anything but reassuring spectacle for American citizens and consular staff Shanghai. While I feel that conciliatory policy is wise, I believe it should be made clear we are prepared be firm in cases gross contravention our rights. Manner in which Mukden episode has been permitted drag along plus indications at Tsingtao and Shanghai we are prepared withdraw only in face of force have doubtless encouraged Communists feel exaggerated sense their own strength and importance. Navy withdrawal from Shanghai, while prudent, may well have led treatment received by Embassy. Our prestige has sunk to new low. Same true of British as result Yangtze incidents.
I feel time may have come for positive approach to Communists to indicate we do not intend intervene in civil wars, that we are prepared enter trading relations with them on mutually satisfactory basis and that in due course we expect enter into diplomatic relations with their [Page 1252] new government but that, on other hand, we intend stand for no nonsense and that we have means and disposition make effective our displeasure if they continue gross violations international comity.
My next telegram will illustrate one sector in which we can act greatly their benefit or detriment.75
Sent Department, repeated Nanking 798, Canton 346.
- For further correspondence on this subject, see vol. viii, “Problems of United States Consulates in areas occupied by the Chinese Communists”.↩
- For further correspodence on this subject, see ibid., “The Embassy in China after occupation of Nanking by Chinese”.↩
- See telegram No. 1388, April 27, 10 a. m., from the Consul General at Shanghai, p. 1008.↩