893.00/5–849
The Consul General at Shanghai (Cabot) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 13.]
No. 242
The Consul General has the honor to refer to recent despatches and airgrams reporting mounting difficulties in the maintenance of order in Shanghai. Members of the Consulate General staff are experiencing personal incidents which typify the current situation. Two soldiers recently entered the apartment of one American staff member during office hours and carried off a traveling clock over the protests of the servant in the apartment. On May 5, about 8:45 a. m., three armed soldiers, using the pretext of census investigation, gained entrance into the residence of a Chinese clerk while he was at the Consulate General. Drawing pistols, they forced his sister to open all trunks and wardrobes in the house, departing after 15 minutes with money and a watch.
Another incident occurred at noon, May 5, and was reported by the American staff member concerned in the following words:
“It is to be noted that, at noon today, pickpocket operators were busy along the Bund between the Custom House and Foochow Road. These chaps are so bold that, in my efforts to shake them off, I crossed to the center of the roadway on the Bund into the open, yet three of them followed and accompanied me for one block, with two in front and one behind me. My suspicion could have been nothing but obvious to them even before I left the crowded sidewalk.”
To meet the growing lawlessness and the uneasy anticipation of still more serious trouble, the military authorities are continuing to employ forthright measures. Since threat of imprisonment is not an important deterrent under present conditions, severe punishment is being meted out in the form of death sentences whenever the military authorities feel that such is warranted. The enclosed news item79 from the China Press of May 8, 1949, describes the character of these measures.
- Not printed.↩