693.94/11–2751
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs (Rusk)
Subject: Relations Between Japan and Communist China
| Participants: | Prime Minister Yoshida of Japan |
| Ambassador William J. Sebald, U.S. Political Adviser | |
| Mr. Dean Rusk, Assistant Secretary for Far East1 |
Ambassador Sebald accompanied me on a brief courtesy call upon the Prime Minister, prior to a subsequent meeting later in the day with General Ridgway and the Prime Minister about the purposes of my visit.2
Mr. Yoshida received us at the Foreign Minister’s official residence with great cordiality and began by expressing his great appreciation to the President and the Secretary of State for the quality of the Occupation and for the successful negotiation of “the Peace Treaty. I responded in the usual manner, mentioning our pleasure that Mr. Yoshida had been able to come personally to the San Francisco Conference, our appreciation for the contribution which he had made to the Conference itself, and our admiration for the skill with which he had successfully steered the Peace Treaty and the Security Pact through the recent Diet debates.
Mr. Yoshida said that he had been quite surprised and pleased with the nature of his reception in Japan after the San Francisco Conference. He said that before he went to San Francisco he had very much in mind the cool reception in Japan which had been accorded their delegates to the Portsmouth and the Versailles conferences. He was all the more pleased to find great public interest and apparent sympathy for him upon his return from San Francisco. He attributed this in considerable measure to the nature of the Conference and the quality of the Peace Treaty itself.
The Prime Minister then broached a new subject which was obviously very much in his mind. He said that he had been trying to think of some “contribution” which Japan might make to the common cause in the post-Treaty period. While he did not have any particular moves or measures in mind, he had been wondering whether Japan might not make its contribution in relation to the China question. He [Page 1417] said that as long as Allied policy toward China had been unified the situation in that country was reasonably satisfactory, but that when Allied unity was broken, the situation became very serious. He repeated several times that he did not know what measures he might be able to suggest, but that he was looking for a “contribution” which Japan could make. On his own initiative, he said that he would not enter into “direct negotiations” with the Peiping authorities without the knowledge of the United States.
I told Mr. Yoshida that his statement that he would not enter direct negotiations with the Peiping authorities without our knowledge was a very important matter which I would report promptly to my Government. I said that we ourselves took a very serious view of developments on the mainland of China, particularly of the course of aggression which had been launched by the Peiping regime both against Korea and against its neighbors to the south. I said we felt very strongly that nothing should be done which would add any strength, prestige or status to a regime which was engaged in such a course of action; that the American people had invested 100,000 casualties in order to meet this course of aggression and that we felt that common and determined action by all of the free nations of the Pacific was essential to the maintenance of peace.
I asked Mr. Yoshida whether he had any reason to believe that the Peiping regime might be on the point of changing its policy or its alignment with the Soviet Union. He did not respond directly, but said that he knew Japanese who had friends on the mainland and who might be of assistance to him in finding whether there were useful steps which he might take.
Mr. Yoshida referred to differences between United States and British policies in China as an unfortunate development. I said that we too were sorry that such divergences appeared at the time of British recognition of Peiping, that in some respects British national interests as a European power might diverge from American interests, heavily involved as we are in both the Atlantic and the Pacific, but that in the Pacific Japanese and American interests would seem to be very close together and should form the basis for a common policy in the security field.
I discussed the above conversation with Ambassador Sebald afterward and we agreed that Mr. Yoshida seemed to be raising the subject of China in order to lay a foundation of some sort for further suggestions or moves which he anticipated we might find disagreeable. I did not attempt to pursue the matter to any conclusion because Mr. Yoshida was disclaiming any specific ideas on the subject and because I was aware that Japan’s relations with China were being discussed in Paris, London and Washington.
[Page 1418]I believe the above conversation tends to confirm the impression that Sir Esler Dening has been very active with the Japanese on the subject of China.
- Mr. Rusk was in Tokyo November 21–27 with a group (including General Hamblen as representative of the Secretary of Defense) whose purpose was to discuss terms of the Administrative Agreement with General Ridgway and with Japanese officials.↩
- No documentation regarding this scheduled meeting has been found in Department of State files. Mr. Rusk had been extensively briefed by SCAP officials on November 23, and records of this briefing are filed in Tokyo Post Files, 320.1 BST.↩