740.0011 Pacific War/3155: Telegram
The Chargé in China (Vincent) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 18—10:12 a.m.]
391. In an informal discussion Chief of Department of Information, Foreign Office, gave me following interpretation of Tojo’s42 recent visit to Shanghai and Nanking.
Purpose was probably twofold. From military standpoint discussions so far have concerned increased use of Nanking puppet troops in order to relieve Japanese troops for transfer either to Manchuria or more likely the South Sea area. Part all-out offensive on China not contemplated, it would seem, but Japanese hope that Chinese puppet troops can be more effectively used against Chinese Government troops. Tojo conferred with Japanese commanders in Nanking and Shanghai. From the political standpoint, visit is interpreted as a matter of face for Wang Ching-wei43 and as a gesture to the peoples of Japanese-occupied areas (Burma, Thailand, Philippines, et cetera) indicating the Japanese Government’s friendly and high regard for other oriental governments as one of the tenets of its greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere program.
The brevity of Tojo’s visit would indicate that nothing of a concrete and major character could have been discussed and decided upon except by prearrangement and the Embassy inclines to the belief that it was largely a face-making gesture.