793.94/770: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in China (Reinsch)
Tokyo Embassy telegraphs March 5, 5 p.m., that the Japanese press is publishing semi-official reports that certain American missionaries in China are inciting the Chinese against Japan; that the Amercan Government had recently attempted to enforce a previous agreement to establish shipyards along the China coast for building warships; that the publication of the plan for neutralization of Chinese railways is related to this agreement; that the object of Abbott’s visit is to make a loan for emergency defense expenditures; that America desires to obtain the former German settlement in Tientsin.
You are authorized to publish a categorical denial of these statements so far as they relate to the acts or purposes of this Government and you should make it plain that the object of Abbott’s visit as published here at the time of his leaving for China is as representative of the American Group “to study the situation in China and to report on conditions there. No specific loan is now under consideration.” Confidential. The Department considers the publicity given to the neutralization proposal at this time as unfortunate and liable to embarrass the deliberations at the Paris Conference. The American Mission has intimated that publicity at present is inadvisable.