793.00/83: Telegram
The Minister in China ( MacMurray ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:50 p.m.]
277. 1. Legation’s 263, July 5, 1 p.m. In the course of a conversation on July 10 regarding the situation at Shanghai, the Japanese Minister inquired whether I was informed of the tenor of his conversation with Mayer. Yoshizawa urged that the American, British, and Japanese Governments cooperate in seeking a solution of the present crisis. It seemed to me that he somewhat conspicuously avoided referring to more general cooperation.
[Page 786]2. Yoshizawa inquired regarding the willingness of the United States to cooperate in the particular matter under consideration. I told him that personally I believed that my Government would welcome heartily cooperation on the basis contemplated as I understood it, i. e., not an agreement restricting the freedom of action which might be considered by some power to be necessary, not a set of obligations, but rather a state of mind based upon the realization that the powers concerned have common interests and purposes, confidence in each other, and a spirit of accommodation. Yoshizawa said that he was pleased with this tentative expression of my opinion. He suggested that after I had had an opportunity to consider it we should discuss the matter further.
3. As there have been exacting and incessant discussions among the Ministers with respect to the situation at Shanghai, I have not been able to find an opportunity to resume my discussion with my Japanese colleague without giving an impression of emphasis which I am afraid would be misunderstood. I am waiting for a chance for a more apparently spontaneous resumption of my conversation with Yoshizawa. In the meantime I submit to you my own suggestion on behalf of the Japanese Government.
4. In telegram 118 of July 1 from our Embassy in Japan92 I reported my conversation with Baron Shidehara on June 30. From our discussion it seems to me that we may assume that there is such a substantial agreement in points of view between the Japanese and us that we can work in harmony with respect to the general situation in China with special reference to the necessity for envisaging the growth of Chinese national feeling and adapting ourselves to it. I believe the Japanese desire to work along the same lines with us and are even ready to make further concessions to our views so as to maintain solidarity with us. The British Government likewise has for the same reason shown a willingness in the past to work in harmony with us. The United States, Great Britain, and Japan, apart from Russia, have the largest interest in China and as a result are more disposed to take long views instead of seeking small temporary advantages, as the Italians, for example, do. It seems to me, therefore, that there is an opportunity for these three powers to coordinate their general policies toward China and whenever possible harmonize their individual actions with the purposes which they hold in common.
5. I somewhat fear, however, that the Japanese may have in mind some more definite object involving some sort of tripartite agreement which would deprive us of a freedom of action we would not be willing to relinquish and which would also produce a psychological result that might outgrow the scope of the original agreement, as did the [Page 787] Anglo-Japanese Alliance. My doubt on this score is increased because Yoshizawa seems to have given some emphasis to the differentiation which Japan made between her interests in Manchuria and in the rest of China. There would seem to be no occasion at present for Japan to seek assurances as to the validity of her vested interests in Manchuria, whatever may be the fact as to the greater amount of concern which she may have reason to feel respecting her interests in that area. As the experience of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the Lansing-Ishii Agreement, and Consortium negotiations indicated, it is not possible to give public recognition to any special concessions or claims regarding a particular region in China without laying the basis for misunderstandings. I consider the chief value of the four-power Pacific pact to be that it replaced the Anglo-Japanese Alliance with an understanding clearly disconnected with the continent of Asia. Furthermore, the Washington Conference prepared the way for the cancelation of the Lansing-Ishii Agreement. I would consider it unfortunate for us to become involved in any new understanding which would in any degree revive the effects of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the Lansing-Ishii Agreement.
6. I fear that any agreement definitely identifying ourselves with Great Britain and Japan would be a positive disadvantage to our interests, apart from any question of reviving the understandings mentioned above. This is particularly true at a time when Chinese feeling against both the British and Japanese is aroused to an unexplainable and unnatural degree. I do not think we should seek to disassociate our responsibilities and interests from those of the British and Japanese and, in fact, I have taken the liberty of assuring the British Chargé that we do not intend to try to exploit the agitation against the British to their disadvantage. Nevertheless, I am becoming daily more impressed that it would be unwise to place ourselves in the position of espousing the cause either of the British or of the Japanese. In the present undeveloped stage of Chinese political thinking, hatred first of the British and secondly of the Japanese is the consuming passion. The United States is being eagerly watched to see whether it is pro-Chinese or whether it is pro-British or pro-Japanese. I think we can work honorably with the British and Japanese and yet not quixotically identify ourselves with them in such a way as to bring upon ourselves a share of the odium in which the Chinese hold them.
7. It is my feeling, therefore, that, while carefully avoiding accepting any commitments or obligations which might hinder us from maintaining our own policies and views regarding China, we should cordially welcome any offer from the British and Japanese to work as far as possible in a spirit of harmony with them.