893.74/581: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan ( Bancroft ) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 1—11:53 a.m.]
117. Yesterday the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Dan of Mitsui, and MacMurray,19 discussed the Federal wireless situation. I was present with Neville.20 MacMurray explained that the Japanese memoranda of December 24th and June 1st last assumed that the Mitsui monopoly is valid and exclusive, that the Federal contract is a monopoly of traffic between China and the United States and finally proposed an adjustment on the basis of a monopoly of China’s radio communications being shared among the British, French, Japanese and American companies.
The American Government does not admit or support the Federal contract as a monopoly. Its position was set forth in the memorandum of July 19, 1923, to the British Government.21 The American Government does not wish to disturb vested interests but cannot acquiesce in any arrangement which would have the effect of allowing French, British and Japanese interests to maintain radio communication with China while preventing the United States from so doing.
Shidehara replied that the Japanese objection to the American attitude was three fold: it created a monopoly, it affected vested rights, and caused unnecessary expense to China. The proposed American radio would be expensive and there is no prospect that it would make enough money to repay the 13,000,000 Mexican dollars that it would cost China. The Japanese wish to put all facilities of communication in the hands of China, putting wireless on the same basis as the post offices and the Shantung Railway, for example.
MacMurray stated that the United States desired earnestly to come to some settlement that would protect vested interests and would injure [Page 910] no one but which must place the United States on terms of equality with every other nation having radio interests in China. He was not suggesting a program but placing our case before the Japanese and assuring them of our wish to cooperate.
Shidehara said that he realized the necessity of cooperation and desired it. Japan however is committed to a certain extent to the British and French through an agreement made in London in February 1924, a copy of which he understood had been given to the Radio Corporation; the situation is further complicated on account of the contract of December 22, 1913 (MacMurray’s Treaties, page 67) with the Great Northern and Eastern Extension cable lines.
Copy to Peking.
- John V. A. MacMurray, newly appointed Minister to China, en route to his post.↩
- Edwin L. Neville, first secretary of Embassy in Japan.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1923, vol. i, p. 810.↩