893.00 Nanking/84: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in China (MacMurray)
176. Your telegram No. 440 of April 15, 7 p.m. The Department does not approve your joining in the identic note suggested in your [Page 204] telegram under reference, as information from China received through the press and other sources indicates that an effort is being made by the moderates to drive the radicals from the control of the Chinese Nationalist Government. The feeling in the Department is that it would weaken the moderate leaders if demands were pressed at this time and would perhaps drive them to the side of the extremists. We should not be hurried into action which may prove dangerous to our citizens and which may not be effective in any event, as it is doubtful whether the Kuomintang leaders could, divided as they are, meet the demands even if they were disposed to do so. Certainly such action would lack support here.
- 2.
- In the final sentence of the note suggested in your telegram under reference there is a specific threat that sanctions will be applied if the Nationalist authorities fail to meet the demands. The Government of the United States is not now prepared to use sanctions nor to commit itself on the subject. It is the feeling of the Department not only that it might prove dangerous to our citizens to invoke sanctions in the present time and circumstances but also that sanctions would not prove effective as they would have to be used against a divided Kuomintang Party. There is also serious question as to the ultimate effectiveness of the use of sanctions applied to Chinese national property which possibly is temporarily under the control of an irresponsible faction.
- 3.
- As the texts of the replies to the notes of the several powers are different, it is the Department’s opinion that each power should make a separate reply, the notes only being identic on those questions where the interests of the powers are the same. The Department has under consideration a form of reply to use should this Government deem it necessary or wise to discuss the matter further with Eugene Ch’en.