Office of the Historian

893.00Nanking/109: Telegram

The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State

[Paraphrase]
Peking, April 23, 1927—4 p.m.
[Received April 23—3:50 p.m.]

479. Your telegram No. 176, April 20, 3 p.m.

1.
I venture to place before you briefly certain eventualities which to me appear to be inevitable if our Government should discontinue actively cooperating with the powers which are principally concerned in China, definitely giving up that leadership as to Chinese affairs which we assumed among the powers at the Washington Conference.
2.
At that time the American Government imposed upon the powers concerned its ideas respecting international treatment of China and brought those powers to join together formally in a cooperative policy of self-denial regarding China, which established definitely a change from that firmly individualistic policy that had theretofore been followed. Also, Great Britain gave up the Anglo-Japanese alliance, which, other than her own strength, had in her opinion been the greatest single safeguard of her position in the Far East. Needless to say, it was not because of quixotic idealism that Great Britain and Japan altered their policies as to China, but because, in the case of Japan there was realization that her policy of aggression was increasingly disadvantageous and was rendering her position more and more difficult in the concert of world powers, and, in the case of Great Britain, American desires in regard to international policy in Far East were underwritten because of a quite natural belief that we as proponents of the Washington treaties concerning China would continue the leadership assumed at Washington. In her post-war condition of exhaustion she felt this to be most desirable and, as between the United States and Japan, the better course. More and more during the period following the Washington Conference, and increasingly of late, both Great Britain and Japan have become disappointed and disillusioned over the failure of the United States to maintain this leadership in the cooperative policy we had inaugurated. It must be realized that they will [Page 210] reconsider their entire position relative to a state of affairs they at last have come to understand on the basis of its facts and that they appreciate the necessity of meeting the situation resolutely and immediately.
3.
Having this in mind, it is my conviction that Japan and Great Britain must inevitably be thrown into intimate association in the Far East again, if not thrown into a formal alliance, by our refusal to proceed in regard to Nanking and other vital questions with firmness and to cooperate with the powers which are concerned. This means scrapping what our Government succeeded in achieving over a long period of years and in embodying for the mutual advantage of China and the United States in the nine-power treaty on principles and policies. It seems certain to me that if the United States withdraws from cooperating actively with Great Britain and Japan they will find themselves impelled to join together in a policy on China which will necessarily exclude us and therefore will not be restrained by our leadership or even by our active participation. To state the fact bluntly, we have heretofore taken the leavings from the others’ tables. Our opportunities for advantages in China, commercial and other, have been due to the forceful action by other powers in China. If I judge rightly, this time there will not be any crumbs left for us.
4.
Therefore, before it is definitely decided to do what public opinion in the United States has been clamoring for—to withdraw from international cooperation in China—I trust that most serious consideration will be given to the above-outlined ideas and to the far-reaching consequences, at present and in the future, of our refusing whole heartedly to join in common action in China for common purposes.
5.
Repeated to Tokyo for confidential information.
MacMurray