794.94/7074
Memorandum by the Secretary of State
After the departure of Mr. Okada9 who had called to pay his respects in company with the Japanese Ambassador, the latter remained and proceeded to say to me that he had received during the morning a cable from Foreign Minister Hirota, in which he desired the Ambassador to know and to make known that there was nothing in all of the many rumors, reports and despatches coming out of China, except an effort of the Japanese to have carried out two or three more or less minor things they had asked the Chinese to do, which included the transfer or removal of a Chinese general, whose name I cannot recall but which I think is identified in the despatches. (Far Eastern Division suggests the general’s name probably is Yu Hsueh-chung.) The Ambassador did not mention the other two things, but proceeded to say that there had been more or less depredations by roving groups of small armed bands of Chinese upon Japanese interests. The Ambassador closed by repeating his statement at the outset that nothing was taking place despite these many serious-appearing reports except an effort on the part of the Japanese officials and representatives to have the Chinese do the two or three things requested of them.
I proceeded at once to say that I was immensely gratified to have the benefit of this information direct from the Foreign Office of his Government. I said that with such a mass of all sorts of rumors, reports, and despatches coming out of this part of China, it was exceedingly important that the Japanese Foreign Office had taken these steps to keep the situation clarified; that the press of this and other countries naturally was filled with more or less alarming reports and comment that was undesirable from every standpoint. I said that lack of clarification by the Japanese Government might lead to representations from the parties having treaty rights and obligations, and it would [Page 240] therefore be helpful if the Japanese Foreign Office continued to take action toward clarifying the situation to the end that no misunderstanding and no undesirable impressions would arise.
The Ambassador then said that Foreign Minister Hirota had indicated he would furnish supplemental information along this line and I replied that this was exceedingly important and I hoped the Ambassador would keep in touch with the State Department from day to day in connection with the entire matter. I stated that I would be out of the city on Monday but I hoped he would keep in touch with Under Secretary Phillips. This the Ambassador agreed to do.
- Member of the Japanese Diet.↩