894.00 P.R./144
Press Statement by the Japanese Prime Minister (Abe), November 21, 1939 22
In a press interview on November 21, the Prime Minister outlined at some length various aspects of Japan’s future relations with the proposed new regime in China, and he said that the Government expected to follow in settling the China “incident” the principles laid [Page 36] down by Prince Konoe in the latter’s statement of December 22, 1938.23 He said he believed that the new regime would eventually assimilate the Chungking Government, thus obviating any need for Japan to have any future dealings with the latter. He reiterated the Japanese contention that North China and Inner Mongolia should be a special zone for Japan, both politically and economically, and that Japan would show more concern over those areas than over any other part of China. He said that Japan probably would conclude an anti-Comintern pact with reborn China along the lines of the Japanese-German-Italian anti-Comintern accord,23a and that Japan would, in all probability, keep troops in China as long as that pact was in force.
- Reprinted from enclosure in covering despatch No. 4377, December 28, 1939, from the Ambassador in Japan; received February 5, 1940.↩
- Vol. i, p. 482.↩
- For text, see p. 159.↩