751G.94/236
Memorandum by the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
At the instance of the Foreign Minister, the Vice Minister asked me to call this afternoon and handed to me a penciled “oral statement” in the Japanese language in reply to my representations to the Foreign Minister on August 7 with regard to the reported Japanese demands on French Indochina. Mr. Ohashi said that he wished to apologize for the delay; that the Minister after our conversation on August 7 had directed that a reply be immediately formulated and that it was due to the changes in Foreign Office personnel that this reply had somehow disappeared and had only now come to light. The Vice Minister’s attempt to summarize the Japanese text in English was so inadequate that I said that I would prefer to study the text itself and to submit it to my Government before venturing to comment. Our translation of the statement follows:
“In a conversation on August 7, 1940, Your Excellency made reference to newspaper reports to the effect that the Imperial Government had at that time presented certain demands to the French Government regarding French Indochina and said that the American Government was concerned therewith. The Imperial Government, because of the necessity to construct a new order in East Asia, had theretofore carried out negotiations with regard to French Indochina, and on that basis has continued progressively with satisfactory local negotiations.
In settling the China Incident, Japan seeks the firm preservation of a minimum right to existence; but in accomplishing this objective, however, Japan has been avoiding conquests and exploitation, and has been employing brotherly love, mutual existence and mutual prosperity as guiding principles. Japan has, so far as it does not interfere with the accomplishment of the above objective, been making efforts not to bring about undesirable changes to the status quo.
Under the ever-changing conditions of today, past rules and norms rapidly become inapplicable to actual conditions. It is clear that, merely to adhere blindly to such rules and norms is not the way to [Page 294] stabilize world peace. Despite the fact that in the western hemisphere epoch-making changes are actually being made in the status quo, Japan has as yet expressed no opinion for or against those changes. It has to be pointed out that intrusion by the United States in an area which is so remote from that country as in this case brings about the same effect upon Japan’s public opinion as the meddlesome attitude of a third country toward the policy of the United States concerning third-power territories in the western hemisphere would bring about upon public opinion in the United States.”