893.01/706: Telegram

The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State

222. According to the press, the Foreign Office spokesman at his press conference today with the foreign correspondents made inter alia the following remarks in regard to the Secretary’s statement of March 30 concerning the Nanking regime (there is of course no actual written record of the remarks made at these conferences): [Page 62]

“The statement is natural, considering the attitude of the United States toward the China affair. It is very important, however, in two respects. The first is that from the conversations held last year between Ambassador Grew and the then Foreign Minister Admiral Nomura the United States Government gave us to understand that it was ready to enter into talks in a constructive spirit. But Mr. Hull in his statement makes it clear that the United States Government will not recognize the new government and on the other hand that it will continue to recognize as the National Government of China the Chungking Government with which Japan is engaged in hostilities. Such an attitude will instigate anti-Japanese groups such as the Committee for Nonparticipation in Japanese Aggression, headed by Henry L. Stimson,44 to greater activities, and will also be a factor in immensely encouraging the Chungking Government. The second point is that of the efforts we have been making and the assurances we have given to ameliorate Japanese-American relations. Mr. Hull’s statement, without waiting a reasonable length of time for those assurances to materialize, disregards them. The Hull statement charges Japan with setting up an economic bloc against the rest of the world. This is not a fact. Economic obstacles experienced by foreign powers are only a temporary phenomenon during the transitory period from hostilities to peace. We cannot nor can any other country be blind to the facts as they are. Our troops are occupying a smaller area of China and Chinese are fewer in number in that area than in the areas paying allegiance to Chungking. But substantially speaking, more than 90% of the total customs revenue of China is being collected in the areas under the new government. And more than half of the administrative organs of the country are under the new government. Mr. Hull’s statement ignores new developments taking place in China and is inconsistent with the statement in the American Government’s note of December 30, 1938,45 to the Japanese Government that ‘it is well aware of the changes that are taking place in the Far East.’ [Apparent omission] the Japanese Government regards the attitude of foreign countries toward the new China regime with grave concern from the standpoint of peace and stability in the Far East. Japan can not cooperate with the powers who disregard this. We are doing our best to improve Japanese-American relations. Most of the issues have arisen out of the China affair. If that is the case, the United States should be a little more patient. If the United States desires peace and order in China, it should wait a little while longer and help us to establish peace and order there.”

Grew
  1. Secretary of State during the Hoover administration.
  2. Vol. i, p. 820.