711.94/1603
The American Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs (Arita)56
General Relations
The American Government is awaiting concrete evidence of the steps, and the results thereof, which the Japanese Government is taking towards giving practical effect to its continual assurances that it intends to respect American rights and interests in China, long established in legality and justice.
The American Government has in no way modified its position with regard to various aspects of American relations with Japan. The American Government continues to adhere to the full import of its position as set forth on numerous occasions in communications to the Japanese Government, notably in my conversation with the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, General Ugaki, on July 4, 1938, at which time I left with the Minister a full typewritten statement of my representations,57 and also in our notes of October 6 and December 30, 1938.58
While there has been a diminution, but not a complete cessation, of the bombing of American properties in China by Japanese military planes and of instances of insults and affronts to American citizens, we feel that this diminution has been a purely negative development. Complete cessation of such occurrences is of course essential to improvement in Japanese-American relations.
The former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Admiral Nomura, was good enough to indicate to me in the course of our several conversations that limitations upon commercial activities of Americans in China have been the result of military operations and that these limitations are exceptional and temporary and that American rights will be restored when peace comes. My Government queries whether this indication implies that the North China Development Company and the Central China Promotion Company, official companies controlled by the Japanese Government, and the extensive and growing monopolistic control of these companies over various phases of the economic life of China, are merely incidental to military operations and will, [Page 76] with their subsidiaries in China, disappear when military operations cease.
My Government has further inquired, after referring to the attempts of the Japanese authorities over regimes functioning under their guidance and with their support, to establish in China currencies linked with the Japanese yen in such a way and with such trade controls of a discriminatory character, that while commodities and funds move with comparative freedom between Japan and Japanese occupied areas in China the normal flow of commerce between Japan and the United States is seriously disrupted—my Government inquires whether the Japanese Government suggests that these developments are also of a temporary nature.
While the American Government fully appreciates the efforts which the Japanese Government is now making toward amelioration of the material damage being done to American interests in China, it is constrained to observe that it feels that thus far these efforts have little more than touched the fringe of the problem.
From all available evidence the framework has been laid for the eventual expulsion of all non-Japanese trade, industry and investment in the occupied areas in China. Japanese relations with the United States have steadily deteriorated due to continued interference with American interests.
The Foreign Minister is reported on March 23 as having replied to an interpellation in regard to Japanese-American relations in the Budget Committee of the Lower House of the Diet in which the following statement occurred:
“The fundamental cause of Japanese-American relations reaching their present state, the focal point of which is the China incident, lies in the failure of the American Government and people fully to understand Japanese thought and action relating to the incident. The Government has exerted every effort in this connection but has not succeeded in having the United States recognize our real intentions of [or] the new situation.”
I can only point out in this connection that the American Government’s conception of Japanese thought and actions must necessarily depend upon concrete evidence and according to that evidence it has been found by experience that the definite assurances repeatedly given by the Japanese Government in good faith have not been and are not being carried out in practice. Until implementation is given to these assurances it is not seen how Japanese-American relations can materially improve.
It is such implementation that the American Government is constantly and patiently awaiting.
- Handed to the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs by the American Ambassador on June 10, 1940.↩
- Vol. i, p. 605.↩
- Ibid., pp. 785 and 820.↩