Office of the Historian

793.94/2625: Telegram

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

Tokyo, November 12, 1931—1 p.m.
[Received November 12—7:25 a.m.]

215. In sending a copy of his memorandum to you of November 10th,9 Baron Shidehara suggested that I call on him. And in the informal discussion which [ensued?] he made the important explanation that upon the satisfaction of either of two conditions Japan was prepared to withdraw troops in Manchuria to the railway zone:

(1)
The creation of satisfactory police conditions.
(2)
Acceptance of the five points.

Speaking of the first, he said the organization of the local police under defense committees is now progressing and it has reached the point in Mukden where, according to him, nearly all Japanese troops have been withdrawing. Asked how the Japanese were exercising the attributes of sovereignty in South Manchuria, he replied that their only intervention was in the matter of police protection to Japanese and Korean citizens; that they were exercising no control over the administration, including taxation, financial expenditures, justice as between Chinese citizens, or other activities of government outside of police work. Asked how the so-called private police were paid, he said a portion of the salt tax was voted by the Chinese authorities for that purpose and that Nanking was receiving the same proportion of this tax it had before. In regard to the degree of control exercised by the Japanese over these defense committees, he said the Chinese [Page 431] citizens openly hostile to Japan were not recognized and that the committees were not in the pay of Japan nor under the control of Japan in their operations.

[Paraphrase.] This would appear to be a conciliatory Japanese offer to open up a new, feasible way to escape from the current difficult situation. The League of Nations and the United States now might express approval of this plan and facilitate the creating of an adequate police force to enable the Japanese at the earliest possible time to withdraw their troops. [End paraphrase.]

Forbes
  1. Received from the Japanese Ambassador on November 9, 1931, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 39.↩