793.94/2087
The Consul General at Nanking (Peck) to the Minister in China (Johnson)10
Sir: I have the honor to refer to my despatch No. 93 of September 12, 1931 with which I transmitted a copy of a Memorandum dated September 10, 1931 prepared in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and handed through me to the American Legation, in which the view was expressed that Japan is endeavoring to prepare the ground for forcible action by that country in Manchuria.
In this connection I have the honor to report to the Legation the gist of an interesting conversation held by Consul P. W. Meyer of this Consulate General on the evening of September 11, 1931, with a very intelligent and reliable Chinese newspaper correspondent. The informant is in close touch with Chinese officials in Nanking and this office has hitherto found his statements of fact dependable.
[Page 8]The informant told Mr. Meyer confidentially that on the night of September 10, 1931, President Chiang Kai-shek received an urgent telegram from Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang stating that it had always been his policy to support the National Government; that he realized that should the Nanking Government fall there would be no central Government in China for some time to come; but that, much to his regret, he was obliged to report that a state of affairs then existed in the North which would make it impossible for him again to render assistance to the National Government, even though his assistance might be needed, and that the National Government should no longer rely upon him for such assistance. The informant said that the expression “state of affairs” referred indubitably to the situation created by the Japanese.
The informant stated, also, that the reason why General Chang Tso-hsiang had presented his resignation from the post of Chairman of the Provincial Government of Kirin was not the death of his father, as stated, but because General Chang felt himself unable to cope with Japanese pressure in Manchuria.
In a conversation held by me with Mr. T. V. Soong, the Minister of Finance, on September 13, 1931, I asked him whether General Chang Tso-hsiang had resigned for the reason given above. Mr. Soong denied it, and said he had resigned merely because of the death of his father, and the Government had already persuaded him to withdraw his resignation and remain at his post. It is possible that General Chang Tso-hsiang acted from mixed motives.
It was asserted by the informant that the Japanese were assisting the Cantonese group with money and munitions—the result, in part, of Eugene Chen’s visit to Japan during the past summer. In this connection I have the honor to refer to my despatch No. L–65, of August 1, 1931, wherein I reported a statement made to me by an officer of the Bureau of Aviation of the National Government, to the effect that the Chinese authorities had precise evidence that General Shih Yu-san received $500,000 Chinese currency from the Japanese to induce him to revolt and that a similar sum was received from the same source by General Han Fu-chu.
There is enclosed with this despatch a copy of a mail press despatch published in Shanghai September 14, 1931,11 in which the United Press Staff correspondent reports that the report is prevalent in Chinese papers in Peiping that the Japanese military party is assisting the faction at Canton.
In view of the wide-spread belief that the Far Eastern Review, published in Shanghai, receives some support and inspiration from Japanese sources, it is interesting to note that in the August number of that [Page 9] journal there appear three articles written by Mr. George Bronson Rea, an American citizen, entitled “The Communist Menace in Manchuria”, “Realities”, and “Behind Wanpaoshan”, which have bearing on the question of whether Japan is contemplating forcible action in Manchuria. The general idea behind these articles is that China is politically bankrupt, that the country cannot be administratively united, and that the Powers should abandon the attempt to maintain the political and administrative integrity of China and should deal with different portions of the country as separate entities. The paragraph which begins at the bottom of page 466 of this number of the Far Eastern Review is especially emphatic in its forecast of the probability that Japan will take forcible action to protect Japanese interests in Manchuria if the latter are at any time seriously threatened.
Respectfully yours,