793.94/3125½
Memorandum of Trans-Atlantic Telephone Conversation67
Secretary: Hello, General Dawes. I am sorry to call you this time of night, but I have received your telegrams in regard to the present negotiations and in regard to my inquiry about the mix-up on the neutral zone. Now I understand, I think, exactly how the thing lies now, and I have been going over the papers and have found some additional considerations which have cleared my mind quite a little of certain prejudices I had against the Japanese proposition, and I thought that as tjie danger still persists of a new movement by the Japanese Army even after the Resolution is passed, I would let you know a little about it so that tomorrow morning in case I should telegraph you would know what it was. I understand now that the chances are that the Resolution will pass tomorrow.
Dawes: They expect that, yes. Although they have not heard yet——
Secretary: Not from the Japanese yet?
Dawes: Expect it tomorrow afternoon.
Secretary: This is from Japan? China is all right, is she?
Dawes: Yes, China is going to accept. Have you got my telegram where I say it is understood the Chinese intend to make two general statements. First reserve all their rights under the Covenant and other treaties, and second protest the police measures which they felt would not have been necessary except for Japan’s own actions.
Secretary: I understand. Now, all right, I feel that that is a good step and should go on. The Resolution should be passed if possible and what I am speaking now about is only in reference to the Chinchow trouble. You see?
Dawes: Yes.
[Page 658]Secretary: Even if that Resolution is passed, there remains the trouble of a misunderstanding about the Chinchow zone and the likelihood that the Japanese Army may again advance. I have some new information on that that I would like to put in your hands simply for such use as you may find for it in case of an emergency tomorrow or in case some chance came for you to go over it with Briand.
Dawes: Yes.
Secretary: May I enumerate just gently the nature of it and we can send it so you can get it by cable tomorrow. In the first place I originally had the idea that the Japanese had changed their position and had narrowed down the limits of the zone into a much smaller compass, so that finally it included only the region from the Great Wall to Chinchow, instead of going way out to the Liao River where the Chinese troops have withdrawn. I thought that the Japanese themselves had inched up, so to speak, from the Liao River down to Chinchow. I find on going over the papers that that is not so. The limits of this new smaller zone which the Japanese suggested in their telegram of two days ago were based upon the original offer of Wellington Koo himself. You see?
Dawes: Yes.
Secretary: When he made that offer of a neutral zone and that China would retire behind the Great Wall if Japan would keep out of it—the offer which Japan accepted or thinks she accepted—he stated that that zone only ran from the Wall to Chinchow.
Dawes: Well, it ran over to the Liao River just on the other side of Chinchow.
Secretary: That is as the Japanese stated it, but Koo stated it so that it would be limited to Chinchow, so that the Japanese only took up what Wellington Koo himself had suggested.
Dawes: I did not understand that.
Secretary: Neither did I until I came to look over the papers, and I think it would make a difference with Cecil. I am reading his argument before the Council and he talked as if the Japanese were asking the Council to insist upon this smaller zone at Japan’s instance. Instead of that it was merely taking up a suggestion which China herself had made.
Dawes: China. They think if they take their men out of the zone to the Wall that the government will fall.
Secretary: I know that is a new political reason that may be a practical reason against it now, but it is not Japan’s fault. The next thing is that there is a good reason for that difference for that zone on the west of Chinchow being free from any entry by anybody and the zone to the east of Chinchow towards the Liao River. I have just [Page 659] heard from Tokyo68 of a talk which Forbes has had with Shidehara, and Shidehara says that the reason why they can undertake to keep absolutely out of the territory on the west side of Chinchow, that is between Chinchow and the Wall, is because of the geographical topography. There are mountains on one side and that can be easily protected against bandits and he thinks Chinese police can be trusted–—
Dawes: Chinchow? For what reasons?
Secretary: Shidehara says that the country between Chinchow and the Great Wall——
Dawes: Chinchow and the Liao River?
Secretary: No. The other side, towards the Great Wall, towards Tangshan, towards China. He says that that is of such a nature that it can be easily protected against bandits, even by the Chinese police, and he is willing to have the Japanese withdraw all their subjects from that zone even if bandits should make any trouble, rather than go in and protect them. In case of necessity, he says the Japanese could withdraw their own nationals from that zone anyhow and would be willing to do so. While further on, up towards the Liao River, the country is different and the bandits there are of such a nature that they cannot be handled by the Chinese police and it is only as to that country that he has to be prepared to make protective expeditions.
Dawes: Yes.
Secretary: In other words, there is a geographical reason for this.
Dawes: I do not think that Briand understands that.
Secretary: I did not know whether he did either, because this has just come to me from Tokyo.
Dawes: Do you think that it would be—don’t you think that I had better talk to Sze about that too?
Secretary: Oh yes. That is all right to talk to Sze. There is another thing I want you to say to Sze if you talk to him. I think you ought to talk to Sze first before you open up the whole thing anyhow, because the Chinese may not be in a position to renew their offer.
Dawes: So that I had better talk to Sze first because Sze thinks that his government will fall if they take the troops back.
Secretary: Of course it may be impossible to reopen this at all.
Dawes: As I understand it, well I do not know whether he feels any different about it now. That was several days ago.
Secretary: Then, in the third place, I understand, General, from your telegram that the Japanese were ready to give assurance to the League Council that they would accept this offer and keep their troops out of this neutral zone, although they were not ready to do it to the [Page 660] three Powers that Wellington Koo suggested in his offer. It seems to me that that prevented the original proposition from being accepted technically. Yet I think that is a very small difference to split on.
Dawes: The misunderstanding that the League had about the zone itself led them to take that position and with the explanation which you make the League would undoubtedly have accepted it.
Secretary: The principal thing of all was that it was not Japan inching up, so to speak, and trying to cut down the zone, but it was Koo’s original offer.
Dawes: They did not understand that. I will take it up with Sze in the morning. If he is absolutely certain it would not do to open those negotiations on account of the weakness of his government—–
Secretary: Then there is no use going any further with it. My whole point in bringing this up to you is that I feel if they could make some sort of an agreement on a neutral zone, it would very greatly protect the whole arrangement from being broken up again by a new advance of the Japanese Army.
Dawes: Did the Japanese give any assurance at all that they would not advance? They were afraid here they were going to make an advance right away before tomorrow afternoon.
Secretary: I know nothing new except what I knew before. They disclaimed any immediate advance but I think Forbes thinks that eventually unless there is some such agreement as to the neutral zone they will advance and drive them out to the Wall. That would be a great misfortune. That would make the situation very much worse than if the Chinese voluntarily withdrew.
Dawes: Mr. Secretary, Drummond is going away after tomorrow’s meeting and the rest of the members of the Council. There is no reason why you want me to stay after the Council goes away?
Secretary: I think not. We have had such a good connection on the telephone and you understand the situation so completely that perhaps I will not telegraph. I will just leave it in your hands with this statement. You have it?
Dawes: Yes. I can wire you.
Secretary: If you want any confirmation about the terms of that original offer you have only got to get Briand to look up the original offer as it was made by the French Ambassador. The original offer made by Wellington Koo through the French Ambassador in Tokyo. That was in French and the Japanese have given me a copy of it which I have here.
Dawes: They will have a copy I suppose in the French Foreign Office.
Secretary: Of course, Briand will have a copy of it, so there is no need of my sending you any wire at all.
[Page 661]Dawes: You have received my despatch about the form of the Resolution. You have read my despatches of today?
Secretary: I do not think they have all come in.
Dawes: It was the declaration which was read at this afternoon’s public meeting.
Secretary: I have not seen that yet. It may be in now.
Dawes: The New York Times said the State Department did not want to give it out until they had conferred with me. I suppose the copy was all right. The Times wanted to save telegraphic tolls.
Secretary: They have not been to me so far as I know.
Dawes: If you get my last despatch you are perfectly safe in giving it out there, because it has been read out in the meeting.
Secretary: There was no change in the Resolution beyond what you told me yesterday?
Dawes: I will read it to you.
Secretary: I have it before me now. It has been brought in to me now. That is all right.
Dawes: Then you can give it to the press.
Secretary: All I want now is a flash as to whether the Resolution has passed or not tomorrow.
Dawes: The meeting is not until half-past four in the afternoon. In the meantime, if we hear from Japan we will let you know before the meeting.
Secretary: Perhaps you had better call me up before you leave Paris after the meeting.
Dawes: Yes, I will. Goodbye.
- Between Mr. Stimson in Washington and General Dawes in Paris, December 9, 1931, 7:30 p.m.↩
- See telegram No. 256, December 9, 9 p.m., from the Ambassador in Japan, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 57.↩