793.94/3136: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Nanking (Peck)
135. For Minister Johnson:
(1) Your November 24, midnight, and December 8, 3 p.m., from Nanking, regarding the question of alleged Chinese promises to withdraw [Page 680] from Chinchow. I have asked the Embassy in Japan to repeat to you the essential parts of my 262, December 11, 9 p.m., to Tokyo,84 relating to this matter.
(2) Based upon cabled reports from Paris, Tokyo, and Nanking, the situation appears to the Department to be substantially as follows:
Besides Shidehara’s suggested modification to give to the League Council instead of to the three nations, as Koo suggested, the guarantees regarding nonpenetration of the neutral zone by Japanese troops, Shidehara suggested also a definite northern limit to the zone which Koo had expressed only in general terms as “the Chinchow area”. Shidehara suggested the limit be the Hsiaoliang-ho. The Department understands this river to run just north and east of Chinchow, though the city would itself lie inside the neutral zone. It does not appear to the Department that Shidehara’s zone limits necessarily involve narrowing the zone much more than the Koo proposal might be understood to do. In his counterproposal Shidehara apparently stated that not for any purpose would Japanese troops penetrate the proposed neutral zone which the Chinese would evacuate. He also stated in a formal note to the League Council that it was not intended to station Japanese troops to the east of the zone, meaning the area between Chinchow and the Liao River; that except under exceptional circumstances, such as the necessity to repress bandit activity, no Japanese force would be sent there; and that it would be necessary to maintain a small detachment at Hsinmin. To the Department it appears, in other words, that the Shidehara proposal did not substantially differ from the Koo proposal except that the former proposed giving “guarantees” to the League Council, while the latter suggested the three nations. To me this exception does not seem to be an objection which a little patient negotiation might not work out.
(3) Since further hostilities in the Chinchow region would affect very seriously the beneficial results to be expected with confidence from the League resolution, further effort should be made, I think, to reach an understanding as to this point. I realize it may not be possible now for Koo to renew his proposal or to agree to the Shidehara proposal, owing to the height to which public opinion has been aroused in China, as in Japan. However, I should like you discreetly to sound out Koo in this connection and to urge upon him, as Ambassador Forbes has been instructed to do with Shidehara, the need for utmost self-restraint regarding any more military activities or demonstrations, suggesting, now that the Council has adopted the resolution, that it should be possible for the Chinese and Japanese authorities to arrive at some agreement to insure against hostilities in relation to or at Chinchow.