793.003/614: Telegram
The Minister in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Paraphrase]
My March 30, 11 a.m., and April 20, 11 a.m., paragraph (12).
[Here follows report of a conversation with the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs based on memorandum of April 21, 1931, printed supra.]
- (2)
- As to French policy, the French Minister is, I believe, very liberal. M. Wilden, I understand, has been urging the Government at Paris to follow British and American policy. He has been troubled, I know, as to the status of the French Concession in Hankow. Wilden has told me that the Japanese Government is urging the French to remain firm; and that the Japanese are prepared to use all force necessary to protect their own Hankow Concession. Wilden has expressed anxiety lest the French Government yield to pressure from Japan.
- (3)
- The Japanese do not seem to be in any hurry regarding negotiations. Their Chargé, Shigemitsu, who has been called to Tokyo for consultation, expects to be back about May 1.
- (4)
- The Department has been kept fully informed of the British negotiations and has been sent the complete texts as they were worked out. In my view, if we are able to get an agreement such as has been advanced so far, with a provision to exclude from the scope of the agreement the city of Greater Shanghai for 10 years at least, this should satisfy us. The Department, in its 20, April 13, 5 p.m., to the Consul General at Nanking,7 asked me for comment on the statement by C. T. Wang on April 10. Other than to say I believe he made this statement in all seriousness, I am at a loss as to what comment to make. I do not have any reason to believe that unilateral action will not be taken by the Chinese Government, as Wang foretold, if the present negotiations fail to result in something tending toward abandonment of extraterritorial rights by the powers. It is said that we can afford to stand pat and permit the Chinese to denounce the treaties, for they would not risk taking steps in actual violation of treaty terms. However, all the Chinese need do is to wait until the British and American treaties are up for revision, respectively, in 1933 and 1934, when they can declare them annulled and decline to negotiate regarding extraterritoriality. We at least appear at the present time to be in a position to obtain their signature to an agreement regarding the question providing [Page 805] certain legal guarantees to our citizens. After 1934 the chances of effecting such an agreement seem to be small indeed. The Foreign Office, I think, is counting on this. The statement has been made that we should hesitate at making an agreement with the Nanking Government, for it likely will be short lived. At present the only serious opposition to this Government seems to be communistic, which, if successful, would not promise the survival of the existing treaties or the making of new and satisfactory treaties concerning the matter. A consideration of policy favoring the signing at this juncture of a treaty is the probability that such action would reinforce the Nanking Government, thus tending to stave off its downfall and the substitution therefor of another which would in all likelihood be far more inimical to our cultural and commercial interests in China.
Johnson