793.94/3724: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Consul General at Shanghai (Cunningham)
Your January 30, 4 p.m. and the Department’s January 30, 2 p.m. The Department understands that the American sector in the defense plan of Shanghai, to which the Council refers as having been encroached upon, consists of that irregular rectangular area of the western district of the International Settlement approximately bounded as follows: north and east by the Soochow Creek, south by Sinza Road and west by the western boundary of the International Settlement. According to the Municipal Council’s plan of Shanghai, dated 1928, there are a number of Japanese factories in that area. If the above understanding and the plan referred to are correct and if the alleged encroachment results from the despatch of military units by the Japanese authorities to protect the Japanese factories in the sector referred to, the Department suggests that there might be some rearrangement of the defense plan of Shanghai whereby the Japanese would be assigned that part of the American sector in which Japanese interests predominate.
The above is offered merely as a suggestion for such consideration as may be found practicable.