793.94/3942
The British Embassy to the Department of State42
Aide-Mémoire
On February 2nd His Majesty’s Ambassador at Tokio was instructed by telegraph as follows:— [Page 198]
“His Majesty’s Consul-General at Shanghai reports that a communication has been addressed to the Italian Chargé d’Affaires, the United States Consul-General and himself by the Officers Commanding the American, British and Italian forces, the British Senior Naval Officer, the Chairman of the Council, the Colonel of Volunteers and the Commissioner of Police. It contains a strong protest against the stationing in their sectors of Japanese detachments who commit acts of unnecessary barbarity towards the Chinese population. These acts include the murder of unarmed, unoffending civilians and they are arousing a dangerous feeling of hostility among the Chinese against the other Powers’ troops properly responsible for those sectors.
You should immediately lodge a strong protest to the Japanese Government against the above-mentioned actions of their troops at Shanghai, which besides involving grave danger to all foreign interests in Shanghai are calculated to prevent the restoration of normal relations between China and Japan. You should urge the vital necessity of the actions of the Japanese military at Shanghai being kept under proper restraint.”
It is hoped that the United States Government will make similar representations to the Japanese Government, and the French and Italian Governments are being invited to take similar action.
- Handed to the Under Secretary of State by the British Ambassador on February 3, 1932.↩