793.94/3963c: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Great Britain (Atherton)
54. Please go to see the Foreign Minister at once and give him this information:
The estimate of the situation given us by our advisers is that the Japanese last week met with a sharp set-back in Shanghai. They had previously believed that they could dominate the boycott situation merely by landing naval units and without the use of an expeditionary force. They had not expected the Southern Chinese Army to be so superior to the Chinese they had met in Manchuria and have got themselves into a very serious situation.
As a result of this situation probably, came the Japanese request of good offices. Under these circumstances it is most important that the British-American alignment should continue unbroken in any respect. Any appearance of hesitation or break in our common purpose would have a very bad effect in Tokyo.
Yesterday the Japanese Ambassador came to see me52 to discuss the five proposals, saying that the Japanese Government seriously objected to the fifth. I told him in reply that the principal danger at present was in Shanghai and that this was caused by the Japanese use of our sector as a base against the Chinese. I told him that we had definitely determined that the only adequate method of protecting our nationals and their property was to maintain the neutrality of the International Settlement and that we were prepared to do so; that I believed the British and the French felt the same way. I said further that our nationals were now being greatly endangered by the action of Japanese regulars and irregulars coming into our sector and attacking the Chinese from it as a base. I said that I must present in the strongest way to his Government that this must stop. I made him take it down in writing, and he promised to send it to his Government. I feel it of the utmost importance that the British Government also make it very clear to the Japanese that they will not tolerate any possible use of the International Settlement as a base of operation and are determined to maintain the neutrality of the Settlement.
I am now informed that the Japanese marines evacuated our sector and also turned over to the British and to the Americans the defense of the mills in front of our sector, which has for several days been a danger point.
- See memorandum by the Secretary of State, February 3, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 177.↩