793.94/4787: Telegram
The Minister in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
Your 96, March 12, 5 p.m. to Shanghai.99
- 1.
- I desire to invite Department’s attention to part 21 which reads “and requests those powers if necessary to cooperate in maintenance of order in the evacuated zone”. Japanese amendment to tentative agenda quoted in my March 16, 9 a.m., is based upon this provision of the resolution which Shigemitsu points out commits China and the other participating powers to more even than he has asked.
- 2.
- In my discussions here I have taken the stand that we do not wish to become involved in the policing of the area which it is presumed the Japanese are about to evacuate. My British and French colleagues have been equally averse to it. I have felt from the beginning that evacuated area should be turned directly back by the Japanese to the Chinese and that the most that we could do would be to act possibly as official witnesses of the handover.
- 3.
- For my own information and guidance I must know whether the American Government is committed in any way to the “maintenance of order in the evacuated zone”. If the area is evacuated by Japanese troops there will be no need of foreign troops there provided Chinese police forces are available. In any case there is a great deal of doubt [Page 591] here as to whether we have sufficient forces to control the peace of the Settlement area and extend that force to the control of area outside in which there has recently been a tremendous amount of destruction and loss of life due to actual conditions of warfare. The question of unity of control will present difficulties well nigh insurmountable and last but not least I think there is no foreign force here in Shanghai that wishes to be saddled with the responsibility of handing over to the Chinese the ruined villages and desecrated countryside which the Japanese are leaving behind them.
Johnson