893.01 Manchuria/381
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Castle)
The Japanese Ambassador left with me the attached rough plan18 showing the duties and the direction of the man, probably General Muto, who is to be sent to Manchuria to coordinate the work there. You will see that he will get his instructions from the Minister of War and the head of the General Staff in so far as instructions have to do with Japanese troops in Manchuria. As special envoy having control of consuls, he will get instructions from the Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Governor of Leased Territory and the South Manchuria Railway, he will have his instructions direct from the Prime Minister.
Mr. Debuchi seemed to feel that this centralization of power would be a very good thing, but admitted that it might be difficult to have so many directing agencies. I said that this difficulty appeared to me immediately and what I feared was that the strongest line of communication might well be from the Chief of the General Staff. Mr. Debuchi admitted the danger of this.
[Page 193]He said that, as to the recognition of Manchukuo, we probably knew as much as he did since we had probably seen the memorandum given by Count Uchida to the League of Nations Commission; he said that Japan intended to recognize Manchukuo, but did not know how soon it would be done. I said I understood there was a good deal of difference of opinion on that subject even in the Army and Mr. Debuchi admitted this was true; he said the fact that he hoped we would all keep in mind was that Manchukuo was a baby which really existed; he said that he would be the first to admit that it was an illegitimate child, possibly the child of a criminal assault, but the fact remains that it is a living child and that, for the sake of the world, somebody had to look out for it. I said that it seemed to me the child was not particularly lusty and that perhaps the best thing for the world would be to allow it to die a natural death. This rather put Mr. Debuchi off his subject as he evidently felt that my attitude was not humanitarian; he said that the husband of Manchuria, China, had treated her very badly for years and that the two had more and more separated, that it was necessary for Japan to give her some support and to look after the child. I suggested that we drop the metaphor and stick to facts; I said that if Japan should recognize Manchukuo it would inevitably create bad feeling in this country if only for the fact that it would be so contrary to one of the rules on which recognition was normally based, the rule that a state should only be recognized when it can carry on the affairs of the state, both internal and external, with the full consent of the citizens. I told the Ambassador that it was obvious to anybody looking at the situation that if Japanese soldiers retired from Manchukuo the state would not last a day; (the Ambassador interrupted to say “a minute”) that under these circumstances it would be patent to the world that Japan was merely recognizing a creature of its own which had no vital existence. The Ambassador had no answer to make to this, but only reiterated his plea that we think calmly about Manchukuo with the realization that, whatever its origin, it had come to stay and must be considered in international dealing. To this I merely answered that we were forced by circumstances to think about Manchuria every day.
- Not printed.↩