Office of the Historian

793.94/5809

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Chinese Legation43

Nanking, January 22, 1933.

Foreign Minister Lo Wen-kan made the following statement today:

So far as Count Uchida’s speech44 dealt with Japan’s Manchurian adventure, it gave another conclusive proof that Japan was yet far from having awakened from her dream of military conquest and territorial aggrandizement.

Several months had elapsed since Count Uchida made his first important speech on the Far Eastern situation last August45 but apparently there was no abatement in the Japanese Foreign Minister’s open defiance of the authority of the League of Nations, of the sanctity of international agreements, and of the validity of all the ordinary principles of international law. Count Uchida again dwelt upon the theme of “Manchukuo”, attempting not only to justify its existence but also to demonstrate the possibility of its further expansion. He even openly declared Japan’s determination to invade Jehol.

There was no need to waste any more words on Japan’s preposterous arguments for they had been answered very conclusively not only by the Chinese Government but by the Lytton Commission as well.

“So far as China is concerned, her position is very clear. ‘Manchukuo’, created and maintained by Japan, must go and China must reassert her sovereign power over the Three Eastern Provinces. [Page 121] There can be no conciliation nor reconciliation nor any prospect of settlement until and unless Japan’s puppet regime is declared illegal and discontinued.”

  1. Copy of telegram transmitted to the Department by the Chinese Legation on January 23.↩
  2. Address before the Japanese Diet on January 21, 1933, reported by the press from Tokyo.↩
  3. Address before the Japanese Diet on August 25, 1932; see memorandum by the Under Secretary of State, August 24, 1932, Foreign Relations, 1932, vol. iv, p. 206.↩