793.94/5716: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Minister in China (Johnson)
6. Your 31, January 7, 7 p.m. The Japanese Ambassador here affirms with emphatic assurance that the Japanese cabinet has given instruction that there be no further hostilities on Japanese initiative and that this situation will be a “test” case proving their authority and good faith.41
Department regards efforts of conciliation as unlikely to succeed unless the initial move thereto ward comes from Japanese and Chinese.
British material interests are preponderant along the railway line and at Tientsin. British Minister for Foreign Affairs has been the most ardent champion at Geneva of the principle and the possibility of conciliation.
In view of these and other considerations the Department, while ready to join in any effort at conciliation which may offer even the slightest possibility of success, feels that the onus of leadership in exploring the possibilities, in so far as action may possibly be taken by the powers other than Japan and China is concerned, should be let devolve upon the British. The Department will therefore await such approach, if any, as may be made to this Government by the British Government.
You should inform your British colleague that this is our attitude and state that you are ready to cooperate in discussion and that your Government will stand ready to consider sympathetically any definite proposal from the British Government for action of a character in which that Government may place confidence and for the initiation of which it or the League of Nations, of which it is a member and in which it takes a leading position, may be willing to assume the responsibility.
- See memorandum by the Secretary of State, January 5, 1933, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 107.↩