893.50A/84
The Counselor of Legation in China (Peck) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 7.]
Sir: I have the honor to state that during a social conversation with Dr. O. Trautmann, German Minister, on the afternoon of March 25, the latter told me that he had just received a call from Mr. Y. Suma, Secretary of the Japanese Legation residing in Nanking, and that Mr. Suma had dwelt on the futility of any plans for the economic rehabilitation of China in which Japan should not take a preponderant part. Mr. Suma had also told Dr. Trautmann of recent dangerous Communist inroads into Hunan Province. Dr. Trautmann said that Mr. Suma had taken some pains to emphasize that in any plans for the economic development of China, Japan must have the “lion’s share”, or such plans would be doomed to failure. Dr. Trautmann wondered whether Mr. Suma made these declarations merely as a matter of private conviction, or whether he did so under instructions from his Government. Dr. Trautmann said that Mr. Suma had referred to some big scheme for international collaboration for the economic development of China and that he, Dr. Trautmann, had replied that he supposed that Japan would, of necessity, have a part in any international plan for the economic development of China.
Dr. Trautmann wanted to know my views on Mr. Suma’s activities as indicated above, and I replied that Mr. Suma had taken the same line in his conversations with me. For example, he had told me that he understood that Mr. T. V. Soong, when he went to America and London in the summer of 1933, had endeavored to promote a big scheme for the international joint development of China in economic ways, without the participation of Japan. Mr. Suma had expressed the opinion that any such scheme, or any endeavor on the part of the League of Nations to assist in economic development in China without Japanese participation, was fantastic and “imaginary”, and lacking in any practical hope of success. He had said that he thought the Chinese were beginning to realize this.
I said to Dr. Trautmann I hardly thought that Mr. Suma had received instructions to urge this viewpoint on the different foreign diplomatic representatives in Nanking, although it was possible he had been so instructed, on the hypothesis that repeated iteration of an assertion is calculated to bring about conviction in the mind of the hearer. I thought it might be, I said, that Mr. Suma spoke out of the intensity of his own belief in the essential part which Japan must take in the political and economic affairs of the Far East.
[Page 376]I said that I, also, had received Mr. Suma’s information regarding recent dangerous Communist inroads into Hunan and had asked Dr. Wang Ching-wei41 for confirmation, whereon Dr. Wang had denied the reports in toto and had immediately told me that he thought they emanated from a Japanese source, since the Japanese were continually exaggerating the Communist menace in China.
I recalled to Dr. Trautmann recently published official statements by Japanese in high positions to the effect that peace in the Orient necessarily rested on Japan as a foundation and I remarked that there is a pretty general belief that Japan would be delighted to receive an international “mandate” to reduce China to order and protect general international interests in this region. Dr. Trautmann was aware of this general belief.
Respectfully yours,
- President of the Chinese Executive Yuan (Premier) and Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs.↩