Office of the Historian

893.00/13099: Telegram

The Minister in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State

Nanking, May 27, 1935—10 a.m.
[Received 2:40 p.m.]

124. My 117, May 24, 10 a.m.

1.
A Councilor of Government Ministry who has intimate knowledge of North China affairs states in confidence that the Peiping gendarmerie are responsible for the murder of the two Chinese editors [Page 182] in Tientsin, that the Japanese have demanded of Hopei Provincial Chairman that the assassins who are three in number be handed over to Japanese concession, that General Yu Hsueh-chung, however, has no authority over the gendarmerie who are really under Chiang Kaishek’s control although Chiang would not have permitted the murders if he had known of the assassins’ plans, and that dissatisfaction of the Japanese military with the affair constitutes a far graver problem than the activities of Japanese troops in the demilitarized zone.
2.
According to some it is estimated the trouble in the demilitarized zone is not expected by the Japanese Government to affect adversely its program for rapprochement with China. A typically Japanese attitude is reflected in his further statement that the incident would not have occurred if the Chinese had not “irritated” the Japanese and that the refusal of the Kwantung Army to permit sufficient and adequately armed Chinese police or troops in the zone to maintain order is because their presence would be a menace to the small Japanese garrisons along the Great Wall. Other remarks indicate a belief on the part of the Japanese Embassy in the existence of a continuing possibility that Japanese troops will occupy North China under circumstances which in Japanese minds would make such occupation seem “necessary”.
For the Minister:
Atcheson