793.94/6979: Telegram
The Minister in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 28—3:50 p.m.]
224. 1. A highly placed Chinese in Government service here is authority for the statement that Japan intends to send a high commissioner to China to meet a special commissioner appointed by China for the specific purpose of negotiating a rapprochement. It is stated that this [is] in the nature of a concession to the military on the part of the Government at Tokyo the military having protested the elevation of the Japanese Legation to an Embassy and that a high commissioner would at least temporarily eclipse the Ambassador.
[Page 186]2. The same highly placed official states that the Japanese are pressing the Chinese to adopt measures to prevent assassins from entering the Japanese Concession at Tientsin and that there have even been threats demanding an extension of the demilitarized zone, the abolition of the branch policy of the Council at Peiping and the abolition of the Tang Pu at Tientsin unless some punishment is meted out to those concerned with the murders referred to in the Legation’s 212, May 23, 2 p.m. and/or unless some guarantee can be given that there will be no recurrence of such affairs. It is stated that the Japanese have communicated their views in writing to Chairman Yu Hsuehchung at Tientsin.
Repeated to Nanking.