Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1935, The Far East, Volume III

793.94/7006: Telegram

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

Nanking, June 6, 1935—10 a.m.
[Received 9:28 p.m.]

140. My 136, June 4, noon.

1. There is a growing belief here that one phase of the Japanese demonstration in North China will definitely be a Japanese movement directed against Chiang Kai-shek. Uncongenial evidence is found in the removal of his nephew, Chiang Hsiao-hsien, mentioned in my 139, June 5, 10 a.m., and among Japanese underground activities it is reliably reported that a successful effort has been made to effect the retirement from Chiang’s service of his personal American pilot, Harry Smith, and that a determined attempt is being pursued to work the elimination of W. H. Donald⁶⁸ from his post of confidential adviser to Chang Hsueh-liang, Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang.

2. Opinion among observers in Nanking generally inclined to the belief that the Japanese talk of extending the demilitarized zone to embrace the Peiping-Tientsin area was in the nature of threatening propaganda and that if the Chinese are compliant with the wishes of the Japanese military, as seems now to be the case, there is little danger of Japanese occupation of further Chinese territory except possibly in Chahar and Mongolia.

For the Minister:

Atcheson

68. An Australian citizen long resident in China.