793.94/6910
The Consul General at Tientsin (Lockhart) to the Chargé in China (Gauss)27
Sir: I have the honor to report, as a matter of record, the following information on the recent Sino-Japanese clash in Chahar, a diplomatic settlement of which, it is alleged, is now under negotiation.
[Here follows summary of developments in 1934.]
2. Background of the dispute. …
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
On January 4 and 5 the Vice-Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army, Major General Itagaki, is stated to have headed a conference at Dairen attended by the leading members of the Japanese military on service in China, at which it was decided to demand a complete fulfillment of the stipulations of the T’angku Truce. On January 8 Lieutenant Colonel Kagesa, who had been present at this conference, and who had in the meantime returned to his post in Shanghai as Military Attaché of the Japanese Legation assigned there, issued a statement to the press condemning the insincerity of Japanese [Chinese?] diplomacy.
It must also be noted here that statements made by responsible Chinese officials to members of the staff of this Consulate General, and reports of meetings between various high Chinese and Japanese officials published in the press, indicate clearly that informal Sino-Japanese negotiations on a wide range of political and economic subjects have been and are in constant progress.
Whether the Chahar incident has a relation to the whole background of Japanese aggression in China, or whether it is an isolated incident and involves only the pushing of Chinese troops back to the Great Wall along a segment of the Chahar border to settle a boundary dispute, is not yet clear.
[Here follows detailed account of the Chahar incident.]
Formal representations to the Japanese were reported to have been made both from Peiping and Nanking. It is noteworthy that the Chinese Government has not protested this forcible seizure of part of Chahar, nor has any high-ranking Chinese official gone on record as denouncing it in the manner of former years.
Informal negotiations looking to a settlement were continued in Peiping, Lieutenant Colonel Takahashi and Colonel Matsui for the Japanese, and Yueh K’ai-hsien and Colonel Shu Shih-ch’in of the Peiping Branch Military Council for the Chinese, being immediately [Page 26] charged with discussion of the place and time of a more or less formal conference. Meanwhile reinforcements were said to have been sent to the Japanese positions in the disputed area, and from Nanking came word that no representative of the National Government would take part in the negotiations. It was expected that China would be represented by one member each of the Branch Military and Peiping Political Councils, and an officer of the 29th Army. Latest press reports indicate that the matter has already been settled in principle and that only a formal agreement and a place for meeting remain to be decided upon.
4. Impact of the incident on Sino-Japanese relations. It is clear that the present attitude of the Nanking Government is directed at disengaging this incident from general Sino-Japanese relations, both to avoid giving pretext for further encroachments and to escape being forced into a position wherein a conference for the delimitation of the common boundary would effectually lend Chinese recognition to “Manchukuo”. Since from the Japanese viewpoint it is to their advantage to have such incursions recognized as local matters to be dealt with directly between the Japanese and the particular provincial authorities involved, it is probably safe to predict that a formal conference will be successful in its obvious task of ceding that part of Chahar which became a “disputed area” when the Japanese military coveted it to that same military who are now in possession of it. The “dispute” itself may therefore [be] said to be as good as closed.
But it is the impression of certain well-informed local Chinese that the effects of the incident on the morale of Northern Chinese will not be so easily disposed of. Coming as closely as it does on the heels of the removal of the postal blockade, and contemporarily with renewed talk on the part of the Japanese of “Sino-Japanese cooperation”, Chinese in this part of the country are believed to interpret it as a clear indication of the means by which that “cooperation” will be secured and sustained, and of the place China will hold in the now unavoidable “sisterhood” relationship into which it is the aim of Japan to force her through diplomatic negotiation, failing which more forceful measures will be employed.
Respectfully yours,
- Copy transmitted to the Department by the Consul General in his despatch No. D–698, January 28; received March 12.↩