793.94/7323: Telegram
The Consul General at Shanghai (Cunningham) to the Secretary of State
623. 1. From the Ambassador. According to the Japanese informant referred to in Shanghai’s telegram 285, June 6, noon, and according to an officer interrogator of the local Japanese Embassy whose information has been reliable in the past, there have been no new demands made by Japanese to the Chinese authorities, press reports to the contrary notwithstanding. They state that recent conferences in Tokyo resulted in the Navy, Army, and Foreign Office arriving at a unified China policy and that representatives of those three Ministries came to Shanghai solely for the purpose of reporting this to their respective officers in China. They also say that the policy is abstract and general in its terminology. According to the second informant, the chief point of interest is agreement that there shall be an autonomous North China regime, which will not be detrimental to the interests of “Manchukuo.” He said that if the National Government opposes the establishment of this regime, however, an independent North China may result. In his opinion the significance of the unified policy is that the military and the diplomats are again on friendly terms for the first time since the divergence which resulted from the military’s dissatisfaction with Hirota’s Diet speeches of last winter and from the raising of the Legation to an Embassy. He said that press reports that officials of the three services have held a joint conference here were incorrect but that there had been drinking parties after the separate conferences in order to cement their new friendly relations. The second informant said that the only basis for reports of such demands was a statement recently made by Hirota to the Chinese Ambassador at Tokyo to the effect that Sino-Japanese relations could only be solved if (1) anti-Japanese activities in China were eradicated, (2) “de facto” relations with “Manchukuo” were established (he interpreted this as meaning primarily normal communications), and (3) the Red menace to North China were averted.
2. I am inclined toward the belief that the foregoing estimate of the situation is in general accurate. However, there is the possibility that the Japanese military officers in China will not be content to follow even so abstract a policy as that mentioned above. The struggle for the control of the Japanese Army in progress in Tokyo between the Araki immoderates and the Hayashi moderates, in which the latter are allegedly gaining ground gradually may cause the Japanese in [Page 380] China, who are chiefly immoderates, to take matters into their own hands before the position of their leaders in Tokyo is too greatly weakened by the opposing moderates. It is to be supposed that the military representative from Tokyo, Okamura, is not regarded very favorably by at least some of the Japanese military in China as he is allegedly one of Hayashi’s moderates. It is extremely doubtful whether the unified policy will significantly affect the plans of the Japanese military with respect to China.
3. Most Japanese sources expect a new regime in North China in the near future. The present agrarian uprising in Hopei, which is reported in the press may be the beginning of this. The two informants mentioned above claim that [Japanese?] are now leaving the details of the new regime more or less to the Chinese concerned. The first mentioned of them believes that lack of money for development in North China may informally delay formation of a new regime.
4. These Japanese and a number of Chinese officials do not expect important developments in Central China during the next few months. However, the intentions of the Japanese military may still be regarded as an unknown quantity regardless of the unified policies.
5. Chiang Kai-shek is at present at his native place, Fenghua, allegedly sulking. This may be due to a failure to impress on the rest of the Government his views with regard to either his Japanese policy or his policies toward the Southwest. Johnson.
- Telegram in two sections.↩