793.94/7495: Telegram
The Chargé in Japan (Neville) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 4—9:20 a.m.]
228. Peiping’s 191, December 2, 3 p.m. The considerations advanced in the first two paragraphs [of] the telegram referred to are sound in this Embassy’s judgment with the qualification that any questioning of the Japanese policy will have to be backed up by superior physical force if it is to be effective. Ineffective protests or inquiries would be useless and might prove to be positively harmful and would almost certainly be somewhat humiliating to us. This is a thesis that has been more than once put before the Department.
It may be however that for purposes of record a protest by the countries party to the Nine Power Treaty might be considered advisable. Such a protest however in this Embassy’s opinion would have to be most carefully prepared and backed by irrefutable proof of violations of the Nine Power Treaty in order to avoid a simple and derisive denial by the Japanese as they maintain troops in the Peiping-Tientsin area by virtue of the Boxer Protocol.
Other portions of Peiping’s telegram deal in part with specific Chinese questions and ultimate Japanese objectives upon which this Embassy would hesitate to express opinions. There is no doubt however that the Japanese intend to be the predominant force in this part of the world. They will go as far as they can at the moment and deal with future situations as they arise.
Meanwhile we must face the fact that the only people who can in the long run deal effectively with the Japanese in China are the Chinese themselves and I cannot see where any interest of the United States (except that of endeavoring to maintain the Nine Power Treaty) would be served by laying ourselves open to a rebuff by protesting on behalf of a people who apparently are incapable of political action and unwilling to make any sort of common cause against what they complain of as aggression. And it must be understood that the Japanese would fight if necessary to carry out their aims in North China; the future alone can tell whether, and when, similar situations will arise elsewhere in China.
Repeated to Peiping.