761.93 Outer Mongolia/25: Telegram
The Counselor of Embassy in China (Peck) to the Secretary of State
148. 1. The Soviet Ambassador yesterday told an American correspondent, not for quotation, that:
(1) The low point in Russian policy in the Far East was the sale of the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1935 as a concession to avoid war with Japan; (2) the Soviet Government subsequently learned that a policy of conciliation was assumed by the Japanese to be one of weakness; (3) Soviet policy vis-à-vis Japan was now one of defiance based on the theory that a strong attitude would be more likely to prevent Japanese aggression and resultant war than a weak; (4) the Soviet Union-Outer Mongolian Pact of March 12 (see our 114, April 30, 11 a.m.) was a direct notice to Japan that there exists a definite limit beyond which Japanese hegemony cannot advance on continental Asia; (5) Soviet policy toward China is one of helpfulness looking to the building up of China as a bulwark against Japan and has no altruistic implications.
2. The correspondent gained the impression that Russia’s ultimate aims envisage Russian control of Mongolia, Manchuria and part of North China including the coast as far south as Tsingtau which is now the only real ice free harbor on the northern Asiatic coast.
3. To Department. By mail to Peiping, Tokyo, Moscow.
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