893.01 Manchuria/1336: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 30—6:12 a.m.]
116. Some 2 weeks ago the British Ambassador informed the Minister for Foreign Affairs that many Chinese employees of British concerns in Manchuria including the British-American Tobacco Company and the British Presbyterian Mission had been arrested by the authorities in Manchuria and were being held. Among them was the chief sales agent of the tobacco company in Mukden who had been obliged to sign a check for 60,000 yuan on the alleged ground that he had received that sum from the Chinese Communist Party. The Ambassador told Arita that these arrests were causing serious difficulties to the British concerns and he furthermore protested that Japanese gendarmes in Manchukuo had invaded the premises of the Presbyterian Mission without permission of the British Consul thereby violating extraterritorial rights. The Ambassador’s representations occasioned no publicity.
Yesterday the Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs told the Ambassador that an investigation had been made and that the arrests were in no way directed at British interests but were based on suspicion of Communistic activities on the part of the employees. The Vice-Minister then broached the subject of extraterritoriality in Manchuria but the Ambassador said that he had no authority to discuss that subject.
Repeated Peiping.