893.00/13526: Telegram
The Counselor of Embassy in China (Peck) to the Secretary of State
[Received 3:20 p.m.]
176. 1. Minister for Foreign Affairs this morning told a visiting American news correspondent that the second plenary session of the Fifth Central Executive and Supervisory Committees would be called to resolve the crisis created by the Southwestern militarists. He said that if Southwestern leaders and delegates did not participate they would be failing to cooperate with the country. Following Chiang Kai Shek’s suggestion June 8th that the session be convened (see our 173, June 9, 11 a.m., fourth paragraph) Central Executive Standing Committee met yesterday to discuss plans for the session. It therefore appears that the Government is maneuvering to place the Southwestern militarists in such position that they cannot set up an openly independent regime without branding themselves as traitors, the expectation being that if they participate in the session some compromise is likely. Perhaps with this thought in mind the Minister for Foreign Affairs told the correspondent that the Government’s foreign policy including policy toward Japan likewise made clear at the sixth plenary session of the Fourth Committee in December 1935 and could not be altered except by another plenary session.
2. He said also in consequence that China was seeking peace and working to solve international issues diplomatically and that other means would be adopted only as the very last resort. He could not, however, predict the future because of recent changes in Japanese diplomatic representation in China the results of which could not be foreseen.
[Page 201]3. He denied that Japanese demand had [approached] the Foreign Office in any way in connection with developments in the South. (Since it is known that the Japanese Chargé d’Affaires has not visited Nanking this month, Suma is in Japan and that Nanking office of the Japanese Embassy is in charge of a Third Secretary, this denial would seem to disprove of the Hong Kong press reports mentioned in second paragraph of Canton’s June 9, 3 p.m.)
4. Repeated to Department and Peiping, by mail to Tokyo.