793.94/8009: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 29—10:30 a.m.]
209. 1. An officer of the Embassy was informed this morning by a responsible official of the Foreign Office that the North China situation is now causing the Chinese Government much greater concern than is the crisis with the Southwest. He said that if Sung Che Yuan should yield a little longer to the Japanese military, serious developments might be avoided. He did not know what influence in this respect might be exerted upon Sung by the new Tientsin Mayor, Chang Tzu Chung, whom he described as a stronger, more stubborn and more anti-Japanese officer than Sung. He said the Japanese had opposed Chang’s appointment but had not made an issue of it although they had wanted Chi Hsieh Yuan given the office and they were now working to eliminate Sung’s 29th army (formerly Feng Yu Hsiang’s Kuo-minchun) from Hopei. If Sung (and Chang) should not yield in this, it was feared that the Japanese would use force to accomplish their desires. In any event he saw another major crisis looming in the North.
2. Appointments of Chang as Mayor of Tientsin and of Major General Liu Ju Ming as Chairman of Chahar, previously made by the Hopei-Chahar Council, were formally mandated by the National Government June 26.
3. Kawagoe is scheduled to leave Shanghai for Nanking tomorrow by Japanese naval vessel. He will present his credentials as Ambassador July 3. The Foreign Minister expects him to take up the customs incidents as his first important matter of business but Suma, First Secretary of the Japanese Embassy, informed me this morning that he is directing the Japanese Consul General at Tientsin, who is now in Shanghai conferring with his Ambassador-designate and is expected to visit Nanking, to settle the matter locally.
4. To the Department and Peiping. By mail to Tokyo and Shanghai.