793.94/7782
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 9.]
Sir: I have the honor to enclose herewith copies of two despatches66 addressed to the American Ambassador at Peiping, both dated February 3, 1936, and both reporting evidence that there is current in Chinese educational and political circles a belief that hostilities between China and Japan will commence within the next two or three months, and that the Chinese public is paying close attention to the prolonged resistance offered by the Ethiopian forces to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia,67 on the ground that this is an indication that China would be able to oppose effective military resistance to Japan.
I have the honor to add that in a further conversation held by me yesterday with a Chinese official, Dr. Y. T. Tsur, Administrative Vice [Page 40] Minister of Industries, evidence was again given that the idea of the inevitability of hostilities between China and Japan is prevalent and that the conflict in Ethiopia is receiving close attention. Dr. Tsur said he supposed that the “baptism of fire” through which China had been passing must be prolonged to include hostilities with Japan and that “perhaps” China would emerge from the ordeal improved and strengthened. He asked whether I thought that the Ethiopians would be able to continue the struggle against the Italian forces much longer. I called attention to the difference between the reports of these hostilities emanating from Italian and Ethiopian sources, respectively, and remarked that if one were to believe the Italian reports, the Italian forces in Ethiopia had met with practically no difficulty from the opposition of the Ethiopian troops, but only from climatic conditions and the terrain.
My acquaintance with Dr. Tsur began some twenty years ago when he was President of Tsinghua College. So far as I am aware he is still a member of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation for the Promotion of Education and Culture, which handles the American remitted Boxer Indemnity, and has recently been President of Yen-ching University in Peiping, an American missionary institution. He was appointed to his present post in the Ministry of Industries in December, 1935, and appears to have come at the solicitation of General Chiang Kai-shek. He told me that he had been invited by General Chiang to luncheon on February 1 and he spoke to me in an admiring tone of the high qualities of General Chiang as a national leader.
In view of the fact that Dr. Tsur is new to the political atmosphere of Nanking, I thought it advisable not to endeavor to extract much concrete information from him at this first interview.
Respectfully yours,
Counselor of Embassy
- Neither printed.↩
- See vol. iii, pp. 34 ff.↩