Office of the Historian

693.002/402: Telegram

The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State

Tokyo, November 28, 1937—4 p.m.
[Received November 28—8:50 a.m.]

576. Department’s 318, November 27, 1 [2] p.m.

1.
In delivering our signed note12 I talked with the Minister for Foreign Affairs concerning the Chinese customs for nearly an hour this Sunday afternoon. My British colleague will see him also today and my French colleague tomorrow morning, all presenting signed notes.
2.
The salient point of our conversation was Hirota’s admission that he does not know what is going on in the customs talks in Shanghai but he gave me three assurances:
(a)
That no American interests in the Chinese Customs ivill be harmed:
(b)
That if anything occurs in that connection which the American Government does not like I am to come to him and he “will take care of it”; and
(c)
That he will instruct the Japanese Consul General in Shanghai that if our Consul General turns to him for information he is to keep Gauss advised of all developments and to give full consideration to any suggestions which Gauss may make in connection with American interests in the customs.
3.
While the foregoing is practically a verbatim statement of Hirota’s assurances as expressed to me, nevertheless I think from the context of his further remarks that we must interpret them as applying to our concrete interest in the customs revenue rather than to a general interest in the inviolability of the Customs Administration. He entered into a long academic discussion of the precise meaning of the term “integrity” which however led nowhere.
4.
The Minister’s further remarks may be summarized approximately as follows: He himself is primarily concerned with protecting foreign interests in China; he is making every endeavor to do so; if the Japanese occupation of Shanghai has to extend for a year or two many difficult problems will arise which will complicate this. He therefore earnestly hopes that the occupation may prove to be brief. At present there are no Chinese authorities in Shanghai as there are in Tientsin and the Customs Administration is out of touch with the Nanking Government. He nevertheless referred to the customs arrangement concluded in Tientsin as an “example” leaving me to [Page 890] infer that some similar arrangement may be contemplated in Shanghai but he frankly confessed that “he does not know.”
5.
Summarizing briefly the entire conversation: the Foreign Minister made no admission of the principle that no new arrangement affecting the Customs Administration or revenues can properly be made without the approval of the American Government but he is willing that the American Government through Gauss should be kept informed of any new arrangement which may be proposed by the Japanese and that its views would be given full consideration.
6.
In presenting our case I orally used every possible argument but felt that they fell on rather barren ground. He said that our representations would require study and that he would reply to our note in due course.

Repeated to Shanghai.

Grew
  1. For text of note dated November 28, see Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 730.↩