Office of the Historian

793.94/8821: Telegram

The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State

Peiping, July 18, 1937—11 a.m.
[Received July 18—6:25 a.m.]

255. Embassy’s 253, July 17, 1 p.m.35

1.
The Chinese who is administering Peiping National University during the absence at Kuling of Chiang Monlin and Hu Shih, informed a member of my staff last evening that he and four other representatives of educators in Peiping had a conversation with Sung Che Yuan at Tientsin on the afternoon of July 16. According to the informant, Sung stated that he had not yet signed any agreement and that he was not himself negotiating with the Japanese. The informant said that Sung had apparently not yet decided what course he would pursue. On the one hand Sung expressed the views that (a) he could not sign excessive demands; (b) if he signed such demands, it would only mean that a few weeks or a few months later the Japanese would present fresh demands to him, (c) the 29th Army, which is united in its views about the Japanese, would not submit peacefully to an agreement including excessive concessions to the Japanese, (d) he was willing to agree to mutual apologies, a withdrawal (undefined) of some Chinese forces, punishment in some degree of Chinese immediately involved, and a vague promise to put down anti-Japanese activities. On the other hand he showed lack of determination by (a) stating that it might be advisable for him to enter into some sort of agreement in order to give China a few months more to prepare for war, (b) by criticizing the National Government for not putting him in command of troops approaching from the South and for not sending troops north along the Tientsin-Pukow Railway, and (c) by saying that he might be willing to agree to enforcement of the Ho–Umetsu Agreement. This last admission made the educators uneasy because no one seems definitely to know how broad the terms of that agreement may be. The educators have the opinion that Sung seemed considerably more inclined to refuse to submit to excessive demands than to accept such.
2.
A Secretary of Embassy of the Japanese Embassy informed a member of my staff yesterday that Major General Hashimoto, Chang Tzu Chung, and Chen Chueh Sheng are conducting negotiations in Tientsin; that details of the agreement of July 11 are under discussion; that he assumes that, following settlement of those details, negotiations [Page 200] for a political settlement will be begun; that the Japanese are insisting upon the withdrawal from Peiping of all troops of the 37th Division. The Japanese Embassy informed an American press correspondent later yesterday that the Embassy is pessimistic of a successful outcome because of the disinclination of the Chinese to come to a satisfactory agreement.
3.
Future developments seem to be [depend on?] (a) the degree of determination [of] Sung, (b) the attitude of the 29th Army, (c) the removal of the 29th Army’s suspicion of the National Government, (d) the attitude and actions of the National Government, and (e) the degree of determination of the Japanese. Repeated to Nanking, Shanghai and Tokyo.
Johnson
  1. Not printed.↩