Office of the Historian

793.94/8876: Telegram

The Counselor of Embassy in China (Peck) to the Secretary of State

Nanking, July 20, 1937—4 p.m.
[Received July 20—2:35 p.m.]

306. Our 302, July 20, 2 a.m.

1.
Hidaka, Counsellor of the Japanese Embassy, has just held a long conversation with me. Brief summary follows:
2.
His conference with the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs July 20, 8 a.m., occupied 2 hours. First 15 minutes were consumed by each waiting for the other to introduce the principal subject of the conversation. Finally the Minister inquired whether the Counsellor had received his reply Monday afternoon. The Counsellor asked in surprise whether the aide-mémoire was intended for a reply. The answer was affirmative. The Counsellor pointed out as he had done the previous day to the bearer that the Chinese aide-mémoire was unsatisfactory in that (1) it did not state whether the Chinese Government would cease from provocative acts by which the Japanese aide-mémoire meant sending additional troops into Hopei and (2) did not say that the Chinese Government would cease from impeding local negotiations in the North. The Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs referred to the proposal in his aide-mémoire that troops of both sides be simultaneously withdrawn and the statement that local settlements should be subject to the sanction of the Chinese National Government as replies to the two questions mentioned. He said that China had committed no provocative acts and could not agree to cease therefrom without giving a false implication. In reference to local settlement he said however (according to the Counsellor) that any suitable settlement reached locally would be welcomed by the Chinese Government.
3.
The Counsellor said that the oral assurances given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs were therefore on the whole satisfactory but they could not materially improve the present gloomy outlook because of two circumstances. The first was the mistake made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs in sending to the Japanese Embassy an evasive and generally unsatisfactory reply to the aide-mémoire of July 17 by the hand of an emissary unable to supplement or elucidate it. The failure of the Minister for Foreign Affairs to grant the request of the Counsellor for a further interview on July 19 compelled the Counsellor to send the document to his Government as being presumably the awaited reply. On receiving it the Japanese Government had immediately [Page 221] issued a statement denouncing it as unsatisfactory. The second circumstance was the publication of the speech made by General Chiang at Kuling (see my 305, July 20, 11 a.m.). These two circumstances had crystallized the situation beyond possibility of improvement by the well intentioned but not plausible explanations of the Minister of Foreign Affairs this morning.
4.
The Counsellor said with apparent sincerity that he personally felt deeply unhappy over the threat of hostilities between Japan and China which in the present temper of the Chinese seemed almost unavoidable. If unhappily the worst should happen he felt there would nevertheless be brighter days after the storm. The Chinese presumably feel that Japan is bluffing but after a sudden and extremely severe punishment they will feel more friendly to Japan. This was the experience after the Chinese-Japanese war.42 At any rate the two countries must continue to be neighbors and the Chinese even if they continue to cherish ill-will will learn not to materialize that sentiment in continual insulting and provocative acts as in the past.
5.
I refrained from arguing but I inquired whether the Counsellor did not think it possible that the sending of large Japanese reenforcements to China had so alarmed the Chinese as to create a heroism of despair. He said that this was possible.
6.
The Counsellor said that mobilization orders for troops in Japan had been approved July 11, issued July 15 and are now being executed. He again earnestly asserted that the sole object of the impending military operations was to compel the Chinese to execute the Ho–Umezu and July 11 agreements and to treat the Japanese with sincerity and respect and that there were no other political objectives such as might be inferred from the number of troops sent to North China.
7.
In order to show appropriate friendliness I asked for an interview with the Minister for Foreign Affairs yesterday. He was too busy and his secretary telephoned that this was true today also. I explained that I merely wished in the absence of the Ambassador to maintain friendly contact.

Sent to the Department, Peiping, Tokyo.

Peck
  1. 1894–95.↩