793.94/9234: Telegram
The Counselor of Embassy in China (Lockhart) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 7—9:30 a.m.]
398. Nanking’s August 5, 10 a.m. I am unable to discover any outward signs in the Peiping area indicating any special preparation now [Page 336] in progress on the part of the Japanese for an immediate drive southward unless the additional forces and equipment described in Tientsin’s 19, August 5, 6 p.m., can be said to be such an indication. The general military situation is [in] this area has shown no substantial change in the past 3 days, with the possible exception that there are now some signs that the Japanese Army may take means by which to drive out the Central Government troops now near Nankow. It is realized, however, that a change could take place in a few hours in connection with some new “incident.” The Chinese population at Peiping has remained amazingly calm thus far under circumstances which a few years ago would have thrown them into a panic.
The Embassy here, in reply to inquiries from missionaries at nearby summer resorts who desire to return to their posts in the interior, has advised them to postpone their return.
Japanese diplomatic and military officers during the past few days have been unusually restrained in giving information to newspapermen and others, and there is reason to believe that they themselves do not know what form the next developments will take. Their guarded statements usually do not go beyond the assertion that a continued movement towards, and concentration in, the north of Central Government troops will lead to the expansion of military operations. If this should take place and the Japanese should by some circumstance not now forseeable suffer a severe defeat, leading to military and political chaos, protection of Americans by our own forces [would be?] difficult, the question of the evacuation of American citizens from North China might then arise. But the present signs do not point in that direction.
Repeated to the Department, Hankow and Canton.