893.00/14085
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 19.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Embassy’s telegram from Nanking No. 107, March 8, 4 p.m., concerning the statement of foreign policy issued that day by Dr. Wang Chung-hui, newly appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, and to enclose for purposes of record the text of Dr. Wang’s statement58 as handed to an officer of the Embassy by the Director of the Department of Intelligence and Publicity of the Foreign Office and subsequently released to the press.
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5. The Chinese attitude can not be dismissed as one merely of scepticism or cynicism. It is based in part upon a comparatively recent sense of security and self-reliance. The Chinese have grown to feel somewhat secure from overt military action by the Japanese because they have come to realize that the Japanese desire to avoid becoming involved in any major military operations in China or on the Siberian border. This realization seemed to strike the Chinese Government in September 1936 and grew out of the approaches which Mr. Kawagoe59 made to the Chinese Foreign Office in regard to the settlement of outstanding issues, including the Chengtu, Pakhoi and Shanghai incidents. Leaders of the Chinese Government appeared then to have become receptive to the idea that the number of such incidents had imbued the Japanese with a sincere anxiety lest there occur a recrudescence of anti-Japanese sentiment which would sweep over China and jeopardize the general safety of Japanese lives and property in this country. The failure of the Japanese Navy to take action at Pakhoi when the 19th Route Army (whose startlingly successful resistance of the Japanese Navy in Shanghai in 1932 has never been avenged) refused to permit the landing of either Chinese or Japanese investigators, [Page 54] gave the Chinese a most impressive cue as to Japan’s reluctance to embark upon a major military adventure. Chinese officials stated, during the Kawagoe-Chang Chun conversations, that both the Chinese [and] Japanese were “playing poker”; the Chinese Foreign Office hoped to bluff the Japanese Embassy, and it succeeded in doing so, for the incidents were settled individually and not in connection with the Japanese demands for a settlement of “fundamental issues”. The Japanese swallowed their demands rather than press the issue to a dangerous point or to what they feared might be a dangerous point.
To this Chinese sense of partial security, the successful repulsion in November 1936 of Japanese-directed “irregulars and bandits” who invaded Suiyuan added a new feeling of self-reliance concerning the handling of matters arising in North China and, until there occurs some incident to undermine their confidence, the Chinese are not to be stampeded into meeting Japanese desires. Since they realize, too, the nature and purpose of Japanese aims in China, they may be expected to regard cynically any new and professedly friendly approach by the Japanese which is not supported by concrete evidence of good faith. For the moment such evidence would consist in no less than the abolition of the East Hopei régime and the suppression of the smuggling of Japanese goods into North China.60
6. Neither the abolition of the East Hopei régime nor the suppression of smuggling, however, would necessarily constitute more than a temporary move by the Japanese toward a fundamental readjustment of the North China situation. Laying aside the question of the so-called Ho–Uyemetsu agreement,61 which is a matter of dispute, no actual readjustment is possible so long as the Tangku Truce of May 31, 1933,62 continues in operation. The existence of the East Hopei régime and the circumstances which make successful smuggling possible are due fundamentally and primarily to the Tangku Truce.
It is doubtful whether at the time of the formulation of this agreement, either the Japanese or Chinese realized the full significance of its terms. It will be recalled that the Truce provided that: (1) Chinese troops would completely withdraw to the west and south of an irregular line connecting Lutai, Hopei, and Yenching, Chahar, and would undertake not to advance beyond that line; (2) Japanese troops might at any time make observations to confirm the execution of this provision; (3) Chinese police would maintain peace and order [Page 55] north and east of the line. In other words, by this agreement the Chinese relinquished military jurisdiction (which is tantamount to relinquishing effective civil jurisdiction) over some 5,000 square miles of intramural territory in Hopei Province and, since Yenching is in the southeastern corner of Chahar, over most of that province. It could be argued that the agreement gave de facto recognition to Japanese jurisdiction in Manchuria and Mongolia. In any case, as subsequent developments proved, the agreement, by removing active military opposition to Japanese jurisdiction in Manchuria, enabled the Japanese to suppress rebels, “volunteers” and bandits in Manchuria and consolidate their position there. Since the “volunteers” fighting the Japanese in Manchuria had been directed to some extent from this intramural area and had received much of their supplies therefrom, the creation of a buffer region was of paramount importance to the Japanese military and will continue to be so. It is accordingly unlikely that the Japanese will be willing to abandon the benefits accruing to them from the Truce. The converse rather will be true for by a logical process the creation of a buffer region for the protection of “Manchukuo” creates another more distant boundary requiring protection and demands the creation of a second special area for the protection of the first. Japanese hopes for the establishment of an autonomous or semi-autonomous five province régime in North China have developed naturally out of these circumstances and it is difficult to imagine that any reorientation of Japanese policy toward China, sincere or otherwise, unified or dual, will include a rectification of this situation.
7. The conclusion to be drawn is that there is no reason to assume that Japan has actually embarked upon a revolutionary change in policy toward China, or upon any new orientation of policy which will be more than temporarily beneficial to this country, except insofar as a temporary lessening of Japanese pressure may be considered beneficial. On the contrary, it seems likely that the mooted change in policy, such as it is, will pretend to place emphasis upon so-called economic cooperation and only ostensibly leave political questions in the background. Some indication of this appears in today’s press despatches from Tokyo* which state that the Japanese Economic Mission has been a failure because Chinese officials and businessmen insist upon discussing political questions before considering economic questions, and Japan therefore has no alternative but to go on with the “economic development” of North China as already planned.
Respectfully yours,
- The text of statement transmitted to the Embassy was substantially the same as that contained in telegram No. 107, March 8, 4 p.m., from the Ambassador in China, p. 35.↩
- Shigeru Kawagoe, Japanese Ambassador in China.↩
- See also pp. 848–859, passim.↩
- Alleged secret agreement between the Chinese War Minister and the Japanese Army Commander in North China, May–July, 1935; see despatch No. 332, March 27, 1936, from the Ambassador in China, Foreign Relations, 1936, vol. iv, p. 89.↩
- Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 120.↩
- Domei, quoting the Tokyo Asahi. [Footnote in the original.]↩