793.94/10280
Memorandum by the Assistant Secretary of State (Wilson)
The Chinese Ambassador called on me and stated that he had desired to make a visit of courtesy, but after some conversation he got down to business.
He stated that he wanted to keep his Government as closely informed as possible of our attitude and that he had summarized it as follows:
That the American Government felt that it desired to cooperate, but wanted to know what the British and French Governments were doing; he learned from their missions in those two countries that those countries wanted to know what we contemplate; all three seemed to be desirous of cooperation, but none of putting forward suggestions. I stated that there was an additional form of cooperation, which was now coming into line, which was that of the Advisory Committee.45 He asked for information in respect to this; I told him that only one meeting had been held and that it had been proposed to augment the membership by inviting Japan, China, Australia and Germany; the next meeting was set for Monday,46 but would be held earlier in the event that all the replies were in.
The Ambassador then said that he would recapitulate our attitude as follows:
That we were heartily in favor and would do what we could for the maintenance of the sanctity of treaties and orderly relations between states, and that we would cooperate to the maximum with any effort that the other states might initiate. I replied that the Secretary’s statements of July 16th and August 23rd were convincing evidence [Page 545] of our faith in and desire to maintain the sanctity of treaties and orderly intercourse between states, that our willingness to maintain our membership on the Advisory Committee showed that we were desirous of cooperating in finding a method for a peaceful solution. I added that he must, however, realize that our efforts were limited by the state of our public opinion and by our existing legislation.
He then said he knew we hated to talk on hypothetical questions. I agreed. He said he had seen in the papers that Great Britain was contemplating withdrawing its Ambassador as a protest against the bombing of Nanking47 and asked whether we might consider similar action if approached by Great Britain. I told him that when I had read this item in the papers I had had a thought, which was not at all official, but I would tell it to him as man to man. The scene had occurred to me of Craigie visiting Hirota and telling him that the British Ambassador was retiring because of the bombing of Nanking, whereupon Hirota smiled and stated that the Chinese Ambassador had had no such scruples with regard to the bombing of Nanking and was remaining at his post in the normal way. I said, of course, I could not give him any views as to what we would reply if we were approached by the British in this connection.
The question then came up of Chinese maintenance of diplomatic relations with Japan. I asked the Ambassador to elucidate, for my own information only, why China had not declared war, assuring him that I was not urging such a step, but was merely interested. Wang replied that China had not felt it necessary to declare war against marauders since a declaration of war might, to some extent, legalize activities, just as you don’t declare war against burglars assaulting your house; that there was a further reason—the Japanese Government had no control over the military, but that it was hoped that at some time it could establish such control; it was possible that the maintenance of a Chinese Embassy might help the Japanese Government to gain authority with the military people.
- See vol. iv, pp. 1 ff.↩
- September 27.↩
- See also vol. iv, pp. 347–348 and 351.↩