893.79694/24: Telegram
The Counselor of Embassy in China (Peck) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 20—7 a.m.]
240. 1. The press reports that Huitung Aviation Corporation, said to be a Sino-Japanese enterprise including the Tientsin mayor among its directors but understood to be chiefly Japanese, on June 1, opened commercial passenger air service between Tientsin and Tokyo via Manchukuo or Dairen. According to a responsible official of the Foreign Office, the Executive Yuan early this month issued an order prohibiting the operations of the line on the ground that it had not received the National Government’s approval. This order was ineffective and the line shortly began carrying mail as well as passengers. [Page 114] On June 15 the Foreign Office handed an aide-mémoire to the Japanese Embassy embodying its protest but has not received a reply. Telegraphic requests for information sent by the National Government to Chinese authorities in the north have also been ignored.
2. To the Department. By mail to Peiping, Tientsin, Tokyo.