793.94/12642: Telegram
The Consul General at Shanghai (Gauss) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 12—1:40 p.m.]
386. Following a military review held at the former civic center of the municipality of Greater Shanghai and at which high Japanese military, diplomatic and consular officials were present, General Hata, the new Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Expeditionary Forces in Central China, made a statement to Japanese press representatives. Inter alia, he is reported to have stated that the Japanese Army is ready to cooperate with a new régime in Central China if its basic policies are friendship with Japan and war on the Kuomintang and the Communist Party; that in dealing with third powers “we shall follow the honorable path of justice in accordance with the Government’s foreign policy”; that friction with third powers will arise only should they attempt to interfere with army operations; and that he would exercise caution in dealing with the problem of the International Settlement in view of the complex inter-relationships of foreign interests within it.
Repeated to Hankow and Peiping.