894.02/63
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 3.]
Sir: I have the honor to report that, according to the local papers of May 9, a committee which has been studying the problem of coordination within the Government of conduct of foreign relations, has recommended a drastic reorganization of the Foreign Office. As the recommendations of the committee have not as yet been made public, a discussion of the changes proposed in detailed terms would be premature, but it is understood that the present East Asia Bureau and the Intelligence (Press) Section will be converted into quasi-independent agencies of the Government, but placed under the direction of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The present business of the Foreign Office, other than that now handled by the above-mentioned offices, is to be redistributed between four geographical bureaus (Eastern European, Western European, American and South Seas) and the Treaty Bureau and the Commercial Bureau. The Ministry is to be redesignated as the Ministry of Foreign Policy.
The proposed changes do not reflect merely the desire to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Foreign Office. The tide of nationalism, which is being manifested toward government by a directive organization instead of by personal leadership, has now caught the Foreign Office. There is growing opposition to the conduct of foreign relations by a small group of professional diplomats, whose training and experiences tend to develop an attitude of liberalism, and growing insistence that foreign intercourse be based on that “immutable policy toward China” which is now being implemented by the armed services.
Criticism of the “weak-kneed diplomacy” of the Japanese Foreign Office has been the stock in trade of the reactionaries ever since the Foreign Office was instituted, but such criticism has been especially vehement since the outbreak of the Manchurian conflict in 1931. There has been a prevailing belief for some time that the professional [Page 169] diplomats have not shown a disposition to make a positive contribution toward setting up a foreign policy program unfettered by international commitments calculated largely to preserve the rights in the Far East of Occidental powers. This feeling bore fruit during the last session of the Diet in a plan put forward by the Bureau of Legislation, one of the offices placed under the Prime Minister, to set up an independent agency of the Japanese Government where there would be centralized control over all Japan’s interests in China, including the conduct of relations with China and the development of economic interests in that country. The Foreign Office took strong exception to this plan, on the ground that relations with China needed to be conducted with reference to Japan’s relations with other countries and in the light of conditions existing in other parts of the world—that to isolate China relations would lead to complete confusion. It seemed as if the matter had there ended, especially when provision was made for the establishment of two organizations for the economic development of North China and Central China, respectively. However, whether the Foreign Office promised to make a counter proposal to the Bureau of Legislation, or realized that danger lay in letting matters rest merely with rejecting the plan of that Bureau, a committee of the Foreign Office began a study of the organization of their Department and after 2 months’ work brought forth the plan above-outlined.
We are informed by officials in the Foreign Office that this plan is a compromise. The senior officers in the department—the Vice Minister, Mr. Horinouchi, and the bureau directors—apparently favor the making of modifications in organization with a view to the elimination of friction with other departments on matters relating to China, but without structurally changing the department. The section chiefs and the younger men, however, are agitating for drastic changes—for the centralization of power in matters relating to China, now distributed among the Finance, Overseas Affairs, and Commerce and Industry Ministries, along with the Foreign Office.
We understand that the latter group first proposed the setting up of a Board of East Asian Affairs, to embrace the Manchuria Bureau of the Ministry of Overseas Affairs, and the East Asia Bureau and the Intelligence Section of the Foreign Office. This was to be an agency independent of the Foreign Office, but to be under the direction of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The group of senior men criticized the plan as unworkable, in which position the Minister agreed, but it appears also that Mr. Hirota did not think too well of the counterplan of the senior group, which is, in short, an enlargement of the present East Asia Bureau and the Press Section and their assimilation into a Political Affairs Bureau of which the director would be the [Page 170] Vice Minister. The plan adopted by the Foreign Office committee obviously contains certain features of both plans.
Whether the plan of reorganization has been formally adopted by the Foreign Minister and will be presented to the Prime Minister is not yet known. The important fact is that publication of the plan was followed by a chorus of derision from those quarters whose views on public matters now carry weight. The substance of their observations was that the entire nation had made sacrifice of “blood and treasure” to implement Japanese policy on the Continent, and that the time had come when the exploitation of the fruits of their sacrifices was a matter in which all elements of the community must share, and not be left as a special prerogative of the professional diplomatists or any other special group. The Prime Minister has promised to look into the entire question of the administration of Japanese interests in China, and one can expect to see in due course some interesting developments which will leave some substantial mark on the Foreign Office.
There has been taking place for some years a gradual change in the type of men comprising the more successful group of the Japanese Foreign Service. Such men as Baron Hayashi, Viscount Ishii, and Mr. Matsudaira, who typify the Japanese diplomatist of an epoch now past, are, by their personality, character and enlightened ideals, qualified to take a high place in any society. The standard which formerly prevailed is being gradually and steadily lowered by process of dilution, the men entering the service for the past 15 years being progressively more parochial in their outlook and nationalistic in their attitude. When the process of making the Foreign Office an instrument of reactionary forces will have been completed, one will be able to make the comment that it will then be more truly reflective of national aspirations than it has been in recent years.
Respectfully yours,