Office of the Historian

793.94119/387: Telegram

The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State

Tokyo, January 16, 1938—3 p.m.
[Received January 16—7:20 a.m.]

32. My German colleague was this morning informed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs that the Japanese Government declines to [Page 30] accede to the request of the Chinese Government for further definition and elucidation of its proposed peace terms and that the peace overtures are therefore finished. The German Embassy informs me that the tentative peace exchanges have been going on for some time and that this final break is due to the unwillingness of the Japanese to commit themselves further by making more specific their terms, particularly their military terms, as requested by the Chinese Government.

As a result of this rupture of the tentative peace exchanges the Japanese Government at noon today issued the following statement. (See our 31, January 15, 6 p.m.).

[Here follows text of statement printed in Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, volume I, page 437.]

Repeated to Peiping for relay to Johnson.

Grew