793.94/14721: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan ( Grew ) to the Secretary of State
Tokyo
, February 17,
1939—7 p.m.
[Received February 17—7:08 a.m.]
[Received February 17—7:08 a.m.]
95. Department’s 40, February 15, 8 p.m. Instructions carried out in an interview with the Minister for Foreign Affairs this afternoon.18
The Minister said that the purpose of the occupation of Hainan Island is to strengthen the blockade of the South China coast and to [Page 111] hasten the suppression of the Chiang Kai Shek “regime”. Arita repeated the former statements of the Japanese Government that Japan has no territorial ambitions in China and added that the occupation “will not go beyond military necessity”.
Grew
- For Ambassador Grew’s memorandum of February 17, see Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 830.↩