851G.014/17: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Japan ( Dooman )
133. Department’s instruction 1705, April 11, 1939.30 On May 17 the Department addressed to the Japanese Ambassador a note in which reference was made to the memorandum left by Mr. Suma on March 31 and in which it was stated inter alia that the Government of the United States does not consider that all islands or reefs within the extensive area delimited in the Japanese memorandum could properly be treated as one island group or that the action of Japan in blanketing within the territory of Japan islands or reefs with respect to which the Japanese Government has heretofore exercised no acts which might properly be regarded as establishing a basis for claim to sovereignty has any international validity.
Text of the note is being mailed.31
- Not printed; it transmitted copies of the two documents of March 31 printed in Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, pp. 277 and 278 (851G.014/8).↩
- ibid. p. 280.↩