Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers, 1939, The Far East, Volume III

711.94/1396

The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State ¹⁸

No. 4359

Tokyo, December 1, 1939.
[Received January 10, 1940.]

Sir: A Japanese recently remarked that what Japan most needs at present is a statesman of the calibre of Prince Ito. No such figure, alas, has emerged nor is likely to emerge, and through lack of strong statesmanship Japan is bound to suffer. The Government is weak and is “floundering”. Yet to control and unify the heterogeneous forces in Japan today would require a statesman of almost superhuman ability.

The crux of Japanese-American relations lies in the fact that while the Government is prone to give us soothing assurances, no individual or group in Japan is strong enough to bring about the full implementation of those assurances. There is little doubt that the great majority of Japanese, both in the Government and out of it, who know anything about foreign relationships, want good relations with the United States, but they have yet to grasp securely the power of directing policy and taking measures in the effective way which alone can bring about good relations. International relations cannot thrive on mere pious expressions of intention. I have told them this, and am steadily continuing so to tell them, but it does little good. The outlook for the future relations between the United States and Japan does not now appear to be bright.

It is this outlook that now requires our most careful study and concern.

Two Main Desiderata

Before proceeding further with these observations, I wish to make clear the following point: my functions as American Ambassador to Japan, as I conceive them, and therefore the functions of the Embassy, involve two fundamental duties: first, the maximum protection and promotion of American interests in this field; second, the maintenance and furtherance of good relations between the United States and Japan. Even if and when these two duties are found to be in conflict, we are not relieved of either responsibility. Our efforts must be to endeavor to align, so far as may be possible, these two main desiderata. Our analyses and recommendations must keep both of these primary purposes constantly in view. It then of course devolves upon the Administration rather than upon the Embassy, in the light of larger policy, to determine the course to be followed by our Government.

An Objective Approach

Furthermore, in approaching this problem we must be guided by pure objectivity from which all elements of bias or prejudice, predilection or antipathy, sentiment or emotion must be carefully excluded.

It is, then, in this spirit that I approach the problem. Whatever the thought present in the minds of many Americans who, like myself, regard the future of America in the Far East with many misgivings, there can be no place in my philosophy for the thesis delenda est Japonia.

Principle versus Realism

In shaping the future course of the United States in the Far East our Government, I believe, should have in mind two distinct considerations. First and foremost, the fundamental principles of our international policy which are based upon our own respect for legal commitments and our expectations of a similar respect on the part of other countries. Second, a sense of realism which takes cognizance of the existence of objective facts. When principle clashes with realism and when no way can be found to align them, then the question inevitably presents itself: to what extent, if at all, can we or should we seek adjustment by compromise? Should we ever compromise between principle and realism? We have now attained the desired maximum of our own national entity as well as adequate national strength. International morality, including respect for legal commitments and permanent abandonment of force as an instrument of national policy, has become for us at once a watchword and a religion.

The United States is solemnly (to use that somewhat overworked Wilsonian term) committed to uphold the principles of the Nine Power Treaty, primarily to uphold the territorial and administrative integrity of China and the Open Door. Therein lies the point of principle.

On the other side of the picture, nothing in international affairs can be more mathematically certain (if anything in international affairs is ever certain) than that Japan is not going to respect the territorial and administrative integrity of China, now or in future, has not the slightest intention of doing so and could be brought to do so only by complete defeat. Observance in practice of the Open Door is and will continue to be a matter of degree governed by expediency, not by principle. Herein lies the point of realism.

Can Japan be Defeated?

Given the situation now existing in Europe, there does not now appear on the horizon the possibility of such a defeat being inflicted by any nation or by any set of circumstances, military, social, economic or financial. There may be temporary setbacks or a stalemate in the military field or even, over a course of time, under increasing Chinese pressure, what the military experts call “strategic withdrawal to previously prepared positions”, in other words, withdrawal into North China the control of which was the primary purpose of the so-called “China Incident”; there may be financial and economic difficulties and depression; a pulling in of the belt; perhaps serious hardships; there may be increasing social unrest at home; but of an overwhelming debacle there is little present outlook.

We have already drawn the Department’s attention to the beginning of an inflationary movement in this country, and in a despatch now under preparation¹⁹ there will be discussed the further development of this movement as reflected in slower absorption of government bonds, a large increase in the paper currency, and mounting commodity prices, along with far-reaching measures designed to control prices. Attempts to control the supply and demand of rice are causing wide agrarian unrest. It is our opinion, however, that even if worse came to worst there is realization that Japan has irrevocably committed herself to the continental adventure and is determined to see it through. The majority opinion in the Embassy, which I myself share, does not believe that an American embargo, even if it covered all American exportation and importation to and from Japan, would bring about such a debacle as would cause the Japanese to relinquish their program in China.

Statisticians have proved to their own satisfaction, and will continue so to prove, that Japan can be defeated by economic pressure from without. But the statisticians generally fail to include psychological factors in their estimates. Japan is a nation of hardy warriors. still inculcated with the samurai do-or-die spirit which has by tradition and inheritance become ingrained in the race. The Japanese throughout their history have faced periodic cataclysms brought about by nature and by man: earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, epidemics, the blighting of crops, and almost constant wars within and without the country. By long experience they are inured to hardships and they are inured to regimentation. Every former difficulty has been overcome. Estimates based on statistics alone may well mislead.

“The New Order in East Asia”

During the months since my return from the United States I have carefully and thoroughly studied opinion in Japan, including opinion in the Government, the army, the influential elements in civil life, the business world and the masses, and on one issue that opinion can definitely be said to be unanimous: the so-called “new order in East Asia” has come to stay. That term is open to wide interpretation, but the minimum conception of the term envisages permanent Japanese control of Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, and North China. In the army and among certain elements of the Government and the public the conception is very much broader; those elements would exert Japanese control throughout all of China, or as much of China as can now or in future be grasped and held, including the treaty ports and the international settlements and concessions. Control in Manchuria is already crystallized through the puppet state of “Manchukuo”; control in Inner Mongolia is a problem for the future. It is hoped and expected here that control of North and Central China will be exercised by setting up the two regimes under Wang Kehmin²⁰ and Wang Ching-wei. These plans of course envisage long-term and probably permanent Japanese garrisons to compel subserviency to Japanese interests. It would be difficult to find any Japanese who visualizes “the new order in East Asia” as less far-reaching than the foregoing minimum conception.

The pill will be most carefully sugar-coated, and the Japanese are past-masters at sugar-coating their desiderata and intentions. They say, and many of them actually believe, that all this is being done to bring permanent peace to China in the interests of the incompetent Chinese themselves; theirs is a “Holy War”. They also say, and many of them believe, that it is being done to prevent the spread of communism into Japan proper, thereby casting aspersions, it would seem, on the generally accepted ability of the Japanese police to control and eradicate “dangerous thoughts” within the country. They will tell you, and they do tell you, that once the Wang Ching-wei regime is firmly established and peace once more reigns among the bellicose Chinese who are themselves incapable of maintaining peace, why, then, American interests will be fully respected, the Open Door and equal opportunity will flourish in the land and that everything will be serene. Only a little patience is needed until all this lovely dream gets stabilized as it is quite certain to do. We need not be misled by these assertions.

Japan’s Fundamental Desiderata

We ourselves can epitomize Japan’s fundamental desiderata perhaps better than many Japanese can. They desire:

(1) Strategic protection against a future attack by Soviet Russia, particularly an attack on Manchuria.

(2) Economic security through control of the raw materials in China which Japan herself does not adequately possess. Japan is economically vulnerable.

(3) Eradication of both anti-Japanese and communistic activities and propaganda in China, especially in North China.

The Japanese extremists desire much more, but the foregoing desiderata represent the fundamental and minimum purposes of Japanese aggression beginning with the Manchurian campaign in 1931.

Can the Japanese Military Be Deprived of Control?

To await the hoped-for discrediting in Japan of the Japanese army and the Japanese military system is to await the millenium. The Japanese army is no protuberance like the tail of a dog which might be cut off to prevent the tail from wagging the dog: it is inextricably bound up with the fabric of the entire nation; its ramifications are far too deep for any effective amputation, or any effective withering through discredit. Certainly there are plenty of Japanese who dislike the army’s methods; there is plenty of restiveness at the wholesale impressment of the able-bodied young men to fight in China, of the death and crippling of many, and of the restrictions and handicaps in every-day life entailed by the expenses of the campaign. But that the army can be discredited in the eyes of the people to a degree where its power and prestige will become so effectively undermined as to deprive the army of its control or at least of its preponderant influence in shaping national policy is an hypothesis which I believe no one intimately conversant with Japan and the Japanese would for a moment entertain. It is reluctantly felt that the entertaining of such an hypothesis is unfortunately but unquestionably a case of the wish being father to the thought. Should any coup d’état occur in Japan through social upheaval, there is little doubt that it would immediately lead to a ruthless military dictatorship.

I have spoken of the heterogeneous forces in Japan, forces that even in the army itself are always present, pulling in varying directions; there are bickerings aplenty even among the different military commands in China itself; but on the point of determination with regard to “the new order in East Asia” one can say with conviction that the Japanese are unanimous. However sugar-coated the pill may be, that term means China for the Japanese; it means that whatever other foreign interests are to be tolerated (sic) in China, those interests are to be subject to Japanese control; it means that only the remnants of trade and business and commercial opportunity are to be dispensed after Japanese interests have acquired and enjoyed the lion’s share; and it means, above all, a continued flagrant breach of the Nine Power Treaty through violation of the provisions and principles of that international commitment.

So here we find ourselves squarely faced with a problem which, from all present indications, is to be permanently with us: the problem of principle versus realism. What are we going to do about it?

No Compromise With Principle

First of all, I do not think that our Government can, should or will compromise with principle. Regardless of our past history, it is unthinkable to me, and presumably unthinkable to the Administration and to the great majority of the American people, that in this day and age we should do so. We need not do so. Unless or until the provisions of the Nine Power Treaty are modified by “orderly processes” we should and must respect and honor our own commitments under that agreement.

Two General Courses Open to the United States

Granting a priori that this is our determined position, it appears that two general courses, neither of which involves compromise with principle, are open, each of them susceptible of modification as developments might require.

One course envisages complete intransigence. Unless and until Japan reorientates her policy and actions, both as regards her commitments under the Nine Power Treaty (until modified by orderly processes) and her respect of American rights and interests in China, we would refuse to negotiate a new treaty of commerce and navigation and would, if public demand in the United States calls for it, impose an embargo next winter.

This course would set Japanese-American relations moving on a downward slope to a point from which it would be difficult to bring them back to normal for a long time to come; a treaty less situation, with its attending handicaps to Japanese trade, would start the movement; the imposition of an embargo would greatly accelerate it.

The other course, after endeavoring to consider the situation and outlook from all angles, I believe is in our own interests now and, so far as we can foresee the future, the wiser one to follow. We would say to Japan: “The United States concedes no right and recognizes no compromise with respect to the provisions and principles of the Nine Power Treaty. We, however, desire so far as feasible to maintain good relations with Japan. We await progressive implementation of your assurances that American rights and interests in China will be respected, not only in negative ways, such as cessation of the bombings of American property, indignities to American citizens and the more flagrant interferences with American business and trade, but also in positive ways through the presentation progressively of concrete evidence that American commercial, cultural and other rights and interests are not to be crowded out of China by Japanese measures as hitherto has appeared patently to be intentional. As soon as some definite start is made in presenting concrete evidence to the foregoing effect, we, for our part, with a view to facilitating the efforts of the Government in Tokyo to further such a program, will enter into negotiations for a new treaty of commerce and navigation and concurrently for a modus vivendi of limited duration to tide over a treatyless situation, it being clearly understood that the ratification of such a treaty will depend upon future developments, namely, the progressive implementation of such a program. In the meantime, also depending upon developments, we will endeavor to hold in abeyance the question of imposing an embargo against Japan. Such an effort will obviously depend upon American public opinion and public demand which, in turn, will depend in large measure upon the character of the concrete evidence presented by the Japanese Government that the desired program is being faithfully carried out. As for the Nine Power Treaty, we shall meanwhile confidently await a favorable moment for a reconsideration of the provisions of that treaty through orderly processes.”

How Shall We Meet the Coming Crisis?

Within the next two months we are coming to a crisis in Japanese-American relations, to a possible parting of the ways. One way points straight down hill. A treatyless situation plus an embargo would exasperate the Japanese to a point where anything could happen, even serious incidents which could inflame the American people beyond endurance and which might call for war. The Japanese are so constituted and are just now in such a mood and temper that sanctions, far from intimidating, would almost certainly bring retaliation which, in turn, would lead to counterretaliation. Japan would not stop to weigh ultimate consequences. It would be all very well to say that Japan had brought our action on her own head, that the United States can get along without Japanese friendship and that the dignity and power of the United States cannot tolerate compromise, but such an attitude would be lacking in any constructive element. I think that our dignity and our power in themselves counsel moderation, forbearance and the use of every reasonable means of conciliation without the sacrifice of principle.

This course involves no sacrifice, no compromise with principle, and no detraction from the dignity of the United States. It simply means that we desire and intend to facilitate, not to complicate, the task of the Japanese Government in its efforts to improve relations by curbing the military authorities in China—provided that concrete evidence of such efforts and progressively favorable results from such efforts become patent—instead of rendering that task and those efforts more difficult by complete intransigence. My own present efforts are concentrated on persuading the Japanese Government to bring such evidence clearly before the American Government and people.

It is axiomatic to say that good relations between the United States and Japan are in our own interests. No purely altruistic motives are involved. In our own interests, particularly our commercial and cultural interests, we should approach this problem from a realistic and constructive standpoint. Not only on Japan’s future action but on our own future action too will depend the question whether our relations with Japan are susceptible of improvement or whether they are to go straight down hill. There is no use whatever in quibbling about this, no use in refusing to face facts. The bombings of our property, the personal indignities and interferences, and some of the more flagrant violations of our commercial rights can be stemmed, but unless we are prepared to fight for it, the Open Door, as we conceive it, is not going to be kept open. We have the choice of losing everything or of saving something from the wreckage, while opening the way to a potential building up of our relations with Japan. Whatever course we elect to take should be adopted only after reaching a perfectly clear perception of where the alternative courses will lead, and then of most carefully weighing the pros and cons between them.

In brief, to sum up, I believe that we should now offer the Japanese a modus vivendi, in effect if not in name, that we should commence negotiations for a new treaty, withholding ratification of such a treaty until favorable developments appear to justify such ratification, and that even if Senator Pittman’s proposed resolution passes the Senate, the Administration should withhold the laying down of an embargo against Japan unless and until it becomes’ evident that the efforts of the Japanese Government effectively to ameliorate the present position of American interests in China are futile and hopeless. Such an attitude on our part can conceivably lead to a material improvement of the situation. The thinking Japanese know that they are going to need American help in the reconstruction of China, even if such reconstruction is intended to redound eventually to the paramount interests of Japan. The Government does not wish to sacrifice this and other assets which depend upon good relations with the United States. In the long run we ourselves also shall have much to gain by avoiding a break with Japan, much to lose if a break occurs. Intransigence on our part will accelerate the trend toward such a break. A constructive and transigent attitude on our part can turn such a trend the other way. On January 26, 1940, there is likely to arise the most critical period in the entire history of American-Japanese relations. What are we going to do about it?

In the welter of press comment on this general subject a brief article in the San Francisco Argonaut of November 24 has caught my eye and is copied as an enclosure herein²¹ as pertinent to this discussion. The article sets forth the unwisdom of disrupting our vast trade with Japan at a time when American business is beginning to rise from a deep depression. This article seems to me worthy of thoughtful consideration.

Is an Isolated Japan Desirable?

The argument is often advanced that Japan should and can be brought to terms through isolation. The corollary is furthermore advanced that unless isolated and reduced by economic and financial attrition to the rank of a second or third rate power, it is only a question of time before Japan continues her continental and overseas expansion, involving the Philippines, the Netherlands East Indies and other western possessions in the Far East; that the time to restrain her expansion is now.

With regard to this thesis, I submit the following considerations. The resort to methods calculated to bring about the isolation of delinquent nations must presuppose in the final analysis the use of force. Sanctions commenced but not carried through bring in their wake a loss of prestige and influence to the nation declaring them. Sanctions carried through to the end may lead to war. This statement seems to me to be axiomatic and hardly open to controversy. In my view the use of force, except in defense of a nation’s sovereignty, can only constitute an admission of a lack first, of good-will, and, second, of resourceful, imaginative, constructive statesmanship. To those who hold, with regard to the specific situation with which we are dealing, that it is not enough for good-will and statesmanship to exist only on one side, my rejoinder would be that these factors exist also in Japan, albeit in latent form until now, and that one of the functions of diplomacy is to bring those factors into full vigor. Shidehara²² diplomacy has existed; it can exist again.

There will be time enough to speak of sanctions when the resources of diplomacy will have been exhausted. At the moment of this writing, those resources have not yet been exhausted. By nature not a defeatist, I believe that those resources may yet win the day.

Respectfully yours,

Joseph C. Grew

18. Sent also under date of December 21 to President Roosevelt as “excerpt from my November diary” (Personal Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt at Hyde Park, N. Y.).
19. Not printed.
20. Head of the “Provisional Government” at Peiping.
21. Not reprinted.
22. Baron Kijuro Shidehara, Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs who resigned December 10, 1931.