751G.94/33: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received 1:17 p.m.]
405. Department’s 144, August 14, 9 p.m. I delivered the Department’s message to the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs August 19, 5 p.m. He asked me to inform the Department that he had received a telegram from the Chinese Ambassador at Vichy reporting that the Minister of Colonies informed him in a conversation on August 16, 2 p.m. that while he himself advocated stiff resistance to the Japanese demand for permission to transport troops over the Indochina railway to invade Yunnan, his colleagues who favored temporizing with Japan formed a majority in the Cabinet and the Government’s policy would therefore be one of watching and waiting.
The Minister of Colonies expressed the view that in presenting this demand the attack on China was merely a pretext and that the real Japanese objective was to drive Occidental interests out of the Orient. In a later telegram, likewise despatched on August 16, Koo reported that he had learned from a confidential source that the French Government had that day received an ultimatum from the Japanese Government demanding a favorable reply to its earlier request for permission to transport troops and establish two or three naval bases in Indochina and that the Cabinet had held a meeting and telegraphed [Page 83] instructions to the Governor General of Indochina not to carry out the earlier instructions sent to him to resist a landing of Japanese troops in Indochina if it should be attempted. Dr. Wang regarded this intelligence as extremely grave.
Sent to Department, repeated to Peiping. Peiping repeat to Tokyo.