693.002/1011
The Consul General at Shanghai (Gauss) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 8.]
Sir: With reference to my telegram No. 190 of March 8, 5 p.m., despatch No. 2366 of July 21, 1939,46 to the subsequent telegrams between the Department and the Embassy at Tokyo,47 and to Tokyo’s despatch No. 4213 of November 6, 1939, to the Department,48 regarding the reported intention of the projected Wang Ching-wei “government” to tender the post of Inspector General of Customs under that regime to Sir Frederick Maze, the present National Government incumbent, and to require his definite acceptance or refusal, I have now the honor to enclose copy of a letter from the Inspector General of Customs dated March 6, 1940,49 covering a confidential memorandum submitted to him by Mr. H. Kishimoto, the (Japanese) Chief Secretary of the Customs, from which it appears that the Wang Ching-wei regime will probably appoint Sir Frederick Maze as their Inspector General of Customs, but, in order that the Customs service may not be disrupted, they will likely allow him to continue as Inspector General under the National Government to carry out the orders of the latter Government in respect of Customs affairs in the non-occupied area of China. Mr. Kishimoto suggests that in order to avoid any resulting issues, the Inspector General should neither accept the new regime’s appointment nor refuse it, and he adds that if the interested Powers desire that the integrity of the Service be maintained, they should exercise their influence with the Government at Chungking to induce the latter to overlook the attitude of neither acceptance nor refusal which should be taken by Sir Frederick Maze.
[Page 721]The (Japanese) Chief Secretary further suggests that the Commissioners of the Custom Houses in the occupied area should be allowed to give effect “on the pretext of force majeure” to such requests of the new “government”, communicated through the Superintendent (the Chinese colleague of the Commissioner; appointed by the Japanese sponsored regime) as are considered reasonable from the point of view of the new “government.”
In short, Mr. Kishimoto believes that it will be absolutely necessary for the Inspector General and the Commissioners concerned to give the new regime a certain degree of de facto recognition.
In my opinion, Mr. Kishimoto’s views probably represent those of the Japanese Government, which presumably has taken into consideration the representations made at Tokyo by the American, British and French Embassies, and has modified the original intention to require the Inspector General definitely to accept or reject the appointment to be tendered by the Wang Ching-wei regime, but wishes at the same time to bring the Inspector General and the Customs set-up in the occupied areas into some sort of working understanding with the Japanese sponsored regime in those areas—an understanding which, in fact, already exists in a certain measure in that the Inspector General and the Commissioners of Customs have followed a course of “bending rather than breaking” in their relations with the Japanese and their puppet Chinese regimes.
Respectfully yours,
- Neither printed, but see telegram No. 684, August 3, 1939, noon, from the Consul General at Shanghai, Foreign Relations, 1939, vol. iii, p. 851.↩
- See Department’s telegram No. 297, September 30, 1939, 3 p.m., ibid., p. 861.↩
- Despatch not printed; for its enclosure, note No. 1405, October 26, 1939, see Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 750.↩
- Not printed.↩