Office of the Historian

893.102 Kulangsu/287: Telegram

The Counselor of Embassy in China (Lockhart) to the Secretary of State

Peiping, January 22, 1940—3 p.m.
[Received January 22—9:33 a.m.]

81. Department’s 19, January 18, 7 p.m., to Peiping, Peiping’s 30, January 20, noon, to the Department77 and Amoy’s January 20, 11 a.m., to the Department.

1.
Inasmuch as the section of the agreement of October 17, 1939,78 between the Kulangsu Municipal Council and the Japanese relates to the employment of additional police provides that the former will consider the appointment of 10 additional Formosan policemen when it considers its financial condition allows, it seems to the Embassy that the question of additional employment of Formosan police rests solely and exclusively with the Kulangsu Council and since the question has been referred to a subcommittee the better course would appear to be to leave the matter for negotiation between the Council authorities and the Japanese, the American Consul confining himself at least for the present to giving advice to the Council should it be sought. It is my understanding that the Council is already in straitened [Page 836] financial circumstances with high taxation for 1940 and in prospect and inasmuch as the financial condition of the Council would presumably be the determining factor in the matter of increasing the police force it is assumed that the Council will not be in a position to grant the Japanese demand.
2.
The Japanese appear to be employing substantially the same tactics at Amoy that they have been employing at Shanghai for many months in the matter of strengthening their hold there on the police administration of the International Settlement.79 There is every probability that the Japanese demands at Amoy are largely political rather than a genuine desire for added police protection and that it is a part of a policy of ultimately dominating the administration of the Kulangsu Council and ultimately to dominate the International Settlement at Shanghai if it can be accomplished. One assassination whether of a political character or not would scarcely warrant such a heavy additional financial burden on the Kulangsu Council as the granting of the demands would entail. If representations should be made now or later, it is respectfully suggested that they be made both at Amoy and Tokyo at substantially the same time.

Repeated to Chungking and Amoy, code text by airmail to Tokyo.

Lockhart
  1. Neither printed.↩
  2. See telegram of October 17, 1939, 9 p.m., from the Consul at Amoy, Foreign Relations, 1939, vol. iv, p. 162.↩
  3. See pp. 727 ff.↩