Office of the Historian

793.94/15627: Telegram

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

Tokyo, January 25, 1940—3 p.m.
[Received January 25—5:30 a.m.]

43. Department’s 25, January 19, 6 p.m., via Peiping.

1.
We have been giving the most careful consideration to the Department’s instructions in this case and have carefully reviewed our Government’s position and expressed policy since the outbreak of the hostilities in 1937.
2.
We feel that it is in every way right and proper to call the attention of the Japanese Government to the importance of the Yunnan Railway as a means of conveying the personnel of American official establishments to and from Chungking and of the danger through bombing attacks to the lives of Americans lawfully engaged upon the conduct of official duties and of other American citizens. Such representations would not go beyond the scope of our representations in the case of the bombing of the Hankow-Canton-Kowloon Railway in 1937 (Department’s 180, August 30, 193740).
3.
The bombing of the Yunnan Railway does not appear to fall within the category of the many measures taken by the Japanese in various parts of China for the purpose of preempting commercial opportunities but was obviously undertaken by the Japanese for the primary if not the exclusive purpose of preventing military and other supplies from reaching their enemy in the undeclared war.
4.
It is certain in our view that the Japanese Government in reply to the Department’s proposed representations will rest its case on the Japanese contention that the conflict with China confers on Japan the rights of a belligerent. Will our Government then be disposed to take a clear cut stand in opposition to such a contention? Having in mind paragraph 5 of the Department’s telegram No. 3, January 3, 11 a.m., to Shanghai,41 this would not appear to be the case.
5.
In order to avoid meeting this problem, which seems to us to be of considerable importance, I respectfully raise the point whether it would not be preferable to confine our representations in the bombing of the Yunnan Railway to the considerations set forth in paragraph two of this telegram.
6.
Please instruct. Cipher text mailed to Peiping and Chungking.
Grew
  1. Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, Vol. i, p. 490.↩
  2. Foreign Relations, 1939, Vol. iv, p. 424.↩