794.00/239: Telegram

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

259. 1. Recent utterances of Japanese officials as reported in various telegrams from this Embassy, including the statement issued today to foreign news correspondents by the Information Board, convey the impression that the Japanese Government has become seriously disturbed by the reaction abroad to recent Japanese moves in connection with the southward advance, particularly the penetration into Indochina and Japanese naval movements in Camranh Bay. The local press also has recently tended to play down the gravity of the situation and also to fasten blame on Great Britain rather than on the United States. Among other manifestations of this reaction abroad may be mentioned (a) the President’s reported statement in press conference that if the United States should happen to get into war in the Far East, it would not affect deliveries by the United States to Great Britain; (b) the reported statement by the Australian Government indicating the acute situation in the Far East; (c) the action of the Netherlands East Indies in recalling Dutch ships from the waters of Japan and China; (d) the reported British action in mining the waters of Singapore and in sending troops to the border between Malaya and the Island.

2. Our Japanese contacts, as well as some of my better informed colleagues, sense a certain relation [relaxation] in the recent period of high tension and reflect a more optimistic outlook than hitherto. Mr. Hugh Byas, one of the most astute foreign observers in Japan, feels that there has been “a painless showdown” and that beneficial results are likely to accrue from the recently revealed determination on the part of the four countries mentioned above. I share this view so far as the Japanese Government is concerned but am far from [Page 44] convinced that the government can control the armed forces afield. Only concrete evidence can carry such conviction.

3. In the meantime many indications come to us that beneficial influences are at work. Hirota,2 who reflects the opinion of important elements associated with the Black Dragon Society, recently said to one of my reliable colleagues in confidence that Matsuoka is pursuing a policy fatal to Japan and that by allying Japan with the Axis and by further antagonizing the United States with his provocative declarations he was unwittingly acting for the best interests of Soviet Russia whose greatest wish is to see open hostilities between the United States and Japan when Soviet Russia could effectively stab Japan in the back. These and other critics of the government hold that by its precipitous and ill-considered adherence to the Axis, Japan has imprudently and uselessly permitted herself to be deprived of her liberty of action as a result of a blackmailing maneuver on the part of Germany [and?] risks “waking up one of these days in a full state of war with the United States, a certain victim of a push from behind on the part of the Soviets.” Reliable informants state that this reasoning by the opposition has finally impressed the Government itself and that Matsuoka found it necessary to repeat it to his German friends, drawing their attention to the unilateral hazards which up to the present are the only results of the pact for Japan. The Germans meanwhile are leaving nothing undone to bring about a Japanese-American war, justifying their efforts with the argument that in case of war the United States would confine itself to defensive action in the Pacific in order to bring to bear its entire offensive effort in Europe.

4. Important circles furthermore aver that the Foreign Minister hastened to sign the recent provisional fisheries agreement with the Soviets for one year without regard to the costs of the operation. If Matsuoka, they continue, hopes to be able to make a personal success out of this, he is mistaken, for it is obvious that this agreement was brought about only by the desire of the Soviet Government to chastize Chiang Kai-shek for his recent misconduct in regard to Chinese Communists.

5. The foregoing points are merely straws in the wind that the influences mentioned in the Embassy’s 102, January 22, 8 p.m., are not idle and that the government is facing opposition by important elements whose strength, however, can not at present be appraised with assurance. Such appraisal must depend on future developments and upon the “facts and actions” to which I alluded before the [Page 45] America–Japan Society,3 having in mind, of course, not the actions of the Japanese Government but of the Japanese armed forces afield.4

Grew
  1. Koki Hirota, formerly Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister.
  2. December 19, 1940, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. ii, p. 129.
  3. For amplification of this telegraphic report, see Ambassador Grew’s despatch No. 5444, March 13, vol. v, p. 109.