740.0011 P.W./538: Telegram
The Consul at Saigon (Browne) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 28—8:21 a.m.]
98. Since the departure of General Sumita and pending the arrival of Ambassador Yoshizawa,88 the Japanese troops stationed in Southern Indochina appear to have got somewhat out of hand. The number of incidents, such as insulting of French and Annamite police, disregard of French authorities, drunkenness in public, et cetera, has increased considerably but there have been no disturbances in the South comparable to those in the North as reported in telegrams No. 140 and 141 from Hanoi.89
Japanese persecution of Chinese in Saigon and neighboring places is on the increase. Chinese houses are entered and searched and Chinese businessmen threatened with arrest and expulsion from the country if they do not cooperate with the Japanese. The French authorities apparently feel obliged to collaborate with the Japanese in this work and at present about 10 local Chinese are still in prison here (out of 50 imprisoned some 2 weeks ago). The charges against them are mere pretexts such as failure to pay taxes, communism, et cetera. The local Chief of Police and the Governor of Cochin-China have admitted to me and to the Chinese Consul that they are powerless to oppose the Japanese in this connection.
The Chinese Consul spends most of his time at a nearby hill station to which he fled some weeks ago at the suggestion of the Chief of Police in order to avoid threatened assassination by the Japanese. The large Chinese community is nervous and critical of his absence from his post at [this] time, but it is obvious that there can be no adequate protection of Chinese interests here if the only recourse is to the powerless Indochinese Government.