711.93114A/62: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in Switzerland (Harrison)
1478. If Swiss Government has not protested Fontanel’s difficulties to Tokyo, reference your despatch 7484 of March 6,29 and is disposed to ask Gorgé to bring them to the attention of the Japanese Government, the Department would be glad to have a communication in the following sense made by Gorgé to the Japanese Government in this connection in reference to Department’s 1347, April 19:
“There has been brought to the attention of the Department of State what appears to be an unnecessarily restrictive attitude on the [Page 941] part of the Japanese Consulate General at Shanghai in dealing with the interests of American nationals and with the Swiss representative who is charged with their protection. This Japanese office is either unaware of or evidently misinterprets the reciprocal obligations assumed by the Japanese Government toward the United States Government in such matters. On the assumption that the Japanese Government wishes to avoid misunderstandings with respect to the extent of its fulfillment of the commitments voluntarily assumed in respect of American nationals and their interests, it is suggested that it take appropriate steps to enlighten the local Japanese authorities dealing with such matters regarding the purpose and character of such commitments and to forbid their defeating the reciprocal accomplishments thereof by local restrictive regulations of their own invention.”
Department will await with interest report of action taken and results obtained.
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Not printed; it transmitted a memorandum prepared on August 9, 1943 by the Swiss Consulate General at Shanghai regarding the protection of American, British, and Netherlands isnterests in occupied China. The memorandum said in part:
“While nominally friendly, relations with the Japanese Consulate General, on whose intermediary the Swiss Consulate General in almost all matters depends, are in actual practice far from satisfactory. There is a definite lack of co-operation and a pronounced tendency on the part of the Japanese Consulate General to ignore the duties of the Protecting Power and to resent any intervention on their part in favour of the Protected Nationals. Letters to the Japanese Authorities remain in most cases unanswered. In the few cases where a reply is received it is usually with great delay. On hardly any actions taken by the Japanese Authorities against enemy nationals, has the Swiss Consulate General received any prior information; thus, for instance, while the internment of enemy nationals had been proceeding already for 2 months, the Japanese Authorities maintained complete silence and on specific inquiry, pretended not to be in a position to give any information because the camps ‘did not officially exist’. The usual reply on almost all issues has been that matters are under consideration or that they have to be referred to the Central Authorities in Tokyo. In several instances we have experienced that while the local authorities declared themselves incompetent to decide on a particular issue, information from the Swiss Minister in Tokyo purported that the local Authorities were fuller authorized by the Caimusho to take all necessary decisions on this spot.
In reply to personal representations on important subjects, the Japanese Consular Authorities have regularly advanced the entirely untenable argument that under the Japanese Military regime in occupied China the representative of the Protecting Power may only lend his good offices, but could not claim any such rights as might be recognized under international law to the same representative in Japan proper.” (711.98114A/62)
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