893.51/8–1845: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Hurley) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 19—12:35 p.m.]
1393. Secretary of Treasury from Adler. Minister of Finance informed me on the 16th that the Government is sending Jian Chen, Deputy Governor of Central Bank, to Shanghai as financial commissioner to handle urgent financial problems. Government will impose death sentence for refusal to accept fapi in occupied areas. It intends to redeem puppet currencies of low denominations up to a specific amount and within a specified period not yet determined. The registration of holdings of puppet currency will also be required, no military yen will be redeemed. Minister estimated CRB22a dollar circulation at 500 billion dollars and thought the cost of redemption would not exceed CN 2 billion dollars.
2. In same interview Minister raised question of changing price of gold since official price was substantially higher than open market price. I asked him how termination of war affected his budgetary plans. He replied that it was too early to know yet and intimated that therefore nothing would be done about official price of gold for the time being. [Adler.]
- Chinese Reserve Bank.↩