711.94/1628
Memorandum by the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
At the request of the Foreign Minister I called on him at nine o’clock this evening at the official residence of the Vice Minister (in order to elude the newspaper correspondents who were then at the official residence of the Minister), and in the ensuing conversation the Minister replied both to my oral statement to him of June 19 and also to the suggestion advanced to him on June 24 concerning an exchange of notes for the purpose of recording the intentions of the two Governments with regard to maintenance of the status quo with respect to the possessions in the Pacific area of the belligerent European powers.
As to the conversation of June 19, Mr. Arita said that he had given our oral statement the most careful study and in reply he desired to say that while at first sight it might be held that there were differences between our two Governments, he felt nevertheless that there were “no differences in opinion practically” when one considered the existence of the hostilities now going on in China. The Minister had before him the record of my oral statement of June 19 in which he had underlined certain passages.
With regard to the Department’s paragraph marked “A” the Minister emphasized his agreement with the views as expressed down to the phrase “shall survive”. (In the paraphrased text presented to the Minister on June 19 and sent to the Department by mail this phrase reads “shall endure”). With regard to the Department’s paragraph marked “B” the Minister expressed agreement with the first two sentences. He said that Japan also has the same policy of non-discrimination.
At that point I observed that Japan is not following such a policy toward the United States. The Minister replied that apart from China there is no discrimination against us and that as soon as the hostilities in China cease most but not necessarily all of our grounds for complaint will be removed.
Mr. Arita then handed me his own “oral statement” in reply to my oral statement of June 19 and he said that the Japanese Government entirely agrees with the views of the American Government as therein [Page 90] presented except in so far as those views might be considered as modified by the statement which he was now handing me. This statement was cabled to the Department in our 510, June 28, 11 p.m.75 The Minister then turned to our conversation of June 24 and said that in consideration of the fact that neither Japan nor the United States is a belligerent, the carrying out of the suggestion for an exchange of notes concerning the maintenance of the status quo in reference to the possessions and territories in the Pacific area of belligerent European powers would in his opinion be a somewhat delicate matter. Mr. Arita then handed to me a statement in the Japanese language a translation of which we cabled to the Department in our 512, June 29, 1 a.m.76