793.94/1978: Telegram
The Chargé in Japan (Neville) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 5—9:50 a.m.]
175. Department’s 181, October 3, 2 p.m. I saw the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs today. He told me that Baron Shidehara was unable to see me as the new Chinese Minister was presenting his credentials and the Foreign Minister was in attendance at the Court for the occasion. I asked Mr. Nagai if that meant that the Chinese were prepared to negotiate. He said that he hoped so but that so far there had been no indication of it.
[Page 114]I then asked him what the situation was in Manchuria. He told me that the Japanese were gradually drawing their troops inside the railway zone and that this policy would be continued. He said that they felt that it was impossible to draw them all in immediately, as there was no adequate police protection in some places. He said that the Japanese were now as always prepared to negotiate with the Chinese but that up to the present the latter had refused to do so. Until some new development took place, the Japanese Government was of the opinion that the only course to follow was one of calm waiting.
He said that in Manchuria women and children were being brought into the railway zone and it looked as if conditions were settling down and the Japanese Government hoped they would soon be peaceful and that matters could be cleared up by discussion. I asked him what matters would be discussed. He said it would depend largely upon the personnel of whatever commission might be appointed. I asked him whether he expected to clear up all the pending questions. He said that would hardly be possible as there were so many individual claims. In reply to my question he said they hoped to settle in principle a number of outstanding questions. I gather, although he did not say so directly, that the Japanese hope to settle a number of things, such as the Korean trouble with land, land rights and similar matters and let the individual cases be settled locally in accordance with the principles laid down by which negotiations may take place.
He then said that conditions in the Yangtze Valley were causing much anxiety, the boycott has affected the Japanese seriously, and it has been necessary to bring Japanese families into Hankow and similar large centers for protection. I am inclined to think that the Japanese merchants and traders in the Shanghai and Hankow region have been urging a speedy settlement on their Government, as Nagai told me that the Foreign Office had been receiving a number of protests from Japanese in Shanghai that the Government’s course was not helping them and that they were losing business very fast. I asked him if this situation was new. He said that to a certain extent it was chronic but that the Manchurian incident had undoubtedly helped to make it acute. He said that Japanese business was suffering badly.
Before I left he told me that he would look into the question of the wireless station and the reasons if and why it is kept idle. He admitted that closing it to us did not seem reasonable.
I left the Foreign Office with the distinct impression that, (1) the Japanese do not at present intend to do anything in Manchuria until they have heard from the Chinese, that they will not pull their troops back into the railway zone until they have some sort of assurance of the safety of Japanese life and property there, and, (2) that the [Page 115] general condition of Japanese in China is causing the Government here much anxiety, especially as the jingo element is becoming noisy.
Repeated to Peiping.