793.94/5877
The Counselor of Legation in China (Peck) to the Minister in China (Johnson)36
Dear Mr. Minister: I received last night your confidential telegram of January 17 regarding the relation between Japanese military activities at Shanhaikwan and the Protocol of 1901, and shall be guided by the Department’s instruction.37
Dr. Hsu Mo38 dined with me last night and in a few moments of private conversation he gave me, in substance, the report telegraphed by Dr. Alfred Sze of the observations made by the Department, which observations were likewise summarized in your telegram under acknowledgment. Dr. Hsu Mo dissented from the view of the Department that the Japanese military activities at Shanhaikwan originated primarily from the conflict between China and Japan. He said that it was the Japanese forces stationed at Shanhaikwan under the provisions of the Protocol of 1901 which started the trouble. Your telegram had not been decoded at the time of this conversation, having but just arrived, so I merely indicated a receptive frame of mind. Dr. Hsu Mo said that Sze had reported that in the Department’s view the hostilities were carried on by Japanese airplanes, tanks, naval vessels, etc. whose presence in that neighborhood was not accounted for by the Protocol.
I sent you two copies of my despatch No. D–419 of January 12, 1933, addressed to the Department.39 In this despatch I ventured the supposition that Dr. Hsu Mo’s allusion to the Japanese abuse of rights claimed under the 1901 Protocol was based upon a Reuter telegram from Tokyo stating that the Japanese Government had cabled instructions to the Commander of the Japanese Garrison in North China “to demand the withdrawal of the Chinese troops outside the two mile limit of the Railway in accordance with the Boxer Protocol”. I asked Dr. Hsu Mo last night whether this was what he had in mind and I referred to the fact that the United States was not a party to the two mile understanding. Dr. Hsu Mo said he was aware that the United States was not a party to that understanding and added that he had not had this understanding in mind when he referred to the attempted abuse of 1901 Protocol privileges by the Japanese. What he had in mind was the opening of hostilities by [Page 114] the Japanese Garrison at Shanhaikwan stationed there under the terms of the Protocol itself.
Dr. Hsu Mo showed no resentment at the position taken by the Department as reported by Dr. Sze, and although he did not mention to me the Department’s statement referred to at the end of your telegram under acknowledgment, he seemed satisfied with what Dr. Sze had reported.
I am sending copies of this letter to the Department of State, referring to my despatch to the Department of January 12, 1933.
Yours very truly,