793.94/7777: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 5—9:25 a.m.]
50. 1. Chang-Chun96 yesterday told New York Times correspondent, but without as yet giving permission for publication, that (1) China had not agreed and could not agree to Hirota’s three points and no written correspondence had been exchanged and nothing has been initialed or signed in this connection; (2) in November 1935 Chiang Kai-shek informed Ariyoshi that China was willing to consider the three points if comprehensively amplified and defined but [Page 73] Chiang was speaking personally and not as a representative of the Government; and (3) a year ago, while en route to Europe, Wang Chung Hui97 had proposed to Hirota a Chinese three point program involving (a) abolition of unequal treaties, (b) mutual cessation of actions and policies detrimental to the other and (c) settlement of outstanding questions through normal diplomatic means. (Chang-Chun recently remarked to me that he anticipated no immediate discussion of these matters with the new Japanese Ambassador and that he expected that any such discussion when begun would be protracted over a long period.)
2. Two days ago in Shanghai the correspondent interviewed Arita who said that (1) Chiang Kai Shek had given China’s agreement to Hirota’s three points and the Japanese were determined to hold the Chinese Government to that agreement and (2) the attempted military coup in Tokyo would not cause a stiffening of Japan’s attitude toward China because that attitude was already very stiff. (Arita is arriving at Nanking today on a Japanese naval vessel to present his credentials.)
3. T. V. Soong98 gave the correspondent his confidential opinion, not to be ascribed to him, that continued procrastination by the National Government in dealing with Japanese issues would make hostilities between the two countries inevitable and that acceptance of the Japanese program would mean civil war in China.
Repeated to Peiping, Tokyo.