761.93 Manchuria/126: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to
the Secretary of State
Tokyo, July 25, 1938—5
p.m.
[Received July 26—11:40 a.m.]
487. Soviet-Manehurian border incident at Changkufeng. The Military
Attaché12 has submitted the following memorandum on the
situation:
- “1. According to information which has reached this
office, the Japanese Government is at present giving
considerable thought to the question of whether military
operations subsequent to the fall of Hankow should be pushed
to the extent of attempting the actual physical destruction
of the Chiang Kai Shek regime, or whether the situation
could be better handled by a relative suspension of
offensive operations after the fall of Hankow and a
resumption of political activity directed toward a
reorganization of Central China along political lines on the
assumption that, with the fall of Hankow, the Chiang
government will in this event have been crushed.
- 2. It has also been reported that there is a relation
between the above question and the recent border incidents,
the most important of which is the occupation of the hill at
Changkufeng by Russian troops. In regard to this incident,
it is reported that there are two factions in the
Government, one advocating positive action with a view to
actually forcing the Russian troops out of the occupied
position, and the other advocating caution and the adoption
of a watchful policy to be accompanied however by certain
precautionary moves on the part of Japanese troops in the
vicinity.
- 3. In other words, viewing the two questions as related,
one school of thought advocates the suspension of military
operations beyond Hankow and a strong handling of the border
situation while attempting the political downfall of Chiang
Kai Shek, while the other leans toward avoiding border
operations in order to operate more vigorously toward a
complete destruction of the Chiang government, and with it
the likelihood of future Russian operations in support of
that government.
- 4. While it is difficult to determine what may be the
Japanese course of action in the present situation, as that
course will obviously be determined by Japanese estimates as
to Russian motives in the present border activities, it is
none the less apparent that these activities have
constituted a sort of diversion which demands careful
consideration in its relation to operations in
China”.
The Embassy has learned from a thoroughly reliable source that since
Shigemitsu13 presented to Litvinoff14 the Japanese demands for the settlement of the
incident and those demands were rejected, the Japanese Government has
done nothing further than to pursue a policy of what our informant
termed “watchful waiting”. According to our informant, a popular version
of the affair is that the Russians
[Page 458]
in occupying the position at Changkufeng were
sounding out the Japanese with a view to ascertaining whether they were
prepared for hostilities on a grand scale, which he added was similar to
the assertion made at the time last year when the Japanese occupied the
islands in the Amur River that Japan was sounding out Russia with a view
to ascertaining whether it was prepared for hostilities on a grand
scale.
Shanghai please repeat to Hankow as our 487, July 25, 5 p.m.
Department please send copy to War Department.
