651G.11251/11: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 5—6 a.m.]
577. With reference to recent telegrams on the question of transshipment of war supplies through French Indo-China, the Counselor of the French Embassy in Chungking volunteered the following information in a conversation with a member of my staff on November 30:
- (a)
- a law in effect before beginning of hostilities provided that military supplies could not be shipped through Indo-China unless sanctioned by the Governor General;
- (b)
- following start of hostilities the Japanese informed the French authority that they were aware of foregoing law and also of transshipments of arms and munitions through Haiphong to China. The Japanese considered this activity to be of an unfriendly character, particularly as it involved official sanction on the part of a high French official, and requested that it be stopped;
- (c)
- subsequently the French Government broached the subject at the Brussels Conference of 1937 with a view to seeking American and British assurances of assistance in case of a Japanese move against French interests in the Far East, but the United States and Great Britain refused these commitments; and
- (d)
- the French Government therefore decreed that military supplies for which orders had been placed before the end of October 1937 would be permitted to pass through Indo-China, but that those ordered after that date would be denied shipment.
The informant stated that in his opinion any relaxation in the restrictions now imposed would have to be carried out gradually. He added that after the fall of Canton the Chinese authorities had endeavored to ship approximately 1,000 motor trucks into China via Haiphong and Kwangchouwan and inasmuch as facilities at those ports were limited congestion had occurred. To ameliorate this condition the French authorities had taken steps to limit such shipments, an action which had been misconstrued by the Chinese as an extension of the restrictions applying to transshipments through French territory. He alluded to this as an erroneous conception and said that the French Government had no intention of restricting the passage of commercial products through French territories to China.
Repeated to Peiping for Tokyo.