893.102S/1960: Telegram
The Counselor of Embassy in China (Peck) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 4—2:45 p.m.]
626. Following is the Embassy’s translation of a note from the Chinese Foreign Office dated December 2.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs presents its compliments to the American Embassy and has the honor to state that it announced officially a report to the effect that Japanese gendarmes and plainclothes men at Shanghai, in conjunction with the detectives and police of the International Settlement, suddenly searched the residence of Mr. Chao Wei-tsu, Acting Administrative Director of the Board of Directors of Chinese Boy Scouts in the Municipality of Shanghai, at 6 a.m. on November 23, 1939; that Director Chao was then taken to a police station; and that he has not as yet been released.
The Ministry has the honor to observe that the Ministry in repeated communications has consulted with the Embassy in regard to illegal searches and arrests of Chinese citizens by Japanese gendarmes and special service men in the International Settlement at Shanghai and has asked that the Embassy cause instructions to be issued that these practices be rectified and that persons already arrested be returned for action according to law. Having again received a report as described above, the Ministry, aside from addressing a separate communication to the British Embassy, has the honor to indite this third person note for the Embassy’s information, and to request that a telegram be despatched to the Settlement authorities to release Mr. Chao Wei-tsu at once. The favor of a reply is also requested.”
Repeated to Peiping, Shanghai.