Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1939, The Far East; The Near East and Africa, Volume IV

893.102 Tientsin/454: Telegram

The Chargé in Japan (Dooman) to the Secretary of State

Tokyo, August 12, 1939—noon.
[Received August 12—4:15 a.m.]

402. Reference telegram No. 401, August 11, 8 p.m., paragraph 2, last sentence.¹⁹

1. This morning’s Japanese press is very strong in its disapproval of the British Government’s announcement of the decision to hand over the four Chinese to the local court. The action is declared to be a further attempt by the British to prolong the negotiations until present British conversations with the United States and France on economic questions have been completed. This action was taken, it is reported, in spite of the Japanese Government’s previous warning that it could not approve such an announcement at this time. The press states that the Japanese Government is fully aware of the attempt to isolate the various questions being considered and to settle peace and order problems separately from economic problems and “will not be deceived by such a maneuver.”

2. The British Embassy informs us that no final instructions on the economic issues have been received and that while the Embassy is of the opinion that the matter is urgent they assume that discussions with the United States and France are delaying the final decision of the Foreign Office in London on the currency question.

Repeated to Peiping. Peiping please repeat to Chungking, Tientsin and Shanghai.

Dooman

19. Not printed; the last sentence expressed the likelihood that Japanese reaction to British announcement of a decision to hand over to the Tientsin local Chinese court the four alleged terrorists would be to “view this decision as an attempt to make it difficult” for the Japanese to maintain their position of reserving acceptance of any one point until all others had been settled (893.102 Tientsin/453).