Office of the Historian

751G.94/45: Telegram

The Chinese Ministry for Foreign Affairs to the Chinese Embassy37

Chungking, August 19, 1940.

According to telegraphic report from Ambassador Koo: it has been confirmed by a member of the French Cabinet that the Japanese have actually addressed to the Indo-China authorities demands for the passage of troops and for the use of the military aerodromes, and that negotiations are proceeding.

Ambassador Koo also received a confidential report that the Japanese had sent in an ultimatum on August 16 and had already begun to occupy part of the railway in Indo-China. This, however, has not been confirmed by our reports from Hanoi.

Opinions differ among French Cabinet members in regard to the question of resistance. The French Government intimated to Ambassador [Page 82] Koo that certain aeroplanes which France purchased from America had been left temporarily in French possessions in the West Indies for fear of seizure by the British;38 and that movements of the French Navy would entirely depend on whether Great Britain would afford it facilities on its way to the East, and refrain from seizing the ships. Ambassador Koo understands that the French Government has, on the basis of the Four Power Treaty,39 requested the American Government to consult the British Government regarding these two questions of the French fleet and aeroplanes.

Please consult the American Government as to whether its good offices may be invoked in requesting the British Government to afford the necessary facilities to enable the French aeroplanes and fleet to proceed to the East. The French Government has also expressed the earnest hope that part of the American fleet may be dispatched to the Far East.

  1. Translation of telegram handed to the Adviser on Political Relations by the Chinese Ambassador on August 20.↩
  2. For correspondence, see vol. ii, under France, section entitled “Concern of the United States Over the Disposition of French War Vessels and Airplanes in Martinique After the Capitulation of France to Germany.”↩
  3. Signed at Washington, December 13, 1921, Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. i, p. 33.↩