Office of the Historian

793.94112/310: Telegram

The Consul General at Shanghai (Gauss) to the Secretary of State

Shanghai, January 24, 1940—6 p.m.
[Received January 24—3:13 p.m.]

70. Reference my No. 7, January 3, 6 p.m. regarding opening of Yangtze.

1.
Inspector General of Customs informs me that Japanese Counselor of Embassy on January 20 handed him a memorandum incorporating Japanese “requests” regarding reopening of customhouses at Nanking and Chinkiang in the near future, perhaps early March.
2.
Before acting in the matter the Inspector General feels that he should know whether the interested powers desire reopening of the Yangtze to Nanking as proposed by the Japanese. He inquires as to the attitude of American Government. If the powers desire opening of river, he feels that they must be prepared to take action at Chungking to ensure that he will not receive peremptory instructions forbidding him to reopen the customhouses. He anticipates that unless such action is taken he may be ordered not to reopen and this situation would be taken advantage of by Japan either to postpone opening the river on the ground that the customs refuse to cooperate, or on the other hand to impair integrity of the customs by the Japanese or puppet regimes reopening customhouses with their clerical personnel.
3.
Inspector General has made similar approach to British and French Embassies which are reporting to their Ambassadors34 now at Chungking. British Embassy here is suggested [suggesting?] to Ambassador that a reply be sent to Inspector General to effect that [Page 487] if and when the Yangtze is opened it is hoped that the customhouses will be operated under Inspector General and that it is desired that latter keep Embassy informed of developments and advise Embassy in advance when he proposes to report to the Chungking Government, the Ambassador meanwhile to consider what if any approach might effectively be made at Chungking.

Repeated to Chungking, Peiping. Cipher text to Tokyo by air mail.

Gauss
  1. Sir Archibald J. K. Clark Kerr and Henri Cosme, respectively.↩