793.00/78: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Bancroft) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 12—9:22 a.m.]
124. Department’s telegram 80, July 2nd, repeated [by] Peking, handed to Foreign Office.86 Commenting on the document the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs said he thought that the point of primary importance was complete accord between the United States, Great Britain and Japan; that Baron Shidehara87 felt very strongly that all other considerations were of minor importance. Japan has received the British aide-mémoire, copy of which he gave to the Embassy, which showed, he thought, a point of view widely different from that of the United States. He felt that the British attitude was too stiff and that it would be unwise to offend the Chinese by practically refusing to consider their statement. Yet Japan could not ignore the disturbances in China and something ought to be said to make the Chinese feel that they had some responsibility in the matter. Japanese and British had been killed without anything being done by China to show that it felt any responsibility whatever.
So far as our instructions to Peking were concerned he felt that the Japanese were sympathetic with paragraph 1 and with the second part of paragraph 2 dealing with extraterritoriality. In his opinion they did not much differ from the views of MacMurray and Shidehara as expressed in their interview in Tokyo.
With reference to the Customs Conference, he felt that it would be unwise to go beyond the terms of the Washington Conference agreements or of existing treaties. He felt that it would be inopportune to discuss such matters as tariff autonomy under existing conditions.
He said that the Japanese position would be defined early this week and the Foreign Office would then be able to discuss the matter more fully. Peking informed.