793.94/2017: Telegram
The Chargé in Japan (Neville) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 9—7:24 a.m.]
179. The Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs told me today that owing to continued boycotting of Japanese goods and people it [Page 148] was becoming extremely difficult for Japanese to remain in China. Chinese merchants refuse under any circumstances to do any business whatever with Japanese individuals, and banks refuse to cash checks made out to Japanese. In addition the Japanese have been subjected to personal abuse and even violence on a scale which indicates a deliberate plan.
The Japanese Government he said has therefore addressed a note to the Nanking Government15 asking that steps be taken to check this movement and prevent aggravation of the present situation. It informs the Nanking Government that the latter will be held responsible for whatever may be the consequence of failure to suppress the anti-Japanese movement and to afford adequate protection to the lives and property of Japanese subjects in China. The Vice Minister told me further that two cruisers, the Tatsuta and the Tenryu, were being despatched to the Yangtze. I told him that according to a report which has reached me the Chinese believed that Nanking and perhaps other places would be attacked. He said that there was no intention on the part of Japan to occupy any territory; that their forces in the Yangtze region were less than those of the British or the Americans and that no forces would be landed from the Japanese ships until after consultation with the Japanese Consul General in Shanghai.
I do not know what the Japanese intend to do about the boycotting and other matters they complain of. They are somewhat excited and exasperated but hope that they can get the Nanking Government to do something about them. It is possible that they may make reprisals of some sort in case the Nanking Government refuses.
Repeated to Peiping.