793.94/3213: Telegram
The Minister in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Paraphrase]
Your 135, December 12, 3 p.m.
- (1)
- The Department’s telegram is being repeated to me by the Embassy in Japan, but it is arriving in such garbled form as not to be completely decipherable so far.
- (2)
- While I was absent in Shanghai, on December 13 the Consul General at Nanking mentioned to Dr. Wellington Koo the interest of the Department in the matter of establishing a neutral zone at Chinchow. Koo told Peck of the very strong opposition of the Chinese people to the idea of agreeing to a neutral zone. Koo pointed out that the Chinchow territory was all that remained under Chinese administration in Manchuria and that any advice by the Chinese Government to withdraw Chinese forces from this region was much opposed by popular sentiment.
- (3)
- Chinese students today held a demonstration in front of the Foreign Office here and nearly penetrated into a session of the Central Executive Committee at Kuomintang headquarters. The police forcibly ejected them after they had attacked certain responsible members of the Nanking Government attending this meeting. President Chiang Kai-shek has resigned, and the President of the Legislative Yuan, Lin Sen, has been made Acting President of the National Government. General Chiang has been succeeded as President of the Executive Yuan by General Chen Ming-shu. I expect to hear at any moment of the acceptance of Koo’s resignation as Acting Foreign Minister. At the present time sentiment in Nanking is so hostile and inflamed against any suggestion that China and Japan negotiate directly respecting a neutral zone around Chinchow and concerning the whole Manchurian question (until the evacuation of Japanese troops there) that it is my opinion it would be useless for me, if not dangerous, to make any suggestions in this connection to responsible officials lest the fact of my making such a suggestion might become known to the public and serve merely to transfer to my country the hostility which now is taking vengeance upon the government leaders who have been responsible for shaping the policy hitherto regarding Manchuria and who are blamed (perhaps unreasonably) by the public for not having offered resistance in Manchuria to the Japanese. It is argued (not without some justification) by students and public that [Page 685] the policy followed hitherto by the Government has resulted merely in permitting the effective expulsion from Manchuria of all vestige of Chinese control and the establishment instead of an independent regime which would be amenable to Japanese dictation and prepared to ratify Manchuria’s control by Japan.
- (4)
- At the present moment the national authorities are so preoccupied with domestic politics that I have difficulty finding anyone to whom I may go, but I shall, at the earliest opportunity, see someone in authority to urge utmost self-restraint in regard to any more military activities or demonstrations and also to express the hope that the Chinese may be able to reach some understanding to prevent further acts of warfare in the Chinchow region, or anywhere else in Manchuria, though I feel it would be unwise or useless to suggest to them that they withdraw from this area, which has become to the Chinese now a symbol of their sovereignty in Manchuria.
- (5)
- All information received by me from American Consulates and observers in Manchuria shows that the Japanese have not wasted any opportunity to make their control effective, while the powers at Geneva and Paris have been concerning themselves with advice and resolutions. The other day I was informed by an American in Shanghai who had sold to the Chinese municipalities of Antung and Mukden equipment for electric power that the Japanese at Antung have cut off completely the Chinese electric power plant, introducing in its stead mains from their own power plant, and that the Japanese at Mukden are extending into the area which hitherto has been monopolized by Chinese municipal public utilities (like water and electricity) water from the Japanese plant and light and power from the big electric plant at Fushun. Reports from the American Trade Commissioner in Mukden show a stoppage of all direct American business with Chinese in Manchuria, while Japanese merchants take advantage of the Japanese-controlled regime which has been set up. In short, the history of the days immediately following the Russo-Japanese war of 1904–05 is being repeated today in Manchuria. When the League commission arrives there, it will find Manchuria completely in Japanese control. Thus do the Chinese see defeated their hopes of freeing Manchuria from Japanese control by means of the League of Nations and the signatories of the Nine-Power Treaty and Kellogg Pact. The present Chinese Government cannot be persuaded to enter into direct negotiations with the Japanese Government to settle outstanding questions between their two countries so long as Japan remains physically and actually in control of both the administration and the area in which these outstanding cases have arisen and is able to use this fact to force acceptance by the Chinese of Japanese terms. It is felt by the present Chinese authorities that to start negotiating [Page 686] under the circumstances would be in itself to accept the Japanese position and to confirm Japan’s right to stay in Manchuria. The Chinese are, in fact, convinced that when the solution provided by the League of Nations has been reached, it will be found that all outstanding cases existing before September 18 will have been settled favorably for Japan and that there will have been created new Japanese interests far beyond any existing previously which may then not be disturbed without China’s being held liable to the charge of an attack upon vested rights, whether property or otherwise.
Johnson
- Telegram in two sections.↩