Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1932, The Far East, Volume III

793.94/3418

Memorandum by the Secretary of State

[Washington,] January 2, 1932.

The French Ambassador came to see me in respect to the next steps to be taken in Manchuria. He read me a translation of a note which he had received from M. Briand, conveying the information that M. Briand had sent instructions to the French representatives in China and Japan asking the following questions:

(1) Exactly what the Japanese have done in Manchuria;

(2) What is the scope and character of the Japanese advance, including recent reinforcements in Chinchow;

(3) What resistance has been made by the regular troops of China;

(4) What was the fact about and what was the result of the negotiations which took place between the Japanese and the Young Marshal, Chang Hsueh-liang, because the French have conflicting reports about what these negotiations were;

(5) The general situation of the new government in Nanking—what its attitude and real intentions are in respect to Manchuria.

The Ambassador suggested that I might make similar inquiries. I told him that I would look the matter up and in case we did not have sufficient information on those subjects would do so.

I then told the Ambassador that I was very glad he had come because I had been on the point of sending for him to talk with me about future steps in Manchuria. I told him I was contemplating two steps:

(1) The Senate has asked for the entire correspondence in regard to the negotiations over Manchuria,² and I am seriously considering sending up to them every written note and memorandum which has passed between this government and the Japanese and Chinese Governments. The Senate also has asked for the papers which have passed between this government and the League of Nations. In response to that I shall send up only the communications which have been made public by the League, and shall not send up the various memoranda which the League circulated in confidence;

(2) I am considering sending a formal note to Japan which, while disclaiming final judgment until the report of the Manchurian Commission,³ would yet make it clear that the impression of the entire record of action by Japan up to this date upon this government was to the effect—(A) that Japan had destroyed the administrative integrity of the Chinese Government in Manchuria, and (B) that it had used non-pacific means to accomplish a national object, and in view of this that our government felt bound to notify Japan that as we had done in 1915 in respect to the twenty-one demands⁴ we should not recognize the validity of any treaties which were executed between Japan and China under pressure of this military occupation so far as such treaties might interfere with our own treaty rights.

I told the Ambassador that I should like to know how such steps would strike M. Briand, for while we were proposing probably to go along on somewhat that line anyhow, it would considerably add to the influence of the step if it was joined in by France and Great Britain who also had great interests there. The Ambassador replied that he felt that some steps were absolutely necessary in view of what had taken place in Chinchow, which he regarded as a slap in the face to the European nations and ourselves, and that he would communicate with M. Briand and let me know.

H[enry] L. S[timson]

2. Senate Resolution No. 87, December 17, 1931; see Conditions in Manchuria, Senate Document No. 55, 72d Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1932).
3. Commission of Inquiry authorized by the Council of the League of Nations, December 10, 1931.
4. See telegram of May 11, 1915, 5 p.m., to the Ambassador in Japan, Foreign Relations, 1915, p. 146.