Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1932, The Far East, Volume III
793.94/4168
The Ambassador in Japan (Forbes) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 13.]
Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith a memorandum regarding the Manchurian situation. This memorandum was submitted to a conference, such as called for by Department regulations to be held periodically. At this conference were present the Counselor, Secretaries Salisbury and Turner, the Military Attaché and his Assistant, the Naval Attaché and his Assistant, the Commercial Attaché and his Assistant, Consul General Garrels, Consul Sturgeon, and Consul De Vault of Yokohama.
The accompanying memorandum was submitted to this group and was unanimously approved, both as to substance and form, so that this memorandum has the sanction of what is fair to call the entire staff.
As mentioned in my telegram No. 27, of January 29th, 11 a.m.,80 it is designed to supersede my letter of similar import forwarded January 16th.80
Yours respectfully,
Memorandum
This whole Manchurian situation contains a great deal of food for thought and it seems appropriate to summarize some aspects of it:
(1) The situation had become intolerable and had to be rectified. It was medieval and chaotic in regard to (a) public order; (b) finance; and (c) the irresponsibility of the administrative officers of the government, among other things.
(2) The Japanese had succeeded in bringing about a really constructive development of Manchuria, evidenced by (a) the construction [Page 110] of admirable railroads and successfully operated industries, aggregating a billion dollars in value; and (b) the maintenance of a degree of order which induced a large immigration of Chinese, running into many millions.
(3) It is beyond question that Japan looked upon the continuance of its Manchurian connection as an economic necessity for the empire.
(4) The Japanese were uneasy about the status of their treaties with the Chinese in respect to their rights in Manchuria. The only clauses of the so-called “Twenty-one Demands” upon which they are now insisting are three that bear on Manchuria, and they are troubled by the fact that the Chinese do not admit the validity of the treaty of 1915,82 by which their lease of Manchurian properties is extended to ninety-nine years.
(5) The Chinese National Government was … unable to cope with the Manchurian situation.
(6) The bandits were becoming an increasing menace to the continued proper development of Manchuria, and were utterly out of the control exercised by the young Marshal Chang who held the reins of power in Manchuria. These bandits are roughly divisible into two classes: those that were habitual bandits and who had a certain code and hence were not so destructive, and the occasional bandits, usually soldiers, often regularly enrolled, who had not received their pay and proposed to levy what they wanted for themselves and generally took too much. The increase of bandit raids within the zone of the South Manchuria Railway from nine a year in 1906 to one a day in 1928 is sufficient proof, if proof were needed, of the need of some vigorous and drastic action.
(7) The only way to establish order and maintain it in Manchuria was by the exceptional exercise of force of some kind. Under existing circumstances it could not be done by the police or other usual agencies of peace as at that time organized there.
(8) If these premises are admitted, the question arises as to how this force was to be exerted. The obvious answer is that it should have been done by the Chinese, or at least by Chinese initiative, and by Chinese consent, if possible. The question then arises as to how this action should have been obtained.
(9) In approaching this problem, the Japanese made their serious strategic error. They should have invoked the agencies of peace, and called upon them to bring pressure to bear upon the Chinese: (a) either to suppress banditry, reach a solution of the questions at issue, and live up to the terms of their agreements, or (b) to get some other agency to accomplish these ends, such as an international police force; [Page 111] or (c) in the event of the matter being taken up by the League of Nations, to consent to a mandate to Japan to restore order in Manchuria within a definite period. Some such action would have directed international attention to conditions in Manchuria. The Japanese would have appeared in a more favorable light before the world, and would be in a position of having taken action only after due notice had been given.
(10) Japan has, however, elected to jump in, without a mandate, without the presentation of her list of grievances, and is trying to settle things by direct military action.
(11) The Japanese military authorities have not made any effort to conceal the fact that it was their deliberate and unalterable intention to break up the control, wherever exercised, of the young Marshal, Chang Hsueh-liang, who has been the governing force of Manchuria ever since the death of his father in 1928. With the advance of their armies, it is the Japanese claim that the local Chinese officials deserted their posts and fled, leaving Manchuria in most regions without government.
While the Japanese Army claim they have not interfered with civil functions and have left the local government to be organized locally, they have as a matter of fact definitely mixed in in regard to (a) operation of railroads; (b) operation of banks; (c) operation of public utilities; (d) construction, some of which was under contract; and (e) supplies and materials, including airplanes, gasoline and oil, building materials, trucks, among other things. In connection with all of these activities and businesses Japanese advisers have been installed without whose approval executive action could not be taken.
So-called “defence Committees” have been set up, the personnel of which are subject to the approval by the Japanese before being allowed to function. And the Japanese make no secret that Chinese known to be hostile to Japanese activities are not permitted to serve on these defense committees. Chinese governors have now been placed in power in the three provinces; these are holding office and organizing governments with Japanese advisers and, according to common press reports, substantiated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Yoshizawa, they are proposing some sort of federation to create an independent Manchurian Government. Minister Yoshizawa squares this movement with Japan’s declarations guaranteeing the integrity of Chinese territory by stating that the territory will still be Chinese although the Government will be independent, as it was in the days of Chang Tso-lin.
(12) If Japan had served notice on the League of Nations that the situation had reached a point that could not be tolerated further, and that unless remedial action were taken before a certain time, she [Page 112] would be obliged to do it on her own initiative, there can be little doubt that all that the League would have met in endeavoring to arrange remedial action by China would have been procrastination, promises without fulfilment, and probably without power of fulfilment, because there seems to be no agency in China strong enough to carry out its undertakings, particularly where they involve vigorous, constructive, and perhaps costly, executive action.
(13) The League of Nations has neither the armed force, the money, nor the political structure necessary to bring about the forcible restoration of order in a place like Manchuria. The League, therefore, could only have brought about a settlement of the problem in one of the ways indicated above, namely: inducing action by China—which events are proving China was in no position to take—; international co-operation, or a mandate to Japan with China’s consent.
(14) With the present strong trend among nations for the avoidance of the use of force, it is improbable that Japan could have got sanction to send her armies into Manchuria, either of the League of Nations or of the signatories to the various treaties and pacts which bear upon the situation, but she would at least have been in a position before doing so of having exhausted the resources already made available by all the agencies of peace. This would have left her comparatively freehanded to have undertaken this work upon a scale calculated to accomplish it with the minimum of time, of suffering and of expenditure of treasure.
(15) By initiating a resort to force without first invoking the agencies of peace, Japan has put herself squarely in the wrong, and yet it seems clear that what Japan is doing is necessary and, as above indicated, it could only have been done by force. So that, to put it tersely, Japan is doing the right thing in the wrong way; that is, without adequate sanction.
(16) The objections possibly held by Japan’s military officers to the preliminary action of serving notice on China and on the world that on a certain date she would take matters into her own hands, could be: that, given advance notice of a proposed movement, the Chinese might make preparations of defense that would make operations much more formidable and costly. On the other hand, had Japan prepared the mind of the world and satisfied the signatories to the Nine Power and Kellogg Pacts that she had exhausted the agencies of peace before resorting to force, it would, in large measure, have offset the disadvantage due to such preparation as China would have made, which, in her disorganized state, would have been necessarily inadequate.
(17) Having exhausted the agencies of peace, Japan could probably then have sent her armies and police into Manchuria without being hampered as she has been by the disapproval, repeatedly expressed [Page 113] by the American, British and French Governments and by the Council of the League of Nations. She has been further handicapped by feeling the necessity of keeping up the semblance or pretense of peaceful penetration while really performing acts of actual warfare.
(18) The task Japan has undertaken in Manchuria, in spite of the handicaps mentioned above, has been really herculean. With a force supposed to be only 15,000 she has successfully dispersed Chinese forces ten times that number in a region of vast spaces and with a resident population overwhelmingly Chinese and hence presumably hostile, in the winter time when the thermometer ran as low as thirty below zero; and, although constantly adding to the number of troops sent in, still the number is woefully inadequate to meet the situation thus created—of scattered armies preying upon a defenseless populace.
(19) General Wood, while serving in the Philippines, made the significant remark that it always paid at the beginning of a period of disorder to send in three times the number of men you thought you were going to want, or enough to “smother the situation”. If the Japanese had felt free to adopt this policy, and sent in enough men at the start to have forced the capitulation and disarmament, and the sequestration, of all these armies, instead of merely scattering them to become almost of necessity bandits, they might have cleaned up the situation as they went along instead of creating a condition that is going to take years of expenditure of blood and treasure to rectify.
(20) The weight of evidence leads inevitably to the conclusion, however, that the whole Manchurian episode has been brought about by a rather high-handed series of actions taken by the Army without prior consideration by the high civil authorities of the Imperial Government, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet and without due regard to its effect on foreign relations as directed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, or upon the finance of the Government as directed by the Minister of Finance.
(21) The Japanese Army officials seem to have brought about a condition which is going to take a very long time to remedy, due to their unwise methods. They have intensified a feeling of hatred against Japan in the minds of thinking Chinese citizens wherever situated, a feeling which is going to prejudice the good relations between Japan and China for a long time to come. Instead of arranging by negotiations for the disarmament and employment of the Chinese armies, the Japanese have broken up the Chinese headquarters, sequestered Chinese Government funds, and left the Chinese soldiers no alternative except to prey upon the people. And then, having [Page 114] forced these soldiers to become bandits, the Japanese Army is now, to use its own expression, engaged in “annihilating” them, i. e., killing them by means of aerial bombs, guns from the air, and shooting them up wherever met. The Japanese records give no roster of the dead Chinese and only report the number of Japanese killed; but it is probable that the proportion is something like twenty Chinese to every Japanese killed, more or less.
(22) The Japanese Army has made the mistake of failing to pay attention to the Open Door Policy. While foreign firms are nominally invited to operate in Manchuria, practically, things are made difficult for them. Instances have come to light of obstacles put in the way of concerns whose business competes with that of Japanese and Japanese-owned ventures. It is only fair, however, to state that many Japanese concerns are complaining of their treatment by their own Army.
(23) It is claimed that this condition of partially-closed door is incident merely to the Military Regime and will be wholly changed once public order is restored and civil administration established. Of that we wait to be convinced.
(24) Japanese officials have abstained from indicating the exact boundaries of what they consider Manchuria; and it is evident that they are keeping this indeterminate with the idea of extending these boundaries as fast as it suits their convenience and interests to do so. They will undoubtedly want to build railroads, establish industries, and encourage immigration of Chinese, and then will, in all probability, extend the boundaries of what they regard as Manchuria into Mongolia and perhaps into other parts of China, whenever it serves their purposes to do so. There are no definite official maps that really set forth any authentic boundaries between Manchuria and the neighboring province on the west. Mongolia is similarly indeterminate as to the boundary. In recent years new administrative areas referred to as Jehol and Chahar have taken over parts of what previously was referred to as “Mongolia”.
(25) Their military activities have made the Japanese position in Manchuria much more difficult, and it is important for them to reach some sort of an agreement with China, or perhaps the Chinese residents in Manchuria, otherwise their position both as to cost and as to the administrative problems may become unbearable.
(26) The crux of the whole matter seems to be that: If England, France and the United States do not want to see Japanese control penetrate further into China some diplomatic negotiation should be undertaken to see if China will agree to the organization of an international police to restore order, disarm the predatory armies which [Page 115] now ravage the whole of China, and which would be strong enough to keep in power the more competent authorities so that the country would cease being subjected to internal revolution. Such international action might assist China to enjoy adequate police protection. A precedent for this can be found in the Chinese Customs Service which has maintained an international personnel of officers. A properly organized and adequately manned international police force would prevent the forcible seizure or misuse of Government funds and insure the construction and protection of useful public works. With settled conditions and assured measures of transport, work would be provided for men who otherwise would be in the Chinese armies. Famine areas would be quickly relieved. The creation and maintenance of this force should not present practical difficulties for men trained in constabulary work. Incidentally, an orderly China would be a tremendous field for foreign salesmanship—bringing back to the world, perhaps, good times.
- Not printed.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Signed at Peiping, May 25, 1915; for text, see Foreign Relations, 1915, p. 172.↩