Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1934, The Far East, Volume III

711.94/960½

Memorandum by the Secretary of State

[Washington,] May 29, 1934.

In accordance with the original personal request of Ambassador Saito that he and I confer individually, in strict confidence and not to be recorded, with regard to the relations between Japan and the United States, the Ambassador, upon my invitation, called at my apartments at the Carlton Hotel for a second personal conversation.

Ambassador Saito had at our first conference handed me a written memorandum,²⁹ to which I referred in the account of our first conversation. The memorandum contained eight points or topics. The list of these eight topics, parallel with my replies and comment in substance just opposite each, were as follows:

Saito	Hull
These are entirely my private thoughts:	Taking up the points made in your memorandum, in the order in which they are set forth, my thoughts are as follows:
(1) There are too much suspicion and fear between the United States and Japan at present and some governmental action to dispel such feelings on both sides is very desirable.	(1) I share your view that there is too much suspicion and fear between the United States and Japan, and I believe that effort on the part of both governments toward dispelling such feelings is desirable.
(2) The impending naval disarmament problem can most happily be approached after some such measure is taken.	(2) That the impending naval disarmament problem could more happily be approached if there were not such feelings is of course true.
(3) American suspicions as to Japan’s motives are essentially these: That Japan has aggressive designs on the Asiatic Continent and that Japan may even be courting war with the United States—which are not true.	(3) American suspicions with regard to Japan’s motives arise from observation in this country of Japan’s courses of action, and these suspicions are not peculiar to the United States: they coincide with those which also have developed elsewhere.
(4) Japanese suspicions as to American motives are essentially these: That the United States constantly tries to obstruct Japan from working out her national aim, which is nothing but the establishment of peace and order in the Far East; that the United States has been giving undue encouragements to China to take a defiant attitude against Japan—which are not true.	(4) It is our belief that what is most needed toward removing and preventing suspicion and misunderstanding and fear between the United States (along with other countries) and Japan is the development of a coincidence of attitude and effort with regard to the problem of creating and maintaining conditions of peace. As you have stated, Japanese suspicions that the United States constantly tries to obstruct Japan and that the United States has been encouraging China to take a defiant attitude against Japan are not warranted by the facts. The American Government has been and is earnestly and sincerely working, as are many other governments, for the establishing and maintenance of conditions and machinery of peace in the whole world, including the Far East. Certain of the activities in which Japan has engaged have given the impression that Japan’s national aim is to achieve the advancement of Japan’s interests, as conceived by Japan, at the expense of other countries, especially of neighboring Asiatic countries, and particularly of China. It is our belief that, if, in pursuit of a policy of establishing peace and order in the Far East, Japan would avoid giving ground either in fact or in appearance for the belief on the part of her Asiatic neighbors that Japan’s objectives imperil their national security and on the part of the other powers that Japan violates or threatens to violate their rights and interests, all misunderstanding on that score and in that direction would disappear.
(5) Japan and the United States should repose full confidence in the sincerity of the peaceful motives of each other.	(5) Confidence is a state of mind which rests upon impressions. Sincerity is a matter of the heart. The people of any country form their impressions of the motives of another country from their observation of acts and of words. For the production of an impression of sincerity, acts and words must be in harmony. Japan and the United States can best convince each other that their motives are peaceful by making both their words and their courses of action those of peace.
(6) Trade relations between the two countries are fortunately complementary, highly beneficial to both and should be promoted.	(6) Trade relations between Japan and the United States are fortunately in most fields complementary; they are beneficial to both countries; and they should be promoted in every legitimate way—but with due regard always for the rights and interests of other countries and without interference by either country with the trade of the other with other countries.
(7) Upon these premises, cannot a joint declaration be now made by the United States and Japanese Governments?—in some such sense:— (a) Both Governments will cooperate with each other to promote trade to the mutual advantage of the two countries and to make secure the principle of equal opportunity of commerce in the Pacific Regions. (b) Both Governments, having no aggressive designs whatever, reaffirm the pledges each to respect the territorial possessions and the rights and interests of the other, and restate their determination that the two countries should ever maintain a relationship of peace and amity. (c) Both Governments mutually recognize that the United States in the eastern Pacific regions and Japan in the western Pacific regions are principal stabilizing factors and both Governments will exercise their best and constant efforts so far as lies within their proper and legitimate power to establish a reign of law and order in the regions geographically adjacent to their respective countries.	(7) I am inclined to question, in principle, the value of bilateral declarations of policy. The many countries which make up the family of nations have in recent years been drawn so closely together that each is essentially the neighbor of all. Every country of importance has substantial relations not with one other country alone but with several or many other countries. It is desirable that every country have friendly relations with all countries with which it has contacts. The rights and obligations of the states members of the family of nations beyond their own borders are tending to become general. The conclusion between any two countries of a special agreement on political lines has a tendency to create in fact or in appearance a special situation meaning or implying that the relations between the two are closer than are those between each of them and other countries; it tends to constitute them a special group and to signify that there exists between them a special community of interests and objectives peculiar to them and not shared by, assented to, or open to others. The American people have always been adversely disposed toward the theory and the practice of political alliances. This country has entered upon and is party to a considerable number of multilateral agreements with regard to policies, and it probably will enter into more of such agreements in the future. But, in the making of bilateral agreements, it has restricted itself for the most part to the conclusion of agreements for the general or particular regulation of relations between itself and, in each case, the other country party thereto. For the regulation of relations between Japan and the United States, there are in effect today a number of agreements, among which are the exchange of notes (Root-Takahira) of November 30, 1908,30 and the Treaty of Commerce and Navigation of February 21, 1911.31 Recently the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan addressed to me, under date February 21, 1934, a letter32 in the course of which he outlined at length and greatly to my gratification various important features of Japan’s foreign policy. In reply, I addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, under date March 3, 1934, a letter33 in the course of which I outlined similar important features of the foreign policy of the United States. In the course of that exchange, each of us declared emphatically and unequivocally that his country had no aggressive designs against any other country. It seems to me that in the texts of these various documents there is to be found as full and complete affirmation as could be made in any or in many joint declarations, by each of our Governments, of commitment to the principle of amity and friendship and peace in the relations of our countries to each other and to all countries. I said: “I am glad to take this opportunity to state categorically that the United States on its part has no desire to create any issues and no intention to initiate any conflict in its relations with other countries.” I meant just that. I do not believe that I could express more unequivocally the fact that this country has no thought of aggression against Japan or against any other country. Neither the Government nor the people of the United States have conceived that it is a right or a duty or an intention of the United States to establish a reign of law and order in regions geographically adjacent to this country. We would not wish to make assertion of that right or to entertain such an objective now or in the future. It would be impossible for me to give encouragement to Japan toward the assertion by it of such a right or the prosecution by it of such an intention in regions geographically adjacent to it. The tendency among nations today is, it seems to us, away from rather than toward such concepts and practices. The tendency today is toward the concept that the problem of promoting conditions of law and order while conserving the fundamental rights of all nations and the problem of bringing about and maintaining peace anywhere and everywhere are problems of common interest and concern to all nations.
(8) If such a joint declaration can now be made, all war talk will immediately be silenced, the psychology of men will undergo a change and whatever question may arise between our two countries will become capable of an easy solution. China will begin to see that she can no longer rely upon her time-honored policy of setting one Power against another. Not only so, but peace of the Pacific Regions will thereby be lastingly established—a signal contribution to world peace.	(8) I cannot believe that the making of such a joint declaration, if it were possible, would, when it had been made, have the effects which you suggest. Such declarations have been made before, both between our two Governments and between others. They have not had consequences such as you predict for such a declaration if made now. To put an end to talk of war, countries must demonstrate that they abhor use of force and will resort to it only if attacked. The United States has at no time aligned itself with China against Japan; I perceive no reason why it should align itself with Japan against China. The peace of the Pacific will be assured when all countries there concerned make it their fixed policy to abide in their relations with each other by the professions of article II of the Pact of Paris. If Japan and the United States each wish to avoid conflict and to have peace, there is no need for a joint declaration of policy by the two Governments. If either of them entertains any other motives, the making of such a joint declaration by them would have only a misleading and ephemeral effect in connection with the problems which exist or which may arise between them. The American Government will continue to give, as it has given in the past, earnest thought to ways and means calculated to dispel suspicion by the Japanese people of American motives and action in the Far East. That full measure of mutual respect and confidence which it is the endeavor of the people and Government of the United States to make prevail in their relations with other peoples and governments must, in our opinion, rest upon approximate similarity of objective and of method. We sincerely hope, therefore, that it may be possible for the Japanese Government to join with us and with the other great powers in cooperative effort to ensure peaceful approach to and peaceful disposal of the many problems which are inherent in the complexity of and delicacy of international relations under prevailing modern conditions.

It is our belief that it is to the best interest of Japan and of the United States and of all concerned that Japan be an active participant in the councils and the efforts of the nations in dealing with problems of world concern, and that, as such, Japan place confidence in and enjoy the confidence of the other nations. We shall make it our effort to encourage adoption by the Japanese people of that view and adoption of it by any others who may be in doubt or may hold a contrary view. Japan has in recent years acquired, whether deservedly or not, a reputation for truculence and trouble making. There was before 1931 in many quarters suspicion of Japan. Events in Manchuria, Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations and statements made on and after April 17 of this year by various Japanese officials,³⁴ along with statements which are frequently made by other Japanese leaders and in the Japanese press, have tended to give the impression that the suspicions were warranted. It is “up to” Japan to live down and remove these impressions. We are willing to be of assistance. But this effort will take time and it cannot be made successful merely by use of words. One thing that might help a great deal would be avoidance of use of words in various connections where words do more harm than good: I refer especially to what may be called arguing in public back and forth across the Pacific.

I am giving constant thought to discovery and devising of ways and means whereby Japan and the United States can be of help to each other without sacrifice by either of its own interests and with advantage to both. [End of statement by the Secretary of State.]

At the conclusion of the foregoing conversations, the Ambassador expressed some disappointment that the United States Government did not feel justified in indicating that its policy would be such that Japan would not be attacked or seriously threatened in a military way in the Orient, so that he and others of his government could quiet public sentiment by assuring them of such policy. I reiterated in reply a second or third time that my government felt constrained to rest its attitude absolutely on the statement which I transmitted to Foreign Minister Hirota on or about April 28, 1934,³⁵ which statement succinctly and comprehensively defined the rights, interests, and obligations of the United States in the Orient. I also emphasized the view that both countries must proceed by acts rather than words to satisfy the other of its real attitude; that the exchange of personal notes between Hirota and myself some weeks ago afforded the broadest and deepest possible foundation on which to build better understanding and the closest friendly relations; and that so many treaties in different parts of the world were being violated or ignored that it was all the more important and necessary for nations to act rather than talk if they were to improve relationships. I further emphasized and reemphasized the view that not only my country but most countries were in doubt as to what would become of their equality of trade rights in the Orient in future years if the avowed purpose of Japan for dominant overlordship of Eastern Asia, in the sense that Japan insists on superior and paramount authority, should be brought about and acquiesced in by the balance of the world at this time; that this grave doubt was accentuated by the fact that, while proclaiming the doctrine of the law of manifest destiny and the right of superior authority in Eastern Asia, there was in almost the same breath a loud demand for a big Japanese navy on a parity with that of England and the United States; and that these considerations would render it extremely difficult to convince the people in any country outside of the Orient that their governments should acquiesce in the proposals claimed by many Japanese leaders for such superior authority in Eastern Asia as might probably soon develop into still wider authority in other respects than the maintenance of peace and order, and with the result that equality of trade rights in the Orient of the balance of the world might be seriously interfered with. I said that that point was very definitely in the minds of my country and my government in addition to its interest in peace conditions in every part of the world. I called the Ambassador’s attention to the work for peace that my government was striving in a purely inoffensive way to perform both at Geneva and in the South American Chaco for the reason that all civilized nations, whether they realized it fully or not, were seriously interested in the important phases of peace the world over.

C[ordell] H[ull]

29. For text of memorandum, see Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 232.
30. Foreign Relations, 1908, p. 510.
31. Ibid., 1911, p. 315.
32. Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 127.
33. Ibid., p. 128.
34. For correspondence on this subject, see pp. 112 ff.
35. See telegram No. 59, April 28, 7 p.m., to the Ambassador in Japan, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 231.