793.94/8639: Telegram
The Counselor of Embassy in China (Peck) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 29—10:25 a.m.]
224. My 220, May 27, 10 a.m. The Japanese Chargé d’Affaires called on me yesterday in regard to another matter and I inquired about the Swatow incident of May 22. He said that Aoyama, the [Page 106] Japanese consular police official concerned, had sent a colleague to the Swatow police to inform them of his removal to new quarters before the removal occurred and that the subsequent rough handling of Aoyama was doubly unjustified.
He said that Japanese nationals had found by experience that prior notice to the Chinese police of removal to new residence quarters often resulted in intimidation of the new landlord by the police; the Japanese authorities do not recognize prior notification as mandatory on Japanese nationals because they have extraterritorial status; in forcibly entering the new quarters of Aoyama the Chinese police were acting beyond their rights because those quarters were in a building already rented by a Japanese shopkeeper; injuries received by the Chinese police resulted unavoidably from the fracas precipitated by the attempt to seize Aoyama; the Japanese consular police sent to take over custody of Aoyama were not armed as asserted by Chinese reports and were acting strictly in accord with precedent which requires that Japanese if arrested shall be handed to the Japanese authorities immediately, whereas in this instance the victim was detained unnecessarily for several hours.
The informant deplored premature news release by the Chinese Foreign Office prior to receiving official reports and the folly of the local Chinese authorities in South China in using trivial routine regulations as a pretext for rough treatment of Japanese subjects. He said that the local authorities apparently did not realize that these affronts to Japan might result in consequences entirely disproportionate in gravity to the importance of the regulations. He said the Japanese Consul at Swatow has successfully handled incidents like this in Kalgan and other places and is very peaceable and self-restrained. The informant himself showed no rancor and seemed to be sincerely animated by the widely publicized friendly attitude of the Japanese Foreign Office toward China. I inferred that in his conversations at the Chinese Foreign Office the informant had talked along lines similar to the observations made to me.
Sent to the Department; by courier to Peiping and Tokyo.