740.0011 P.W./4–1145: Telegram
The Chargé in China (Briggs) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 12—4:30 a.m.]
608. At a small dinner party given by Sun Fo and General Wu Teh-chen, Secretary General of the CEC19 and former Mayor of Greater Shanghai, the latter raised with Atcheson the question of the possibility of making Shanghai an “open city.” (ReEmbs 589, April 7, 11 a.m.20) He said that W. W. Yen, one-time Minister of Foreign Affairs who has been in Hong Kong and Shanghai since before the beginning of the Sino-Japanese war, had recently, together with other prominent Chinese, proposed to the Japanese authorities at Shanghai that the city be made an “open city” and that to accomplish this purpose the Japanese military and naval forces remove therefrom. Sun Fo made no comment. Atcheson said that there was always a possibility that the Japanese would endeavor to destroy Shanghai before evacuating it, judging from their actions at Manila. The political Vice Foreign Minister21 who was present said he thought that was a probability and this opinion was concurred in also by Quo Taichi, former Ambassador to Great Britain and one-time Foreign Minister.
Wu did not pursue the subject. As is well known, he has considerable property interests in Shanghai, as have a number of important officials in the Chungking Government including H. H. Kung and T. V. Soong. As is also probably known to the Department, a number of Chungking officials also have relatives, including wives and children, in Shanghai, most of them living on [in] the French Concession. [Page 90] (Incidentally the wives of Hu Shih, former Ambassador to the United States, and of Liu Chieh, present Minister Counselor in Washington, are living in Shanghai.) We may accordingly expect that this subject will come to the fore again, perhaps with more vigor, especially as the Swiss and Swedish Governments seem to have endorsed some such proposal.22