893.00/4–1945: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Winant) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8 p.m.]
3990. Sterndale Bennett29 has written Allison30 referring to the talks on April 6 with Smyth31 (reported in Embassy’s confidential despatch No. 22265 of April 932), at which time mention was made of the informal conversations which the Foreign Office hoped it would be possible to have with the State Department on Far Eastern matters. The letter states that while originally the Foreign Office had in mind questions relating to international arrangements in Southeast Asia, it was their hope that the conversations would not be confined to that area but might extend as well to China and Japan. (See also Embassy’s No. 678 of January 19, 7 p.m.32)
[Page 96]According to Sterndale Bennett, the particular point brought out in the April 6 talk was that in the British view there is room for closer consultation on political and economic matters relating not only to the present war period in China but also to the liberation and postwar periods. It is claimed that the British, for example, have a larger interest than is generally recognized in the reorganization of China’s war production and transportation. The Foreign Office assumes that the American Government has been giving considerable thought, as the Foreign Office has, to the problems affecting British and American nationals and their interests which will arise in Shanghai and other places when these are liberated from the Japanese. Sterndale Bennett says that looking further ahead, he is certain both countries are interested in the conditions under which their respective traders will have to work in postwar China, and that it therefore seems desirable that the projected conversations should include this subject and in particular the provisions of the commercial treaty which will be required under the new conditions in China at the close of the war.
Sterndale Bennett concludes by reemphasizing that the conversations are intended to be entirely noncommittal and informal. He states that their purpose is to afford opportunity “for a free and frank exchange of ideas, and in this I think lies their principal value.” He says that he does not believe there should be a rigid agenda but that he hopes the questions mentioned in this letter will be touched on, though there will of course be many others some of which will only suggest themselves as the discussions proceed.
The Embassy believes that we should take advantage of the opportunity offered by the Foreign Office for a full and frank presentation of the American point of view on Far Eastern matters and for this informal exchange of views before final policies are fixed.