Copy.
70
104
FROM JAPAN.
79
Decypher.
Sir R. Craigie (Tokyo).
30th March 1938.
D.
4.38 p.m. 30th March 1938.
R.
10.5 a.m.
30th March 1938.
No. 389.
Confidential.
During the past fortnight the General Staff
have approached the Military Attaché on three separate occasions to ascertain whether it is possible for them to make some concrete gesture to indicate their desire to improve relations. Military authorities state that they have been active in gradually damping down anti-British activities in the press and elsewhere, are prepared to allow a language
officer to be stationed in Formosa and are anxious to do more
if possible. They therefore ask for some definite suggestions, for example specific British railway interests in China which
Could these be furnished they might guarantee to protect.
for study. On their side they state categorically that Chiang Kai-shek régime will disappear and though it is fully realised that proportion of British munitions being supplied to him is less than that from other sources, the fact remains
that all these foreign munitions are passing through a
British post.
Could not Hongkong be closed to all foreign
munitions. If this is considered un-neutral then munitions to
Japan and China might be simultaneously stopped.
France
had closed Indo-China frontier and Germany had stopped sales
Military to China; could not Great Britain close Hongkong? authorities further urged that such a gesture would be very well received in Japan and would have a far better effect on Anglo-Japanese relations than a tardy recognition of Japan's victory after all was over.
Possibility of Anglo-
Japanese co-operation in China might have less chance of
success