This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government,
CHINA
이
O CONFIDENTIAL.
[F 1766/3/10]
No. 1.
Mr. Gurney to Earl Curzon,-(Received May 9.)
[May 9.]
SECTION 3.
(No. 155.) My Lord,
Tokyo, April 4, 1921. I HAVE the honour to transmit herewith an extract from the " Japan Chronicle" of the 31st March, containing quotations from a private letter in regard to the Japanese operations in the Chientao district.
The writer, who visited Huachun and other places in the neighbourhood recently, defends the action of the Japanese, and states that the behaviour of the Japanese troops compares very favourably with that of the Chinese soldiers in the district.
The name of the writer is not given, but he is said to speak Chinese, and to have been in a position to obtain first-hand information.
(Copy to Peking.)
I have, &c.
HUGH GURNEY.
Enclosure in No. 1.
Extract from "Japan Chronicle,” March 31, 1921.
THE JAPANESE IN CHIENTAO: COMMENTS Or a Traveller,
ALTHOUGH some, at least, of the troops have been withdrawn from Chientao, it has lately been reported that more police have been sent there and that bandits have been active, so it may be assumed that the district is still under effective occupation. The following extracts from a private letter give a quite unbiassed spectator's view of conditions just after the invasion :—
"I stayed a few days with the Canadians before going on to Hunchun, Colonel-what do you call him-Mizumachi?-arrived a couple of days later. Friends in the mission were very indignant over the Japanese occupation, and had endless tales to tell of dreadful atrocities. I saw some of the burnt-out villages, and visited Novai Bawei, where some thirty men had been shot down. It was only 4 miles from one of the Chinese churches.
The Japanese are no doubt pursuing their own policy, but the Chinese have themselves to blame for their present predicament. Chinese in Hunchun told me the story of the bandit invasions, and no one accused the Japanese of atirring up the trouble. Five hundred stalwart Chinese soldiers watched the ransacking from the gate of their camp mile to the north of the city. It is openly said that they were in league with the bandits. When the latter cleared out, the soldiers came in and looted what was left before the owners, who had fled, returned to their homes. It was a surprising thing to find that the Chinese merchants in Yenchi (principal town in Chientao) and Hunchun welcomed the Japanese soldiers who had quartere chemselves in every shop, because they not only provided food for themselves and did their own cooking, but actually paid rent. This was in marked contrast with the Chinese soldiers, who demand the best of everything, beat those who do not comply with their every request, and never a penny do they pay. A regiment of Chinese soldiers was entering Hunchun as I left, and one Christian merchant begged me to go and live in his shop in the hope that the soldiers would be kept out. I have stayed in inns with them, and know how wild they are.
"It is also true that Korean independents' had been arming and drilling in large numbers in the adjacent hills.
"There is a light railway now from Kainei, the northern Korean town, running along the Tumen River to a point 20 miles from Lung Ching Ts'un, where
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