CO129-567-5 Traffic of arms to China and Japanese air-raids on Kowloon-Canton railway 11-4-1938 - 19-1-1939 — Page 224

Copy.

To:

JAPAN.

Cypher telegram to Sir R. Craigie (Tokyo).

No. 435.

225

Foreign Office, 25th June, 1938.

6.00 p.m.

000000000000000000000000000000000

My telegram No. 422 (of June 21)

French Ambassador informed Sir A. Cadogan on June 24th that his Government were deeply concerned at the Japanese designs on

the island of Hainan. The Japanese Government had in the past

frankly said that if the transit of munitions through Indo-China

continued they would have to use Hainan as a base for supervising

that line of supply to China. If the Japanese occupied Hainan,

that would constitute a direct threat to French possessions, and

would in the view of the French Government be directed in fact

more against French territory than against China.

In these circumstances the French Government were anxious

to leave untried no method of preventing Japanese occupation,

and he was instructed to enquire whether we did not agree that

the time had come for taking some action going beyond mere

diplomatic representation.

Sir A. Cadogan replied that His Majesty's Government would

also be concerned if Japanese occupied Hainan and had in the past

given friendly warnings to the Japanese Government on the subject.

French Ambassador said that he had no definite indication at all

of what sort of non-diplomatic action his Government had in mind,

but he suggested that they might perhaps be considering somethingin

the nature of a neutralisation of the island by agreement with the

Chinese Government.

Sir A Cadogan said he could at the moment think of no

useful action that His Majesty's Government would beready to take

beyond