THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
214
FAR EASTERN (JAPAN).
CONFIDENTIAL.
March 16, 1939.
SECTION 1.
[F 2678/874/23]
Copy No. 141
Sir R. Craigie to Viscount Halifax.—(Received March 16.) (No. 101.)
HIS Majesty's representative at Tokyo presents his compliments to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and, with reference to Tokyo despatch No. 1063 of the 30th December, 1938, has the honour to transmit to him a copy of Political Diary No. 1 of 1939, for the period the 1st to the 31st January, 1939.
Tokyo, February 14, 1939.
N
Enclosure.
Political Diary No. 1 of 1939.
January 1 to 31.
(This diary is a brief and informal review of current topics. Although it is largely based on extracts from the Japanese press and is not in the nature of a considered report, the diary should be treated as confidential and should not be publicly quoted or reproduced.)
FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
China
THE month saw no spectacular developments on the China scene. Mopping- up operations continue; the military are consolidating their victories; and the painful task is being pursued of restoring order and administration in a country that has been wasted for over a year and a half by war.
2.
Two men, however, were very much in the public eye.
3. As much as possible was made of Wang Ching-wei's defection from the Kuomintang at the end of December. His movements in Indo-China have been minutely chronicled and his statements widely publicised, all with a view to creating the impression both here and abroad that the Kuomintang is rent by internal dissensions. In point of fact the unity of the Kuomintang has probably been strengthened by the elimination of the party wanting to come to terms with Japan.
4. Wu Pei-fu's name also has been constantly in the papers. He is the very man the Japanese are looking for, and would be a change from the present nonentities and crooks who head the provisional régimes. The story goes that for many weeks he has been playing with the Japanese offers and always raising his terms when it seemed likely that a deal was about to be closed. Towards the end of the month it was announced that he had accepted the post of Pacification Commissioner, with an army of his own that was to be independent of the provisional régimes both in North and Central China. Its seat was to be at Kaifeng.
Great Britain, the United States and France.
5. It is convenient to discuss the three countries and their relations with Japan in a single paragraph, since it is becoming more and more apparent that these three countries, especially Great Britain and the United States, are working together closely. It is this community of action which Japan herself has tried to
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