55
THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
FAR EASTERN (JAPAN).
CONFIDENTIAL.
September 12, 1939.
SECTION 1.
[F 10046/874/23]
(No. 573.)
131
Copy No.
Sir R. Craigie to Viscount Halifax.-(Received September 12.)
HIS Majesty's Ambassador at Tokyo presents his compliments to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and has the honour to transmit to him a copy of Political Diary No. 7 for July 1939.
Tokyo, August 9, 1939.
Enclosure.
Political Diary No. 7 for July 1939.
(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.)
Tientsin Question.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
United Kingdom.
239. The month began with continued preparations for the Tokyo Con- ference. On the 2nd July Mr. Sotomatsu Kato arrived in Tokyo to conduct the negotiations for the Japanese Government, and on the 4th his appointment was announced as Minister at Large in China. On the 6th Japanese military repre- sentatives from Tientsin reached Japan and issued somewhat truculent statements to the press on their arrival. Discussions then proceeded between the various interested departments of the Japanese Government.
240. Meanwhile the Tientsin situation showed a slight improvement. There was a decrease, and finally a cessation, of incidents involving British subjects at barriers. Interference with British shipping, however, continued and there was further serious obstruction of the supply of milk to the concession, to such an extent that on the 10th July His Majesty's Ambassador felt obliged to write to the Minister for Foreign Affairs stating that, until the hindrances to the milk supply were removed, he would be unable to open the negotiations. The milk situation then improved materially, but even after the opening of the discussions it was necessary to draw the Japanese Government's attention to serious cases of delay.
241. By this time the Japanese Government's views had taken shape, and on the 10th a "Domei" international broadcast, probably officially inspired, stated that no readjustment of Anglo-Japanese arrangements would be possible through a mere discussion of the local issues at Tientsin.
242. On the 15th July Sir Robert Craigie received from the Minister for Foreign Affairs the Japanese Government's proposed agenda for the discussions, together with a formula providing for co-operation between the British and Japanese authorities in occupied China, to which the Japanese Government wished His Majesty's Government to subscribe before the beginning of the detailed negotiations on Tientsin. Sir Robert Craigie was unable to accept this formula as it stood, but after a week of negotiations, in the course of which concessions were made by both sides, an agreed statement on the subject in ques- tion was issued simultaneously in London and in Tokyo on the 24th July. A statement made to the press by the Japanese Prime Minister on the 22nd July implied that the formula involved an abandonment by His Majesty's Government
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