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to control lines in the Shanghai-Nanking area, and protested against a suggestion which had been made that the question of the compensation to be paid to foreign interests should be left to the Renovation Government at Nanking.
Damage to His Majesty's Consulate at Chungking.
163. In the course of a raid by Japanese naval aircraft on the 4th May damage was caused to His Majesty's Consulate at Chungking. In a note on the following day the Japanese Government informed His Majesty's Ambassador that this damage might have taken place owing to the proxximity of Chinese anti- aircraft positions to the consular district. Similar statements were made to the French and United States Embassies. Sir Robert Craigie replied that this excuse was entirely unacceptable, and pointed out the gravity of the Japanese action. On the 8th May he again raised the matter in conversation with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, protesting against the gross carelessness of the air- craft concerned in regard to their responsibility for respecting British lives and property, and also alluding to the general feelings of intense resentment which must be aroused by such indiscriminate bombing of the civilian population.
Alleged Terrorist Activities in Tientsin.
164. On the 23rd April the authorities in the British Concession at Tientsin arrested four men suspected of complicty in an attempt made on the life of a Chinese Federal Reserve Bank official in the Concession on the 9th April. When His Majesty's Consul, who was not satisfied of the guilt of the men in question, refused to hand them over to the Japanese military authorities, the latter issued a communiqué on the 6th May characterising the harbouring of terrorists in foreign After concessions as an indirect act of hostility against the Japanese army." subsequent discussions the men were handed over to the Japanese for cross- examination on the understanding that they would not be tortured; they were subsequently returned to the Concession without a decision having been reached, and negotiations were still proceeding on the subject in an atmosphere of some tension at the end of the month.
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Policy of His Majesty's Government.
165. In answer to a question in the House of Commons on the 26th May enquiring whether His Majesty's Government were contemplating the adoption of a system of consular certificates for the importation of Japanese products, Mr. R. A. Butler stated that the British Government were closely watching the treatment accorded to British trading interests in the territories under Japanese control in order to be able to take appropriate steps to protect those interests at any time.
United States of America.
166. On the 10th May the United States Ambassador made strong oral representations to the Minister for Foreign Affairs regarding the bombing of Chungking, and requested that effective steps might be taken to terminate the indiscriminate bombing operations now being carried on in China.
167. On the 19th May the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs stated confidentially to the United States Ambassador, who had called to take leave of him before proceeding to the United States for several months, that although serious consideration was being given to the possibility of strengthening the Anti- Comintern Pact, Japan should not, therefore, be regarded as having joined the camp of the totalitarian nations in opposition to the democracies. Mr. Arita added that, as regards American rights in China, the Japanese Government had no intention of excluding foreign trade from that country,
Anti-Comintern Pact,
168 Ministerial meetings continued throughout the month (see political diary for April, paragraph 129), and it seems probable that these deliberations were protracted as a result of President Roosevelt's message to Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini, which was widely interpreted in Japan as committing the United States to the support of the democracies. It appears that consideration was also given to the relationship between the proposed strengthening of the Anti-Comintern Pact and the Anglo-Soviet negotiations for the conclusion of an alliance. In this connexion the French Ambassador informed the Japanese
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Government on the 15th May that there had been no question of extending to the Far East the defensive arrangements now under discussion with the Soviet Government; if, however, Japan should enter into an alliance with the anti- Comintern Powers, the French Government would then have to reconsider their political situation in the Far East.
169. It appeared on the 19th May, when, after a Cabinet meeting, the Emperor received first the Prime Minister and then the Minister of War, as if a decision had now been reached on a formula for the strengthening of the pact. The nature of this decision had, however, not been revealed by the end of the month.
170. On the 22nd May the Prime Minister, Baron Hiranuma, and the Foreign Office spokesman, Mr. Kawai, issued cordial statements congratulating Germany and Italy on the conclusion of their alliance.
Germany.
171. On the 12th May the Ministry for Foreign Affairs denied press reports of an official Japanese mediation in the dispute between Germany and Poland. It was, however, subsequently understood that the Japanese Embassies in Berlin and Warsaw had been actively using their good offices with a view to ending the dispute.
France.
172. The French Ambassador on the 9th May supported the representations already made by Sir Robert Craigie regarding the air attack on Chungking. M. Arsène-Henry made renewed representations on the same subject on the 18th May.
China; Japanese Policy.
173. On the 1st May the spokesman of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, in a truculent statement, observed that Great Britain and the United States, which had reduced the Far East to a semi-colonial status," must enforce the open-door principle all over the world before they could demand its application in the Far East. What Japan desired most was Asia for the Asiatics. On the following day His Majesty's Ambassador took up Mr. Kawai's statement with the Vice- Minister for Foreign Affairs, who informed Sir Robert Craigie on the 3rd May that the statement had been made in the course of an informal speech."
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174. In a further informal statement issued on the 24th May, Mr. Kawai stated that the foreign settlements in China should be regarded as naturally under Chinese sovereignty, and that in parts of China occupied by Japan this sovereignty naturally came under Japanese control. Japan might properly eradicate, even by military force, anti-Japanese activities in the occupied areas, or (according to one account of Mr Kawai's statement) in the foreign concessions. Another version reports the spokesman as having said that the object of Japanese action in China was to place Chinese sovereignty under Japanese control.
175. Mr. Chuko Ikezaki, a former parliamentary councillor of the Education Department. in a signed article published in the Yomiuri in the middle of May urged that Japan should resort to any military tactics, however drastic, in order to crush General Chiang Kai-shek's resistance in the shortest time possible. The writer quoted Mr. Bernard Shaw's statement that the only way to humanise as far as possible war, which is essentially inhuman, is for the belligerents to adopt such severe military tactics as to terminate it as quickly as possible, and from this point of view he advocated the free use of poison gases and bacteria in defiance of the dictates of international law. General Chiang Kai-shek, who, despite his lack of confidence in the final victory, was simply protracting the hostilities in the vain hope that something fortuitous might crop up to turn the scales in his favour, was clearly an enemy of humanity. Very harsh measures ought to be taken in dealing with such an enemy. It was high time that Japan took a leaf out of Bismarck's book and, casting off all her diffidence and reserve, attacked General Chiang's forces without compunction so as to convince him of the utter futility of resistance. The Powers who had been aiding China since the outbreak of the hostilities would no doubt protest against drastic tactics on the part of the Japanese, but their protests might be completely ignored. The recent bombings of Chungking had been very effective. Japan should carry
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