Page 50B

Parent Collaboration Between Japan, Germany and Italy - Volume II
Date 25 November 1941
Language English
Collection Tavenner Papers & IMTFE Official Records
Box Box 15
Folder Japan, Germany, Italy Collaboration Vol 2
Repository University of Virginia Law Library
"1. I have handed over to the Foreign Minister the text of the declaration given by the Chinese Foreign Minister to Ambassador TRAUTMANN. (Tel. Hankow No. 22 of 13th instant.) HIROTA was very angry at the meaningless Chinese Declaration, considered it as mere evasion and remarked that the Chinese had all the necessary bases /Unterlagen/ in order to say yes or no. Finally, it was China who was beaten and who must ask for peace, and not Japan, who had to give information continually. I reminded the Foreign Minister that officially the Chinese Government had knowledge of only four fundamental conditions up till now. All further communications from him to me had been forwarded, at his wish, to the Chinese Government only in a very indefinite form. I advised him, either to stipulate the details of these declarations or to announce agreement that they would be now communicated to the Chinese as official statements of the Japanese Government. HIROTA replied that he would have to ask the cabinet and had prospects of speedy reply. “2. HIROTA told me confidentially, in reply to my question, that the Chinese attempt to win over the Americans to support them at the peace negotiations had failed. Roosevelt had refused any intervention. “3. On the American side, I was told that reports of a $150,000,000 credit to China in American banks was incorrect.