Page 62
Parent | Collaboration Between Japan, Germany and Italy - Volume II |
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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 |
"The immediate task which confronts us is to draw the consequences of the resultant situation from the point of view of German-Japanese relations. This is to be tried in the following way on the two-fold supposition that Japan will emerge from the conflict as the military victor, and that China, as far as it does not rely on England and America, will glide more and more into the Russian current.
"2. The China-conflict and German-Japanese relations.
"Up to now we have laid d own our attitude towards the two parties with the declaration of Germany's absolute neutrality. That was no doubt right for the first part of the Sino-Japanese conflict, although non-recall of the military advisors and the continuation of supply of war materials was one-sidedly beneficial to China - that is to say, Nanking Government, which sought close connections with our fiercest enemy by conclusion of the Non- Aggression Pact with the Soviet Union, and which moreover leant on the Western Powers and the Geneva ideology. Thus we have reached a position in relation to Japan which would have become difficult if Japan had vigorously pressed us for a decision. In my annual report I have shown why Japan, for domestic and foreign political reasons, was in an embarrassing situation of having to let Germany shine forth I in spotless glory. Thus the revaluation of all values took place; that is, every month the Japanese laid before us with obvious reproach, a review of the considerable German imports of war materials into China, while, on the