Friday, 24 October

The Chairman of Shandong, Shen Honglie (沈鴻烈)[1] and Chairman Xiong Bin(熊斌)[2] came and Guo Taiji invited them to lunch. During lunch, Shen Honglie said that when the Japanese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs was at the Qingdao Consul, he went to the Municipal Government in the morning about the case concerning the killing of the Japanese marines. He said to Shen that this time he came representing the Japanese Imperial Government to deal with the case, which was the same as usual, that several Japanese marines had been killed which must have been perpetrated by Chinese, he demanded [an explanation]. Shen Hongjie replied that he had reported that it absolutely could not be proved that the killings were perpetrated by Chinese. He was even afraid it was done by Japanese. He reprimanded the latter action as ridiculous. On hearing about this the face of the latter turned pink and he immediately fainted to the ground. Guo Taiji also said that Shigemitsu Mamoru spoke English very slowly. During the Geneva Conference, members were impatient with him.  Also, he was not a responsible person as for every situation he had to ask his government first. Someone said if someone asked Shigemitsu Mamoru if the weather was fine today he would answer he would ask for his government first. These two matters fully reflected Japanese foolishness.

At 4.00 p.m., the orchestra performed in the Jialing Hostel, which was quite good. The soprano, Ms. Huang, was particularly on form.

In the evening, the Soviet Union’s ambassador to China invited us for a banquet. I asked him about the war situation between Germany and the Soviet Union. He said that for Moscow it was still serious but that the Soviet Union could still manage to defend the city. The German army casualties were very serious. The replenishment of manpower was easier for the Soviet Union than for Germany. He also said the Soviet armies which were transferred from the Far East to the West Line were not too numerous, and those that remained were more than enough to cope with Japan.

Since I have been transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the attitude of the Soviet embassy towards the Ministry of Chinese Affairs has changed completely. The Soviet embassy is willing to be cooperative, not like before when in all matters the Soviet consultants would liaise directly and absolutely disregard the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I thought that the past policy of Wang Chonghui of not attending (probably he didn’t dare to attend) to the Soviet Union was wrong, and so I was determined to change it.

[1] Shen Honglie(1882-1969) was a Chinese naval leader who had studied the navy in Japan.

[2] Xiong Bin(1894-1964) was a Chinese politician.