Friday, 29 August

At 7.30 I went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Guo Taiji telephoned he could not come to the Ministry, and asked me to handle various affairs. Ambassador Gu Weijun sent a telegram yesterday saying he had heard that in the America-Japan negotiations, that Japan demanded the United States stop assistance to China, while the United States requested Japanese armies to withdraw from Chinese territory. Both sides advocated different solutions and there was no meeting point. He also learnt that during the Roosevelt-Churchill conference, it was said that as the Japanese Ambassador to the United States had suggested to the United States that with regard to the issues in the Far East, both the United States and Japan should openly exchange opinion and come to a satisfactory solution to both sides, therefore the United States should do the liaising and Britain would be back-up to see if Japan was sincere or not. At the same time, as Soviet planes needed petroleum quite urgently, the United States intended to send several petroleum tankers to Vladivostok in the Soviet Union. But at the moment it should be delayed to prevent disruption from the Japanese navy. However, this liaising between Japan and the United States had made no progress, while the said oil tankers would depart soon. Japanese attitude until then was difficult to determine. So, it was said that there was the possibility of a deterioration in Japanese-American relations in the near future. Guo Taiji said that this telegram was at great variance with the one from Hu Shih yesterday. Therefore, he decided to ask Hu to double-check.