Saturday, 17 July

Military Attaché Guo reported that the Turkish Military Attaché had talked with the Japanese Military Attaché. The Japanese Military Attaché said as follows.1) The Soviet army still has 25 troop divisions in the Far East and the officers have not been changed but the relocation of soldiers has been quite frequent. 2) The Japanese army is having a hard time in the South Pacific with sea transport in particular. The navy manoeuvres have not been easy, and recently many ships have been sunk. For every ship sunk, the casualties are several thousand. Therefore it has become a big problem. 3) There are about 200 plus American airplanes fighting in China. Also Satō returned to Kuibyshev on 13 July, and he went to see the Swedish Minister the next day. Satō originally was an experienced diplomat, and normally he does not show his emotions, but this time he seemed to express his dissatisfaction. The reasons were as follows. 1) He said living in Moscow was fine, but a lot of little things had to be dealt with by the Deputy People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Lozovsky, in Kuibyshev. But Lozovsky is neither smart nor had power, so nothing is easy to solve. 2) The Japanese Embassy in Moscow has finished its renovations. There was not much work, but the bill the Soviet Union sent over was more than 190,000 roubles. 3) The Japanese takes care of the Italian Embassy’s affairs, and at the beginning of this year, the Soviet Union said they had to repair the housing and so they asked the Japanese to move out all the furniture. Now that the repairs have been done, and although there is not much work to do, the Soviet Union still sent a bill for 1 million roubles. It is certainly unreasonable but the bill has to be paid. Satō also said probably Italy couldn’t hold on any longer, but even if Italy was occupied, the Germans could still use the high mountains and natural barriers between Italy and Switzerland for defense, and it wouldn’t be easy for the British and Americans to attack.

Today the Soviet newspapers published the American broadcast that Japan has proposed a peace treaty to the Soviet Union. Japan will hand over the southern part of Sakhalin and the North Sea to the Soviet Union and has urged the Soviet Union to come to a compromise with Germany, otherwise the Germans will continue to attack the Soviet Union. But the Soviet Union has delayed giving a reply, which is the reason why the German army’s attack is a little bit delayed this year. (Pending a reply from the Soviet Union) In the end, the Soviet denial has been very strong and so the Germans have started to attack The Soviet Union has formally denied that there was such a thing. I immediately reported to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.