AVOI D ING WAR T H E U IPLOMACY OF SIR ROBERT CRAIOIE AMD SHIOEMITSU MAMORU 1 9 3 7 — 1 9 4 1 ANTONY M. BEST Submitted for the degree of Ph.D. London School of Economics and Political Science September 1992 1 UMI Number: U062391 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U062391 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 British Library of Political and Economic Science ABSTRACT During the years preceding the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941 Britain's Ambassador to Japan was Sir Robert Craigie. His period in Tokyo has since been the object of a good deal of controversy, with some observers criticising him for being an abject appeaser while others have praised him for his skilful diplomacy and for his realism. Similarly his counterpart, the Japanese Ambassador to London, Shigemitsu Mamoru, has had his career much scrutinised, and has been variously labelled as an Anglophile liberal and as a puppet of the Japanese military. Apart from the dispute over their reputations, ,an analysis of the diplomacy of these two Ambassadors during the years 1937-1941 is important because both men were deeply disturbed by the steady deterioration in Anglo-Japanese relations, and sought to alleviate the growing tensions by espousing alternatives, designed to establish the grounds for a new understanding,to the policies pursued by their respective governments. This study analyses both the practicality and the practicability of the policies put forward by Craigie and Shigemitsu, and also shows the influence they exerted on the course of Anglo-Japanese relations. This is done by investigating not only their roles in the major crises that shook relations during this period, such as the Tientsin crisis of 1939, the Burma Road crisis of 1940 and the events immediately prior to the outbreak of war, but also the whole range of issues that led to increased tensions. In particular, emphasis is put on the effect that economic forces had on the relations between the two countries, and how the rivalry arising first from the Depression and second from the outbreak of the war in Europe in 1939 drove London and Tokyo apart; a process which the two Ambassadors were powerless to stop. It is hoped that this will prove to be a useful contribution to the study of the origins of the Pacific War. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are a number of people and institutions that I would like to pay •S tribute to for their assistance in my endeavours. I am indebted to the staff of the Public Record Office in Kew, Churchill College Cambridge, Trinity College Cambridge, the Bodleian Library Oxford, Birmingham University Library, the British Library for Political and Economic Science, the School of Oriental and African Studies Library, and the Houghton Library at Harvard for their kind assistance. I would also like to show my gratitude to the Bodleian Library for assistance with the Gwynne Papers (on loan from Vice-Admiral Sir Ian Hogg), to Viscount Simon for allowing me to quote from the Simon Papers, to the Trustees of the Inverchapel Trust for the Inverchapel Papers, and to the Houghton Library for the Grew Papers. Among my colleagues I would like to express my thanks to Professor Donald Cameron Watt and Professor Chihiro Hosoya for arranging for me to attend the 'Fifty Years After. The Pacific War Reexamined' conference at Lake Yamanaka in November 1991, from which I benefitted greatly. At the conference I met Associate Professor Tetsuya Sakai who in January 1992 sent me a very long and fascinating letter about Shigemitsu Mamoru,* his words have had a great influence on my thinking. I must also mention my debt to others who in conversation have helped to shape my views and in particular to Professor Akira Iriye, Professor Makoto Iokibe, Professor Yoichi Kibata and Dr Takahiko Tanaka. My greatest thanks go to my supervisor Professor Ian Nish who has helped me enormously over the last six years, steering me away from generalizations, writing innumerable letters and references on my behalf, he has my deepest respect. I am also happy to thank family and friends, to Andrew Bell for listening to me drone on and on about the past, to Jasper the Dog for stopping me from sitting at the word processor too long, and to all the friends met at the LSE and the PRO. To my brother David for help with the word processor, to my mother and father for not only being great parents but also for acting as my editors. Lastly to Serena Hirose, to whom I dedicate this work, for being her lovely self, for introducing me to Japan, and with my apologies for the last year and in the hope that we can be together again. CONTENTS Title Page 1 Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 List of Contents 4 Introduction 5 Chapter One - 'A Strong Nationalist' 13 Chapter Two - 'A Committee Sort of Man' 47 Chapter Three - 'A First Class Ambassador' 87 Chapter Four - 'A Surrender of Vital Principles' 129 Chapter Five - 'An Effort of Appeasement' 186 Chapter Six - 'Our Present Humiliating Position' 235 Chapter Seven - 'Rapidly Increasing Tensions' 275 Chapter Eight - 'Nishi No Kaze Hare' 323 Conclusion 361 Bibliography 371 4 INTRODUCTION On 8 December 1941 the Japanese Charge d'Affaires in London, Kamimura Shinichi, was called to the Foreign Office to be presented with a British declaration of war on his country. This document stated in the lofty tones of diplomatic language- 'On the evening of December 7th His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom learnt that Japanese forces, without previous warning either in the form of a declaration of war or of an ultimatum with a conditional declaration of war, had attempted a landing on the coast of Malaya and bombed Singapore and Hong Kong. In view of these wanton acts of unprovoked aggression committed in flagrant violation of international law and particularly of Article 1 of the Third Hague Convention, relative to the opening of hostilities, to which both Japan and the United Kingdom are parties, I have the honour to inform the Imperial Japanese Government in the name of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom that a state of war exists between the two countries.'* This short communication was the culmination of a decade in which, from the time of the Mukden Incident of 18 September 1931, the interests of Britain and Japan in East Asia had come increasingly into a state of collision; but the question arises, was this war unavoidable? To a number of observers on both sides the depth and range of the clash of interests between the two countries, with Britain as defender of the status quo in East Asia and Japan a revisionist power seeking to expel Western influence from the region, meant that a conflict was inevitable. To other interested parties, however, the mutual antagonism between Britain and Japan, the erstwhile allies, was not a cause for fatalism; there were groups in both countries who believed that though the problems that had arisen were serious they were not insoluble, and that in the long term the interests of the two Empires were not incompatible. To these believers in a rapprochement it seemed expedient for Britain and Japan to sit down and negotiate in a spirit of compromise and determination to overcome the obstacle of mutual misunderstanding. There was, however, in the ranks of those who pushed for this policy a further division. On one side there was the group who were at heart sentimentalists and yearned to return to the Elysian days of the Alliance, while on the other there were those who, for reasons of Realpolitik, saw a closer relationship as a vital necessity in the harsh international climate of the 1930s. This difference in motivation meant that there existed different levels of conformity within each of the two groups. The first, because of its belief that closer ties were an end in themselves, showed an identity of view between its members in the two countries. In the second group, because the British and Japanese members saw reconciliation in terms of their own countries' self- interest, they were frequently pursuing different and at times directly contradictory ends: this was a significant disadvantage as the members of this group tended to wield the greater influence in their respective countries. Two figures who can be seen as belonging to this latter group were Sir Robert Craigie, the British Ambassador to Japan from September 1937 to December 1941, and Shigemitsu Mamoru, the Japanese Ambassador to Britain from November 1938 to December 1941. Both diplomats played a vital role in the years leading up to the Pacific War, they were deeply disturbed by the steady deterioration in Anglo-Japanese relations, and sought to alleviate the growing tensions by espousing alternatives to the negative policies pursued by their respective governments; thus they hoped to establish the grounds for a new understanding. In addition, in 1941 they both were aware of how events were pushing the two countries towards war, and urged their respective governments to make compromises to avoid this catastrophe.