Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy - Ludwig von Mises ...

U.S. International Policy: 1933–1940 15
falling completely under the white man’s domination and to save
China from Communism.” 18
In the United States’s view, Japan’s “New Order” was violating
the rights of Americans in China. In a note to the Japanese
Foreign Minister (November 7, 1938), Ambassador Grew
objected to actions Japan was taking on the mainland. He could
see no reason why U.S. shipping on the Yangtze River should
be restricted, since hostilities in that area had ceased. Grew also
claimed (November 21) that there was no real excuse for the frequent
“accidental” incidents in China involving “not only the loss
of American property but the loss of American life and the desecration
of our fl ag.” 19
Th e Japanese continued to win in China. Th ey took Hankow
and Canton. Th ey were preventing China’s access to the coast
and thus making it increasingly diffi cult for her to obtain supplies.
As a result, Chiang was forced to move his government
inland to Chungking. But the Japanese “were conquering territory,
not people, and by the beginning of 1939, they were still far
from fi nal victory. Th ey had lost thousands of men, millions of
yen and incurred the wrath of the Western world, and Americans
in particular.” 20
In 1937–1938, the Chinese built the Burma Road over rugged
mountain terrain—a remarkable feat of engineering. Th e Burma
Road was opened on December 2, 1938. War supplies could then
be landed in Rangoon, British Burma, shipped by train to Lashio,
then over the Burma Road to Kunming in China’s Yunnan
Province, and thence to Chungking.
Although most Americans did not want to become involved
in a war, by the end of 1938, FDR was beginning to resent the
Neutrality Act. His sympathies in the Far East lay with China
18 Ibid., p. 48.
19 Department of State, Japan, 1931–1941, p. 807.
20 Toland, Th e Rising Sun, p. 54.