American Legation,
Pekin, July 23,
1910.
[Inclosure—Translation.]
The Prince of Ch’ing
to Minister Calhoun.
Foreign Office,
Peking, July 21,
1910.
Your excellency: I have the honor to inform
your excellency that the Japanese minister to China and the Russian
chargé d’affaires in Peking have handed to me the text of the
Russian-Japanese agreement signed on July 4, 1910. My board has
subjected this agreement to a deep scrutiny of more than ordinary
thoroughness.
Now, therefore, inasmuch as Japan and Russia mutually agree to
respect and maintain the Chinese-Japanese, Chinese-Russian, and
Japanese-Russian treaties, they therefore recognize and reaffirm the
Japanese-Russian treaty of 1905, which explicitly recognizes the
sovereignty of China in the three eastern Provinces, conserves equal
opportunities for all nations, and promises assistance to China in
the work of instituting measures for the encouragement of the
industries and commerce of Manchuria; and likewise the principle of
the opening of Manchuria embodied in the Manchurian treaty concluded
between China and Japan in the thirty-first year of Kuanghsu. The
Chinese Government must necessarily, therefore, in conformity with
the spirit of the Japanese-Russian treaty, implement the intention
of the Chinese-Japanese treaty, and unconditionally uphold all their
provisions relating to the exercise of China’s sovereign rights,
equal opportunity for all nations, and the development of the
industries and commerce of Manchuria, in the hope that thus may be
served the best interest of all.
In addition to notifying the Japanese minister to China and the
Russian chargé d’affaires in Peking to the above effect, I have the
honor to make this communication to your excellency requesting that
it be transmitted to your excellency’s Government.
A necessary dispatch.
(seal of the wai-wu-pu.)
