File No. 893.00/1598a
The Secretary of State to the American Chargé d’Affaires.
Washington, April 6, 1913—11 p.m.
If there should be more than the ordinary delays in organizing for business when the National Assembly shall have convened you will report and receive further instructions. When the Assembly shall have convened with a quorum and is organized for business by the [Page 110] election of its officers, you will communicate the following message to the President of China as coming from the President of the United States of America.
His Excellency Yuan Shih Kai,
President of China:
The Government and people of the United States of America, having abundantly testified their sympathy with the people of China upon their assumption of the attributes and powers of self-government, deem it opportune at this time, when the representative National Assembly has met to discharge the high duty of setting the seal of full accomplishment upon the aspirations of the Chinese people, that I extend, in the name of my Government and of my countrymen, a greeting of welcome to the new China thus entering into the family of nations. In taking this step I entertain the confident hope and expectation that in perfecting a republican form of government the Chinese nation will attain to the highest degree of development and well being, and that under the new rule all the established obligations of China which passed to the Provisional Government will in turn pass to and be observed by the Government established by the Assembly.
You will inform consuls and commander in chief of Asiatic Squadron, and report execution of this instruction.
Note.—The British Ambassador on April 7 replied to the Department’s aide mémoire of April 2, stating that he was instructed “to inform you that His Majesty’s Government feel obliged to adhere to the views which they have always held as to the conditions which should precede the recognition of that Government. These conditions, which are already known to the United States Government, are as follows: 1. That the powers should act in concert. 2. That formal confirmation should be secured of the rights, privileges, and immunities enjoyed by British subjects as the result of treaties and established customary usage.” The Ambassador added his Government’s suggestion to consider whether the proposed recognition by the United States “might not with advantage be deferred until a fuller assurance of the stability of the Government and of the maintenance of tranquility in the country has been obtained. Such a course might well prove to be in the interests of China herself. In any case His Majesty’s Government could not take any action of the kind indicated by you without a full exchange of views with the powers having missions at Peking, and it was practically impossible that such an interchange of communications could be effected within the period suggested by your Government.” (File No. 893.00/1667.)
The Minister of Denmark wrote to the Secretary of State on April 8: “The Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs cables me to-day that much to his regret he is for the present unable to join in the recognition as proposed by the President of the United States.” (File No. 893,00/1603.)
The Chargé d’Affaires of Austria-Hungary on April 8 replied: “I have now been instructed by my Government to thank your excellency for your communication, but to say that we can not see in the opening of the Chinese Parliament a sufficient motive for the recognition of the Government of China and therefore must reserve us the liberty of our decision.” (File No. 893.00/1606.)
The Foreign Office of Italy, on April 8, referred the American Ambassador to its decision as stated August 5, 1912 (see For. Rel. 1912, [Page 111] p. 85), adding that “conditions at that time prevailing do not seem to have sufficiently improved to strengthen the new Government in a definite way. The Italian Government therefore considers it still too early and premature to take a view different from that then expressed.” (File No. 893.00/1605.)
The Ambassador of France on April 9 replied that he had been instructed to say that while sincerely appreciating the motives of this Government in favoring the simultaneous adhesion of France to its plan for recognition, the French Government, “with all its desire to manifest its good will to the Chinese nation, holds for its part that it would be premature to recognize an organization which, leaving aside questions of stability that must nevertheless be taken into consideration, has not yet been sanctioned by those concerned therein. Indeed, there is before us but a provisional government which neither the people nor its representatives have yet confirmed. It is with a view to such confirmation that the Constituent Assembly was called and the formation in China of a definitive government hangs on the result of its labors. It therefore seems to my Government that the de facto relations, which are besides perfectly cordial and courteous, at present maintained by it with the Chinese Republic are, for the time being, best suited to the condition in which the new organization is still placed.” (File No. 893.00/1613.)