File No. 793.94/231.
Minister Reinsch to the Secretary of State.
Peking, February 15, 1915—10 p.m.
Apparently in pursuance of an arrangement made by Embassy Tokyo in response to my request to it for information, Japanese Minister yesterday handed me a confidential memorandum professing to embody the demands which his Government is urging upon China. He stated that the same memorandum had been communicated to you. This memorandum sets forth only certain demands of far more [Page 89] restricted scope than those which are actually being urged upon the Chinese Government. Not only does it refer to specified mining rights in Manchuria and Mongolia, whereas actual demand is for all such rights there, and omits all reference to dangerous exclusive clause attached to the demand concerning Han-yeh-ping Company, but it omits the further demands as follows: compulsory engagement of Japanese advisers; Japanese participation in police administration and the supply of arms by Japan. Further demands are those of missionary land-holding rights for Japanese in the interior; extensive mining rights on the Yangtze; concessions for railways from Wuchang to Nanchang thence to Hangchow and to Foochow, Amoy and Chaochowfu, and an undertaking that Japan must first be applied to when foreign capital is required for the development of railways, mines and ports in Fukien.
A similar incomplete summary of demands appears to have been communicated to the British authorities.