File No. 893.77/1563
Department Memorandum
October 31, 1916.
In 1899 (April 28) Russia and Great Britain exchanged notes pledging Great Britain not to seek railway concessions outside the Great Wall and not to obstruct Russian railway enterprise there, and binding Russia similarly with respect to British railway construction in the Yangtze Valley. China was notified of the agreement.
On June 1, 1899, Russia received assurances from China that in building railways north or northeast of Peking, if foreign capital should be found necessary, application would be made to Russia, and that China would not employ capital of other foreign nationality. In acknowledging this note, on June 17, the Russian Minister enlarged the pledge, making it read “north and northeast of Peking or in any other direction.” This was without authority, but China does not appear to have corrected it.
[Page 199]In 1910 Americans and British subjects were parties to an agreement with China to build a line from Chinchow to Aigun in Manchuria. The Russians objected and quoted the pledge of China of June, 1899, but only as referring to lines north or northeast of Peking.
At the same time the Russian Government, in the memorandum of February 24, 1910,19 handed to the Secretary of State by the Russian Ambassador in Washington, suggested as an alternative the building of a line from Kalgan across Mongolia to Urga land Kiakh-ta. This line would run northwestward from Peking. The line now (1916) proposed, while starting from a point northwest of Peking, runs to a place considerably southwest of Peking.