File No. 893.00/2674
The Acting Secretary of State to Minister Reinsch
Washington, July 21, 1917, 5 p.m.
Your July 18, 4 p.m. Paragraphs 50 and 51 of Instructions to Diplomatic Officers direct them not to grant asylum. The Department desires to call your particular attention to these instructions and to state that it desires the Legation to avoid interference with the proper administration of justice by the Chinese authorities and trusts Chinese Government will be made to understand this.
Nevertheless, if promise of asylum has been given by the diplomatic body, the Department will not direct you to break faith. In that case will endeavor to secure for Chang safe passage from the country if majority of diplomatic body approves and is willing to cooperate. But if no assurance of asylum has been given, by the diplomatic body, as regards Chang, or by you, as regards Kang, and they are only refugees in the quarters of the diplomatic corps, and if demand is made for their surrender to the constituted authorities, you are instructed to deliver them to those authorities. In such event the Government of the United States would expect that they would secure a fair and speedy public trial before a duly authorized tribunal with the privilege of counsel and witnesses and with humane treatment during imprisonment pending trial.