File No. 793.94/560
Minister Reinsch to the Secretary of State
Peking, March 6, 1917.
Sir: I have the honor to request more specific instructions in connection with your telegram of January 27, 5 p.m., more particularly with respect to the statement “the Department recognizes that Japan has special interests in Manchuria.”
The Legation has hitherto adhered to the position that while Japan has many specific concessions in southern Manchuria her position in that region is to be understood as made up of the sum of such specific concessions; in other words, that privileges could be claimed, not by virtue of a so-called “special position,” but only under some specific grant.
In my reply of January 29, 1917, to the Japanese Minister in connection with railway development in Manchuria, I expressed surprise because of a certain hesitancy on his part in recognizing the appropriateness of American cooperation in Manchuria because of Japan’s “special position” there. For my part I avoided the mention of “special position” but used instead “specific concessions and rights held by Japan of which its legal position in that region is made up.” In view of the note of the American Government to China and Japan, dated May 11, 1915,33 I have considered that the American Government had not yet agreed to the limitation of American rights by the special privileges granted to Japan in southern Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia by the exchange of notes of 1915, particularly [Page 183] with respect to preference in the matter of railways and security of taxes in these districts. It has also been my understanding that the rights of residence and business granted to Japanese by the Treaty of May, 1915, respecting southern Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia, would by the “most favored nation.” clause, automatically accrue to the benefit of American citizens desirous of availing themselves thereof.
Hitherto it has seemed to me that any explicit recognition of a “special position” of Japan in Manchuria, beyond the sum of specific rights granted, if accorded at all, ought to be conditioned upon such interpretation of Japanese rights as would guarantee freedom of trade in that region and upon adequate assurances as to the exemption of other parts of China from similar claims to a “special position.”
It is also my belief that an undisputed claim to a “special position” in southern Manchuria is a matter of the utmost import to Japan, so that the Japanese Government in return for such recognition would undoubtedly be disposed to make concessions by way of assurances as to China proper.
In view of the interpretation given to the statement of the Secretary of State by Japanese journals, as reported to the Department by the Consul General at Mukden in his No. 9 of February 17, 1917, I have the honor to request your instructions as to the following questions:
First: Is the statement of the Secretary of State above mentioned to be understood as recognizing on the part of the American Government the special preferences as to railways and tax security created by the exchange of notes between Japan and China in May, 1915?
Second: Is the Legation warranted in assuming that the “special position” of Japan as thus recognized must be understood as confined to those specific rights and privileges which have been obtained by the Japanese Government from China and from Russia by way of international agreement; thus excluding an interpretation which upon the basis of these rights would claim for Japan a “special position” implying general rights of preference and suzerainty in the regions affected?
In reply to inquiries on the part of American citizens as to whether they could freely engage in business in Manchuria, including such enterprises as copartnership with Chinese in development of mines, the Legation has answered affirmatively. Should it be your desire that such answer be in any way modified, I have the honor to request your instructions thereon.
I have [etc.]