File No. 704.9339/3

The Chinese Minister ( Koo ) to the Secretary of State

No. 66

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 12th instant, relating to the protection of Chinese interests [Page 399] in Haiti and in the Dominican Republic, in which you are good enough to inform me that the American Ministers at Santo Domingo and at Port au Prince respectively have been instructed by cable in accordance with the request of my Government and have been authorized to issue passports to Chinese citizens for countries other than the United States.1

One of the purposes for which Chinese citizens in Haiti and in the Dominican Republic will apply for passports is to enable them to leave the country and return to China, and the usual route for them to go to China is through the United States. I understand these instructions, therefore, to mean that the privilege of transit through the United States to China, which Chinese citizens from Haiti and the Dominican Republic have hitherto enjoyed, is not affected by these instructions, but that passports issued by the American ministers and consuls in those countries can not be used in lieu of Section 6 certificates for coming to and remaining in the United States.

I shall be obliged if you will be so kind as to inform me if this understanding is correct, and, should it be correct, to consider the advisability of issuing supplementary instructions to the American Ministers at Santo Domingo and at Port au Prince with a view to the preclusion of any possible doubt on the point.

Accept [etc.]

Vi Kyuin Wellington Koo
  1. Not printed.↩