893.00/3778
The Consul in Chargé at Shanghai (Perkins) to the Secretary of State13
[Received March 2.]
Subject: Conditions of Foreign Residence in the Interior of China: Yangtsze Valley.
Sir: Referring to my despatch No. 430 of December 17, 1920,14 on the above entitled subject, I have the honor to advise the Department that the continued maintenance and strengthening of our naval forces on the Yangtsze River is (in my opinion) indispensable to the protection of American missionary and business interests in this part of China. The dangers, both of person and of property, to which our citizens are becoming more and more exposed through the growing dissolution of responsible government can only be effectively met by a display of force, continually made at the numerous points in this valley accessible to our gunboats.
In view of the extent of the region to be patrolled, it is insufficient to depend upon the arrival of gunboat assistance at the immediate approach of trouble; and it is of little avail that ships arrive after catastrophes have occurred. Indemnities have no effect upon undisciplined soldiers who do not have to pay them; and actual culprits are not easy of identification or arrest. Our citizens resident in scattered places throughout the interior cannot be protected by a policy which tacitly admits the wide prevalence of chaotic conditions and seeks to meet this exigency only by rendering whatever physical assistance may chance to be available at or near the point of explosion.
What is essential is a studied plan to effect the recovery of foreign prestige in the Yangtsze Valley from its present low status; its maintenance on a newer and higher level; and a purpose to steadily enhance it to a point where it may be relied upon to effect in itself the safety of foreign residents, except under the most extraordinary and unforeseen circumstances.
In order to secure such a happier condition of affairs, the Chinese must be constantly impressed by the visual evidence of our naval forces; by the alertness of our Diplomatic, Consular and Naval officials; and their concerted interest, in all acts of violence to person and property of American citizens. There must be created in the Chinese a state of mind which instinctively senses the certainty of [Page 521] early retribution for such acts; and that officials, military and civil, will be held personally responsible for the lawlessness of the forces or districts which they assume to govern. When such an idea becomes fixed, it will not always be important whether naval forces are on hand in cases of individual crises; for there will be found a sufficient nucleus of Chinese officialdom and gentry who, for their own welfare, will see that harm does not come to American lives and property.
In brief, “prestige” should be made to prove adequate to afford due protection except under most extraordinary conditions. Its present low state is an invitation to violence. Failure to punish the shooting of Lehman at Liling in May, 1918,15 resulted in the murder of Reimert at Yochow, in June, 1920.16
The character of the naval forces in this valley, and the handling thereof, would appear to be matters more appropriate for discussion by the Department concerned. I venture, however, to observe, that the British naval forces in this valley have been at least doubled in the last two years and that the units have been selected for their usefulness on China rivers. Our own forces have not been increased; and, with two exceptions, are ill adapted for their work, inasmuch as their draft is too great. The vessels are thus unable to reach interior points at certain seasons, and, in the larger ports which they are able to reach, their diminutive size is apt rather to decrease than enhance the level of prestige the high attainment of which I have described as, in my opinion, indispensable in any well devised plan to protect our citizens in this valley.
Light draft vessels, and of good speed, are needed. It would also be a valuable adjunct, if certain of them were to have superstructures of an imposing, even if not too substantial nature, for the effect upon observers. Certain interior places, rarely or never touched, should be visited at intervals; and a sufficient number of vessels on the river would permit the occasional concentration of two or three ships with a far greater enhancement of our standing than the proportion would indicate. The annual withdrawal of almost the entire force on the Yangtsze to the mouth of the river for target practice in the Spring of the year would appear to be a course involving much risk under conditions now prevalent. If the disorders which occurred in the Province of Hunan in June, 1920, had by chance taken place a few weeks earlier, it would have been found that the whole length of the river was at the time almost stripped of our gunboats.
In concluding these observations, I think it safe to say, after conversations with persons for whose opinions I have regard, that the [Page 522] consensus of American sentiment in the Yangtsze Valley would approve a strengthening of our naval forces here, and a more thorough study of how we may guard ourselves in the future against other, and perhaps worse, outrages than those already suffered; outrages which are certain otherwise to reoccur.
I have [etc.]
Endorsed in every detail.
Consul General at Large
- Copy sent also to American Legation, Peking, as an enclosure to despatch no. 553.↩
- Not printed.↩
- See report on the Liling troubles, dated May 15, 1918, Foreign Relations, 1918, p. 99.↩
- See telegram no. 140, June 19, 1920, from the Minister in China, ibid., 1920, vol. i, p. 806.↩