893.00/5085: Telegram
The Minister in China (Schurman) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 13—9:35 a.m.]
257 Following received:
“Mandates July 10, 1923. The Acting Minister of Finance Chang Ying-hua, having several times earnestly requested permission to resign, he is hereby relieved of his acting post.
[Page 514]Wang Ke-min is appointed Acting Minister of Finance.
Seal of the President by the Cabinet.
Countersigned.
- Premier and Minister of War, blank.
- Minister for Foreign Affairs, blank.
- Minister of the Interior, Kao Ling-wei.
- Minister of Finance, blank.
- Minister of Marine, Li Ting-hsin.
- Minister of Justice, Cheng Ke.
- Minister of Education, blank.
- Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, blank.
- Minister of Communications Wu Yu-lin.”
Functioning Cabinet of five members was reduced by resignation of Minister of Finance to four which is less than a majority of original nine. Koo told me yesterday that he and Wang Ke-min would assume office next week and Koo was appointed by mandate of President Li. Latter, however, claims that, before leaving Peking June 13th, he issued mandates (though they were not published) accepting resignations of all members of Cabinet except Li Ken-yuan, Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, whom he appointed Premier concurrently and who countersigned the mandates, but diplomatic body has hitherto taken no note of this claim.
Parliament has accomplished nothing in 11 months and is utterly discredited. Of its members so far as can be ascertained 80 are in Tientsin, 100 in Shanghai and 670 in Peking, of whom considerable fraction have been promised traveling expenses to go south and are believed to be waiting higher competitive bids. Parliamentary constitutional commission has not for weeks been able to get a quorum and a meeting yesterday brought together only 470.
With no President, no Premier, and such attenuated and paralyzed organs of government themselves of questionable validity, the case for withdrawal of recognition from Peking is stronger than ever it was before. Sun Yat-sen has a manifesto16 in which adroitly connecting the usurping Peking militarists with the Lincheng outrage, he demands that the foreign powers withhold recognition of Peking “until a government has been established which can fairly claim to be representative of the country and can command the respect and support of the provinces”, and Sun Yat-sen’s demand for withdrawal of recognition is supported by leading British newspapers in Shanghai.
Whether the threat of withdrawing or withholding recognition from Peking is a measure that might wisely be adopted to produce pressure for some specific international purpose is a question I am carefully considering in connection with Department’s telegrams [Page 515] numbers 138, undated,17 received July 11, 9 a.m., and 121, June 23, 3 p.m.,18 and, while I have not reached a definite conclusion, I incline tentatively to the view that the demonstrable attendant risks would outweigh any probable advantages. But, on the general issue of withdrawal of recognition on account of the deterioration and impotence of the Peking Government, my opinion remains unchanged. I take the liberty of quoting [apparent omission] (as radio communication was then uncertain) in which I forecast the present decline of the Peking Government and discussed the problem of withdrawing recognition in writing that are equally valid today: “All things considered, I look for increasing disintegration with military control of provinces and practically no central government. Yet, if Legations were withdrawn from Peking, relations with rehabilitated China would be embarrassed, peace between other nations with interests in China put in jeopardy and the lives and property of foreign nationals left in the meantime to grave and intolerable risks.”
I hope some way may be found of settling Lincheng affair without raising at any rate formally the question of withdrawal of recognition from Peking.