124.93/59: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Kellogg)91
189. In further reference to your No. 229, July 2, 11 a.m. In connection with your communication to the Foreign Office as to my concurrence in its views on the question of raising the rank of the Legations at Peking it seems desirable that you should take occasion to discuss very frankly with the appropriate officer the situation created by China’s receiving an Ambassador from the Soviets.
Your telegram No. 221, June 18, 5 p.m.,92 reported a tentative opinion of the Foreign Office that it might be possible by agreement among the principal Powers to ignore the Soviet Ambassador as ex-officio Dean of the Diplomatic Body. It seems doubtful whether, in view of his appointment by a Government recognized by China itself and by several of the principal Powers concerned, his status as the ranking member of the Diplomatic Body could be disputed or ignored.
The Diplomatic Body in Peking has of course built up for itself a wholly unique character in the nature of a continuing Conference of the Treaty Powers, representing their collective rights and interests, and exercising the functions of an organized cooperation for the purposes of those foreign rights and interests which the Powers have heretofore shared.
It is understood that by its recent Treaty arrangements with China the Soviet régime has renounced such rights and concessions as the Powers have heretofore enjoyed in common; and that its representatives have moreover openly avowed their antagonism towards the whole system of foreign rights established in favor of the Treaty Powers. If this be the case, a representative of the Soviet, whether as Dean or otherwise, could not be expected to cooperate with his colleagues for those purposes for which the Diplomatic Body exists. On the other hand, his exclusion from that body would appear inevitably to force him into the position of encouraging and cooperating with the Chinese Government in opposition to what would be termed the “pretensions” of the Treaty Powers—an alternative which would be particularly dangerous to the just rights of the Powers at this time when the disintegration of governmental authority in China has already resulted in so greatly impairing the sense of obligation and of responsibility.
[Page 467]It would seem that the inevitable recognition of a Soviet Ambassador as a member of the Diplomatic Body must tend to paralyse the activity of that organization as an instrumentality for the expression of the collective interests of the Powers, and it is to be anticipated that the Diplomatic Body, in so far as concerns its present peculiar character and functions, will fall into desuetude. It will be unfortunate to lose the benefit of the system of cooperation embodied in that organization; but at a time when cooperation among the Powers is more than ever necessary, it is to be hoped that this loss will be compensated by a cooperation suited to the exigency among the particular nations interested in such cases as from time to time may arise.
A related question concerns the transfer to the Soviet Ambassador of the property of the Russian Legation in the Legation Quarter. It would seem an untenable position for the other Legations which have had this property in custody to claim a right to deny or to condition its transfer, upon his demand, to the person recognized by China as the duly accredited diplomatic representative of Russia. On this point, however, I should be happy to learn the views of the British Government, particularly in reference to the possibility that the occupation of the Russian Legation by the representatives of the Soviet might have the result of impairing the defensibility of the Legation Quarter for which provision is made by the Boxer Protocol.93
You will of course bear in mind that this Government, while not itself considering it advisable or feasible to enter into diplomatic relations with the Soviet regime, desires to stand aloof from any question of the relationships of other Governments with the Soviets.
Repeat to Paris for information as Department’s 220.
- See last paragraph for instructions to repeat to Paris as Department’s no. 220.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1901, Appendix (Affairs in China), p. 312.↩