741.942/25: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Kellogg)
Washington, July 26,
1924—3 p.m.
238. Your telegram No. 265, July 18, 6 p.m.
- 1.
- Do the proposals now made by the Japanese to the British contemplate only a reduction of the Japanese tariff rates, or have they in contemplation a reciprocal downward revision of both Chinese and Japanese import and/or export duties by agreement between the Chinese and Japanese Governments? If the latter, the plan would appear to involve inconsistency with the purpose of Articles V and VI of the Washington Treaty relating to Chinese customs tariff.75
- 2.
- Department knows of no legal basis for a suggestion or arrangement which would constitute the Railway Zone a separate customs area.
- 3.
- With regard to your penultimate sentence, it is the Department’s understanding that China imposes no import or export duties upon traffic between the Railway Zone and other Chinese territory, but only upon goods crossing boundary of the Kwantung Leased Territory.
- 4.
- No change in the existing treaty provisions establishing the Chinese import and export duties upon goods crossing inwards or outwards over the boundary of the Leased Territory can be made without giving rise to rights on the part of other countries under the most-favored-nation clauses in their treaties with China or with Japan. If by virtue of such changes advantages should be accorded to the trade either of China or of Japan, this Government would probably feel obligated to ask that the same advantages be accorded to its nationals.
- 5.
- The Department sees no reason for considering the trade of Manchuria entitled to treatment on a different basis from that of [Page 417] the trade of any other part of China. Such trade is, in international contemplation, Chinese trade, regardless of the nationality or place of domicile of the producers or distributors. Any concessions made in regard to it would fall within the scope of the most-favored-nation provisions of the treaties to which the country making the concession is a party.
- 6.
- Following is the substance of a telegram dated July 23, 9 a.m., from Chargé d’Affaires at Tokyo: “Several days ago I informally asked Baron Shidehara75a if there was any truth in the newspaper reports that the Japanese Government contemplated any change in the status of the South Manchuria Railway Zone and he said he did not know but promised to look into the matter; today he told me there was no truth in these reports. He said also that the Japanese Government did not intend to insist, in connection with the negotiations now going on in London, that for tariff purposes the South Manchuria Railway Zone be assimilated to Japanese territory.”
Department hopes this is a correct statement of the situation.
Grew
- Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. i, p. 282.↩
- Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs.↩