893.00/6063
The Minister in China ( Schurman ) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 21.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to my telegram No. 26 of January 16, 1 p.m. relative to the interned Chinese soldiers in Shanghai and to the report that one interned Chinese had been killed and two wounded by one of the American guards.
As an indication of the procedure which a certain section of the foreign community in Shanghai are advocating in dealing with the complex situation there, I have the honor to transmit herewith enclosed clippings of an excerpt of an article and an extract of a letter to the North China Daily News which appeared in the January 17th edition of that publication.13 The article proposes the establishment [Page 598] by the interested powers of a neutral zone outside the settlement, and in the letter it is suggested that each of the powers send to Shanghai a force of 1000 men for the protection of the International Settlement. The opinion is expressed that the sending of five destroyers to Shanghai from Manila would not prove particularly effective.
The American community in Shanghai is quite as insistent in its demands for protection as the British, and I venture, therefore, to request the Department’s instructions as to the policy which will be adopted by our Government in the eventuality of a repetition of a situation such as has recently prevailed in Shanghai.
I have [etc.]
- Not printed.↩