Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1925, Volume I

893.00/6590: Telegram

The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State

Peking, September 9, 1925—11 a.m.
[Received 2:10 p.m.]

384. My telegram No. 293, July 28, 9 p.m. [a.m.]⁵³

1. It appear that by a process so gradual that the phases of its development have scarcely been discernible there has come about in general an abatement of the tensity of Chinese feeling such as to warrant the hope that the crisis has passed. The Chinese no longer “see red”; the aggressive movement against foreign rights and interests has slackened; strikes and boycotts continue apparently out of sheer momentum but with no new impulse behind them.

2. These generalizations are subject to local exceptions particularly in the case of Canton which is now more than ever under Soviet domination and to that extent abnormal to Chinese conditions. They are moreover subject to the qualification that they are less strictly applicable to conditions in proportion to the distance south from Yangtze.

3. To a large degree also a distinction must be made between British and other interests. The Japanese originally grouped with the British have from the beginning perceived psychological crux of the problem and by an assiduously conciliatory attitude towards Chinese sensibilities have succeeded almost completely in “getting out from under” and putting themselves on virtually the same basis as those who like ourselves have been merely incidentally affected by the present outburst of ethnical self-consciousness on the part of the Chinese. The British Chamber of Commerce and China Association of Shanghai have recently adopted and communicated to the Chinese Chamber of Commerce resolutions so ludicrously ingratiating in contrast with the previous attitude of community which they represent that the fact of their being received without adverse comment is in itself an evidence of subsidence of Chinese feeling even towards the British.

4. Although the aggressiveness of feeling may have passed its crisis it would be a mistake to assume that the volcano has burnt itself out, that the danger is over and that things in China have reverted to what they were before. The passionate intensity of feeling has been succeeded by a new sentiment that involves at once sullenly suspicious attitude towards foreign nations and a rather complacently self-conscious conviction that Chinese have scored once and can do it again when they want to. Representative Chinese talk in more or less detached fashion about the defects and possibilities of mass action, half apologizing for the abatement in the movement of self-assertion and half-threatening recrudescence of it if occasion should arise. I believe there is still the possibility of a new movement which might be set in train by affront to their pride even by some casual accident as the situation is still explosive.

5. The recent after-developments of the situation seem to add confirmation to the belief that the whole crisis through which the Chinese Government have been passing is emotional rather than logical and that it is less concerned with substraction [abstract?] rights and obligations (which are only vaguely understood by any but the exceptionally keen minds among them who for the most part understand also the reasons for abnormal state of things in China) than with appearances and amenities of intercourse.

6. There is of course a development here which, whatever the crudities of its manifestations, is real and must be met. But it is accompanied by much plausible assumption which has no basis whatever in fact. Idealistic though term of about the [apparently garbled groups] possibilities of the Chinese people and sympathetic towards their somewhat elementary yearnings towards nationality, it is a case [sic] nevertheless incumbent upon those who deal with China today to keep in mind that in relation to the present problem China consists of two elements: first, the faction recognized as the government which is in control in Peking and which only wants money to go on with, and second, the articulate element of China’s population which, most of it, holds the so-called government in contempt but is momentarily willing to array itself behind that effigy or [of] sovereignty for the sake of gaining “face” for the ethnic group which calls itself the Chinese nation as opposed to the foreigner. It behoves us therefore to be on our guard against the assumption that a concession to be [the?] government is ipso facto concession to that growing national sentiment with whose healthy development we would be disposed to sympathize. It is in fact quite possible that any concrete concession enabling the present governing faction to consolidate its power over the country would incur the active resentment of the very elements which are urging in the abstract the necessity for such concessions. I venture this observation in view of the considerable amount of American comment reprinted here which advances upon the facile assumption that the problem is to decide whether or not we are prepared to satisfy the legitimate aspirations of the Chinese people.

7. Repeated by mail to Tokyo.

MacMurray

53. Post, p. 799.