793.00/114: Telegram
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 2—2:15 p.m.]
306. Your telegram number 165, July 23, 3 p.m.
1. Except as the Department might instruct me otherwise, in view of what follows, I shall amend draft reply to the Chinese Government as authorized by your 170, July 28, 2 p.m., and 173, July 30, 1 p.m.
[Page 808]2. The latter telegram reached me while in conversation with the Japanese Minister, who called yesterday evening to read me a copy of a telegram by which his Government instructed Matsudaira to explain to you the difficulty which the Japanese Government finds in assenting to the American draft insofar as it conveys a formal promise to consider tariff autonomy at the Special Conference. As the Japanese Ambassador will no doubt make clear, his Government feels that tariff autonomy, on the removal of all conventional restrictions upon the tariffs leviable by the Chinese Government, is a theoretical desideratum scarcely possible of realization in connection with the Special Conference, and that we should at least be cautious in holding out hopes of accomplishing what may or may not prove feasible—the more so as concession on this point, in advance of any practical experience beyond the strikes and boycotts which the agitators have inaugurated with a view to forcing their point, might tend to encourage and sanction such methods and even justify and make possible the use of tariff discriminations as a means of influencing future negotiations between China and the powers.
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5. Japanese Minister said that this introduction into our draft note to the Chinese Government (which of course means full publicity) of our willingness to consider tariff autonomy was a surprise to his Government; and he added Shidehara had asked him whether I would not be willing to convey to you my personal opinion on the question.
6. I trust the Department will not misunderstand my saying that, since this further development of its views in the matter of the Chinese tariff, I have felt a mental reservation on this particular point. Conceding theoretical rightness of the Chinese tariff autonomy, I frankly acknowledge my doubts of the tactical expediency of making public avowal of the willingness to adopt that theorem at a moment when we are being argued and bullied into accepting it by a radical group which has no real faith in its own propaganda and would resent it if we granted their demands under circumstances which gave the advantages of this concession to any of the several military cliques which are likely to profit by it. … Either way the kaleidoscope falls, the majority of agitators would feel that we foreigners had backed the party momentarily in power. I venture to refer to my telegram 293, of July 28, 9 p.m. [a.m.]. About the whole of the present agitation is an unreality which makes it likely that action taken in Washington on sound abstract basis would locally appear to be a means of foreign support of Tuan or some favored successor in the same way that the Japanese support[ed] him in 1917 and 1918.
7. I have therefore ventured to tell my Japanese colleague that I would be willing to convey to you … an explanation of my personal [Page 809] view that it would not be tacitly [tactically?] sound to announce publicly at this time that we are prepared to go beyond the terms of the Washington Conference provisions lest we should thus prejudice the possibility of our restraining the importunities of artificially formed unions of coolies and school boys who are organizing to uphold diplomatic relations of the Government.
8. … Seeking, however, to detach myself from any preconceptions that antedated a first-hand experience of the abnormal Chinese reaction to the Shanghai incident of May 30th I cannot but acknowledge (if the Department desires my frank opinion) that it would be wiser to adhere literally to the provisions of the Washington Conference and let any developments therefrom be recommended by the Special Conference, rather than anticipate them at this time when even the most reasonable concession is liable to be interpreted as an abdication on principle of rights which we possess and ought not to surrender except upon adequate assurances of at least an honest effort to extend to our interests the treatment that one civilized government accords to the citizens of another. That is not now the case and I foresee no possibility of its being the case so long as China continues to be a congeries of competing military factions. We are in fact dealing not with a government but a simulacrum, which there are certain obvious political conveniences in recognizing. To go beyond the letter and beyond the spirit of our Washington treaty obligations in recognizing the hypothetical sovereignty of that government is not only to exceed what I recall as the purposes of the Washington Conference but also to encourage a spirit of irresponsibility with which even the soberest Chinese have recently been infected through various Bolshevik and juvenile nationalistic influences.
9. If the Japanese Government finds it of importance to make an issue on the question of Chinese tariff autonomy, as to which I felt warranted in conveying as personal opinions certain theretofore accepted views of the Department, I candidly think it would be worth while agreeing with the Japanese rather than insisting upon taking a separate and probably isolated position on this issue.
10. Japanese Minister expressed to me his Government’s hope that I would not distribute among interested colleagues our draft reply to the Chinese Government until some agreement had been reached among channels of Japanese and American Governments. In order not to preclude possibility of agreement among those three Governments, which I judge important for the purpose in view, I am withholding communication of your draft to my colleagues until I hear further from you. I urgently request instructions.