893.74/596: Telegram
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
[Extract]
Peking, August 22,
1925—4 p.m.
[Received 5:50 p.m.]
[Received 5:50 p.m.]
345. My telegram No. 330, August 14, 10 p.m.
- 1.
- From a source hitherto found reliable and believed to be so in this instance, representatives of the Federal wireless interests have learned that in consequence of the unremitting pressure from the Japanese Legation, Provisional Chief Executive has directed that the interministerial committee must report in favor of the cancellation of the Federal contract.
- 2.
- Minister of Communications who originally concluded and is favorable to the American contracts is helpless in the matter but is reported to intend saving face by recommending that the Mitsui contract be simultaneously canceled. Such cancellation of the Japanese contract would not of course eliminate the station actually built thereunder or relieve Chinese Government from its financial obligation which might well prove actually heavier on a quantum meruit basis than under the terms of the contract.
- 3.
- The result would be that the American interests would be left with a bare claim against the Chinese Government; whereas Japanese interests would have not only a claim but a station in being and capable of actual though inefficient commercial operation and would then be in a position to demand that arrangements be made to enable their station to be so used as to make it reliable security for the debt incurred in its construction.
- 4.
- This fits in with a plan which the Japanese Minister has for some time been persistently urging upon the Chief Executive in behalf of Mitsui Company, whereby the Chinese Government would authorize that company to operate station in its behalf under a nominally provisional arrangement pending settlement of the question of Mitsui’s claim to a monopoly; in the meanwhile station should “start operations for transmission of all commercial messages for Japan, Europe, America and other overseas points” and the Chinese Government would permit station to connect with the Chinese telegraph system and would direct that all messages routed by wireless to foreign countries should be transmitted by the Japanese station, this “provisional arrangement” to be subject to modification only upon 6 months’ notice and upon agreement by both (repeat both) parties as to the cancellation of any of the terms of the agreement. This seems clearly to mean a monopoly of Chinese overseas wireless in favor of Japanese interests for so long as they care to maintain that predominance.
- 5.
- The situation would of course lead to the result that in the event of the formation of “wireless consortium” Japan would enter the field as the possessor of all ostensible rights, whereas we would be in a position to show no more than a grievance against the bad faith of the present administration of the Chinese Government.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
MacMurray