Office of the Historian

893.00/9070: Telegram

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

[Paraphrase]
Peking, June 8, 1927—4 p.m.
[Received 7:13 p.m.]

626. Your No. 243 and No. 244 of June 3.

1.
The reply of the commander in chief to telegram No. 243 was forwarded in my No. 623, June 7, 6 p.m.
2.
I have sought to keep in mind, in dealing with question of possibly withdrawing Legation from Peking, not only the responsibility with which your telegram 146 of April 12 charged me in respect to determination of a state of facts, but in addition the peculiar difficulties confronting you because of the trend of opinion at home regarding China. As I understand it your problem is to give American lives and property in China the fullest protection without laying open our Government to the charge of taking aggressive action in general against the Chinese people or perhaps in particular against the so-called Nationalist movement.
3.
Concerning the effect the withdrawing of our Legation from Peking would have upon the Chinese, my conviction is that such a step would have a stunning effect throughout China upon the generality of the Chinese people, who would regard it as a calamity that in face of a negligible amount of danger the Government of the United States should at the most critical moment of their modern history withdraw American representation from the crucial point of international relationships. The Chinese could not but view our action with feelings of disillusionment and even of suspicion perhaps that with deliberate purpose we had left the field to the Japanese and the British who have more realistic methods and larger interests. From a Chinese point of view it would appear that we had renounced our concern or interest in the readjustments which might be expected to follow after the Nationalists take the capital. The Chinese would recognize that our value would be heavily discounted as a factor in China’s international situation if we were to withdraw now when there is no reasonable apprehension of danger here to the lives and property of foreigners and when others, the British and Japanese in particular, are choosing to remain, and thereby negative our influence in support of our own principles of the integrity of China and the open door with all they imply, and for years to come debar us from any effective participation in questions of international import concerning China.
4.
In compliance with your wishes I am taking steps of a preliminary character with a view to possible removal of this Legation; but [Page 133] since any visible measures would confirm reports already circulating and would in large measure make operative at once the unfavorable consequences attending actual removal, I am not taking any overt action to that end until either some unexpected development has occurred which would warrant changing the present estimate of the facts or else until you may have instructed me to remove the Legation in any case.
MacMurray