711.93/194: Telegram
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
547. Following is the draft note referred to in my earlier telegram of today.
1. “Sir: I have been instructed by the Secretary of State to inform you of the receipt by him on July 13 of the following communication dated July 11 from Dr. C. C. Wu (text of above communication as contained in Department’s No. 521 [221], July 13, noon).
2. The Secretary of State has also received from Dr. Alfred Sze a copy of the declaration made on July 7 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Nationalist Government concerning the question of new treaties between China and the powers.
3. With regard to the attitude of the American Government towards the question of full and complete treaty revision, I suggest this occasion to recall the statement of policy in this regard communicated by me in a note of March 30 last to your predecessor,88 in which I stated that the Government and people of the United States are in full sympathy with the desire of the Chinese people to develop a sound national life of their own and to realize their aspirations for a sovereignty so far as possible unrestricted by obligations of an exceptional character. With that in view I stated that the American Government entertained the hope that the remedying of the conditions which necessitated the incorporation of such provisions in the earlier treaties might from time to time afford opportunity for the revision in due form and by mutual consent of such treaty stipulations as might have become unnecessary or inappropriate.
[Page 464]I also stated that to that end the American Government looked forward to the hope that there might be developed an administration so far representative of the Chinese people and so far exercising real authority, as to be capable of exercising the actual fulfillment in good faith of any obligations such as China would of necessity have for its part to undertake incidentally to the desired readjustment of treaty relations.
4. With specific reference to the statement of the Secretary of State of [January] 27th, 1927, to which Dr. Wu made this reference, I am happy to inform you that the American Government is prepared at the present time to undertake a revision of the treaty provisions relating to the tariff for which purpose I have been authorized to enter into negotiations with properly accredited representatives whom the Nationalist Government may appoint with a view to concluding a new treaty in which it may be expected that the American Government will give full recognition to the principle of China’s tariff autonomy and that it will agree reciprocally that the commerce of each of the two countries shall enjoy in the ports and territory of the other, treatment in no way discriminatory as compared with the treatment accorded therein to the commerce of any other country.
I avail, et cetera.”