711.933/47: Telegram

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

[Paraphrase]

360. Supplementing my 355, May 6, 3 p.m., in reply to the Department’s 146, May 3, 2 p.m.

(1)
The Chinese request for relinquishment of extraterritorial rights is based, as various previous telegrams have indicated, upon a series of assumptions which are contrary to fact. The ostensible unity of China, in my view, is really a truce which has resulted from a temporary balance of forces between various factions; their interests are, if indeed not irreconcilable, still unreconciled, and the stability of the central governmental authority, as established now, is altogether precarious. Since the report in 1926 of the Commission on Extraterritoriality, there has been no appreciable progress as regards either the system of law or the judiciary’s organization; while the Shanghai Provisional Court’s experiment,52 meanwhile, has proved such a disappointing experience as to compel a doubt whether even the judges who are selected to serve in posts of crucial importance may be expected, without at least the development of sound judicial traditions, either to grasp the concepts of justice which underlie the western legal system now being adopted by China or to apply such principles with no subservience to factional or personal influence, even if not under the direct compulsion of the military which still wield the real power in this country.
(2)
As my telegram 620, June 6, 1927, 6 p.m.,53 indicated, I consider that the experience of nationalities, including the Germans, who have lost their extraterritorial status does not support the claim that their situation at present is satisfactory, nor, in any case, would it warrant the hope that aliens of whatever nationality would be given justice by the Chinese authorities should they be relieved altogether from the inhibitions arising out of their aspiration to shake off all vestiges of the extraterritorial system.
(3)
…The means or capacity to administer public justice, as this is understood in civilization of the western type, has not yet been developed by the Chinese; so that if they were put in a position again to exercise jurisdiction over aliens, prior to preparedness for satisfactory exercise of this responsibility, it is my own earnest belief that the result would be once more a progressive intensifying of ill feeling and misunderstanding between foreign nations and China. This, then, would lead to constantly growing tension, and sooner or later [Page 563] a trivial incident even would precipitate a clash and intervention quite probably by one or more foreign powers.
(4)
This morning the Netherlands, British, and French Ministers and I discussed the question of replying to the note from Dr. Wang. We were all agreed that it would be distinctly advantageous for the replies of the several interested Governments to be substantially identical, to the general effect that any modification is deemed to be premature pending further demonstration by Chinese judicial institutions of their capacity to deal with cases which affect foreign interests. I told my colleagues that the Secretary of State is already drafting a reply to China, but I said I should gladly submit for his consideration a draft for substantially identical replies by the Governments interested. This draft is now being elaborated. May I state I am personally convinced that this is a matter in which action concerted with the other chiefly interested powers can best safeguard important interests and trade in China of American citizens. In case the Department shares this view, it might deem it preferable for me to communicate to my colleagues the draft reply it is preparing, with a view to the possible adoption of this reply as a basis for substantially identical replies by the other governments.
MacMurray
  1. See pp. 682 ff.
  2. Not printed.