Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1929, Volume II

793.003/105: Telegram

The Chargé in Great Britain ( Atherton ) to the Secretary of State

London , May 27, 1929—noon.
[Received May 27—11:35 a.m.⁶¹]

129. Department’s 124, May 25, 5 p.m.⁶² The following is text of British draft reply which Foreign Office informs me has been telegraphed to Peking with instructions to British Chargé d’Affaires that he should communicate it to those of his colleagues who received the Chinese note with suggestions that they might incorporate in their own drafts so much of this British draft as they may consider suitable and applicable, but that Sir Austen Chamberlain⁶³ would deprecate the use of identic language in view of Chinese susceptibilities:

“Sir, I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 27th April in which you inform me of the desire of the National Government of the Republic of China that the restrictions imposed on the jurisdictional sovereignty of China by the system of extraterritoriality now in force should be removed at the earliest possible date with a view to the assumption of jurisdiction by China over all nationals within her domain.

2. I have communicated the contents of your letter to my Government and I am now instructed to transmit to you a reply in the following sense:

3. Animated by the friendly feelings which they have always entertained towards the Government and people of China, His Majesty’s Government have given their sympathetic consideration to the request of the Chinese Government relating to the abovementioned [abolition of] extraterritorial jurisdiction in China. The high importance of this subject in its bearing both on the political development of China and the future relations between China and Great Britain appears to demand that it should be closely examined from every aspect. In particular a just appreciation of the reasons for which and the manner in which the present system of extraterritoriality came into existence seems essential to a consideration of the proper method for dealing with the problem.

4. The system of extraterritoriality in force in China has its roots deep down in the past. For thousands of years before science had improved communications, the Chinese people were secluded from the rest of the world by deserts and ocean and they developed a civilization and a polity peculiar to themselves. A wide gulf was thus fixed between Europe and America on the one hand and China on the other hand.

5. In particular the conception of international relations as being the intercourse between equal and independent states—a conception which was woven into the very texture of the political ideas of the nations of the West—was entirely alien to Chinese modes of thought. When the traders of the West first found their way to the coasts of China, the Chinese Government found it difficult to allow them freely to enter into their country and mingle with their people nor did they recognize that the nations to which they belonged were the equals of China. These traders were therefore confined to a small section of a single city in one corner of the empire and while on the one hand they were subjected to many disabilities and to grave humiliations, on the other hand—by a species of amorphous and unregulated extraterritoriality, which was the natural outcome of these conditions—the responsibility of managing their own affairs and maintaining order among themselves was in some measure left to their own initiative.

6. Relations continued for many years upon this insecure and unsatisfactory footing. Friction was often dangerously intense and conflicts not infrequently arose, generally out of demands that some innocent person should be surrendered for execution to expiate perhaps an accidental homicide or that foreign authority should assume responsibility for enforcing the revenue laws of China.

7. The object of the first treaties was to secure the recognition by China of Great Britain’s equality with herself and to define and regulate the extraterritorial status of British subjects. Relations between the two countries having thus been placed upon a footing of equality and mutual respect, Great Britain was content that her nationals should continue to bear those responsibilities and to labor under those disabilities which respect for the sovereignty of China entailed upon them. Conditions did not permit the general opening of the interior of China, and the residence of foreigners has consequently continued down to the present day to be restricted to a limited number of cities known as treaty ports.

8. His Majesty’s Government recognize the defects and inconveniences of the system of consular jurisdiction to which the Government of China have on various occasions drawn attention. In 1902 in article XII of the treaty of commerce between Great Britain and China signed in that year,⁶⁴ His Majesty’s Government stated their readiness to relinquish their extraterritorial rights when they were satisfied that the state of Chinese laws, the arrangements for their administration and other considerations warranted them in so doing. They have since watched with appreciation the progress which China has made in the assimilation of western legal principles, to which reference is made in your note under reply, and they have observed with deep interest the facts set out and the recommendations made in the report of the Commission on Extraterritoriality in the year 1926.

9. More recently in the declaration which they published in December, 1926,⁶⁵ and the proposals which they made to the Chinese authorities in January, 1927,⁶⁶ His Majesty’s Government have given concrete evidence of their desire to meet in a spirit of friendship and sympathy the legitimate aspirations of the Chinese people. They have already traveled some distance along the road marked out in those documents and they are willing to examine in collaboration with the Chinese Government the whole problem of extraterritorial jurisdiction with a view to ascertaining what further steps in the same direction it may be possible to take at the present time.

10. His Majesty’s Government would, however, observe that the prolongation [promulgation] of codes embodying western legal principles represents only one portion of the task to be accomplished before it would be safe to abandon in their entirety the special arrangements which have hitherto regulated the residence of foreigners in China. In order that these reforms should become a living reality, it appears to His Majesty’s Government to be necessary that western legal principles should be understood and be found acceptable by the people at large, no less than by their rulers, and that the courts which administer these laws should be free and [from] interference and dictation at the hands, not only of military chiefs, but, above all,⁶⁷ of groups and associations who either set up arbitrary and illegal tribunals of their own or attempt to use the legal courts for the furtherance of political objects rather than for the administration of equal justice between Chinese and Chinese and between Chinese and foreigners. Not until these conditions are fulfilled in far greater measure than appears to be the case today will it be practicable for British merchants to reside, trade and own property throughout the territories of China with the same equality [of] freedom and safety as these privileges are accorded to Chinese merchants in Great Britain. Any agreement purporting to accord such privileges to British merchants would remain for some time to come a mere paper agreement to which it would be impossible to give effect in practice. Any attempt prematurely to accord such privileges would not only be no benefit to British merchants but might be fraught with serious political and economic dangers to the Government and people of China.

11. So long as these conditions subsist there appears to be no practicable alternative to the treaty port system that has served for nearly a century to regulate the intercourse between China and the British subjects within her domain. Some system of extraterritoriality is the natural corollary to the maintenance of the treaty port system; and the problem as it presents itself to His Majesty’s Government at the present moment is to discover what further modifications in that system, beyond those already made and alluded to above, it would be desirable and practicable to effect.

12. His Majesty’s Government await the further proposals of the National Government as to the procedure now to be adopted for examining this question, and they instruct me to assure Your Excellency that they will continue to maintain towards any such proposals the same friendly and helpful attitude to which Your Excellency has paid so generous a tribute in the concluding paragraph of your note under reply.”⁶⁸

Atherton

61. Telegram in two sections.
62. Not printed.
63. British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
64. Signed September 5, 1902; William M. Malloy (ed.) Treaties, Conventions, etc. Between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1776–1909 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1910), vol. i, pp. 343, 351.
65. See note No. 816, December 13, 1926, from the British Ambassador, Foreign Relations, 1926, vol. i, p. 923.
66. See note No. 41, January 19, 1927, from the British Ambassador, ibid., 1927, vol. ii, p. 344.
67. These two words erroneously inserted.
68. This note, with slight modifications and dated August 10, 1929, was published; see The China Year Book, 1929–30, p. 908.