711.933/63: Telegram

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

[Paraphrase]

213. Reference your 459, June 10, 5 p.m.72 With care and great interest I have read the account of the conversation between you and Dr. Wang Chung-hui, Minister of Justice, particularly in view of the consideration being given now to the nature of our reply to the note on the subject of extraterritorial rights from the Chinese Government.

In assuming that Dr. Wang Chung-hui’s statements lend confirmation to apprehensions regarding the difficulties enveloping American citizens and their interests should extraterritorial jurisdiction over [Page 578] them be relinquished at the present time and, therefore, that the Department should adopt the text you recommend in your telegram 368, May 9, 5 p.m., or another drafted along similar lines, I desire to have your telegraphic opinion concerning the form the situation then will take and the nature of efforts the United States should make either in guiding events or in meeting them.

I should like to have your opinion all the more because Dr. Wang Chung-hui’s statements to you may be considered to be evidence of the Chinese authorities seriously contemplating the forcing of the extraterritorial rights issue by precipitating a crisis on the question no later than January 1, 1930. (I refer, in this connection, to his statements in your 459, paragraphs (9), (10), and (11).) By negotiating treaties with the Governments of Belgium, Italy, Denmark, Portugal, and Spain, which countries have accepted that date for conditionally relinquishing their extraterritorial rights, the Chinese have already prepared the way for such a step. It is even likely that the Chinese may intend taking drastic steps in denouncing their treaty with the United States, unless the latter voluntarily relinquishes its extraterritorial rights by next January.

Stimson
  1. Not printed.