793.003/235: Telegram
The Consul at Nanking (Meyer) to the Secretary of State
[Received 7:35 p.m.]
My December 28, 10 p.m. Following is text of the manifesto issued by the Minister of Foreign Affairs today:
“For more than eighty years China has been bound by the system of extraterritoriality, which has prevented the Chinese Government from exercising its judicial power over the foreigners within its territory. It is unnecessary to state here the defects and disadvantages of such a system; but the Chinese Government and people cannot leave this state of affairs without remedy.
Extraterritoriality is no ordinary diplomatic problem. It touches the life of the Chinese people in so many intimate ways that it must be considered by the Chinese Government as being likewise a domestic question of immediate moment. It is for this reason that the Chinese Government is compelled to declare that the year 1930 is the decisive time, and that the actual process of reestablishing Chinese sovereignty by the abolition of extraterritoriality begins on January 1st. With that in view it will undertake measures designed to release the sovereign rights of China from the trammels of extraterritoriality, and has accordingly ordered the Executive Yuan and the Judicial Yuan to instruct the Ministries concerned to prepare a plan for this purpose.
The Chinese Government, relying on the sympathy already shown and the assurances given by the powers concerned, believes that there is no difference of opinion between those powers and China regarding the principle involved; and it is prepared to consider and discuss within a reasonable time any representations made with reference to the plan now under preparation in Nanking. In this respect the issuance of the mandate on December 28th should be regarded as a step towards removing the cause of constant conflict and at the same time promoting the relations between Chinese and foreigners.
Nanking, 30 December, 529 [1929]”.
I am reliably informed that the Minister of Foreign Affairs has stated in private conversation that promulgation of mandate of December 28 could not have been forced upon the Chinese Government but on three following considerations: (1) The party, (2) public opinion, (3) internal politics. It is also reported from a source hitherto found reliable that the plan now stated to be in preparation will be promulgated today. The above telegram is being sent to the Legation, Department, Shanghai, Hankow, and Canton.