793.003/490b: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Dawes)
334. Department’s No. 331, December 29, 6 p.m. While not intending to be precipitated … into any hasty action, the Department believes that the situation in China has developed to a point which makes it advisable to manifest a more definite interest in the possibility of arriving at an agreement with the Chinese Government on the subject of extraterritoriality. What action the Chinese Government may have in contemplation or may take at the end of February is problematical. If, by chance, it should choose to declare extraterritorial rights abolished, the problem which would then confront the most interested foreign powers would be a difficult one to meet. If, however, as seems more likely, it should decide to let the matter rest, the problem presented toward the end of 1933, if new agreements have not been concluded in the interval, might be even more difficult to meet. The Department believes that the opportunity for concluding new treaties which will in some measure preserve existing safeguards is better now than it is likely to be later.
The Department believes that any power or powers which will manifest to the Chinese Government a real desire to bring the negotiations to the point of an agreement at a fairly early date would find the Chinese Foreign Office responsive, and that the conclusion of a treaty under these circumstances would be likely, provided the provisions thereof are reasonably comprehensive, to be to the advantage of all concerned.
The Department therefore is working on a revision of the drafts of June 4 and October 28, with a view to making the Chinese a new proposal. It contemplates dropping the provision with regard to evocation; deleting certain other minor provisions; and making use at certain points of phraseology used in the Chinese counter-proposals of December 7. Department will expect to inform the British Foreign Office through you of any other material changes in substance and not to submit new proposals to the Chinese without first conferring through you with the Foreign Office.
Department would welcome through you and at an early date any comments which the Foreign Office may show itself inclined to make.