793.003/569a: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Consul General at Nanking (Peck)
16. For Minister Johnson:
(1) The British Foreign Office has informed the Department, through the British Embassy here and the American Embassy in London, of the progress of the British negotiations. Among other things, they say: “The first concession which Lampson made was in fact not evocation but co-judges. He had contemplated giving up co-judges last, but seems to have been influenced by the wording of the latest [Page 776] American draft (i. e., the draft of January 19).” Furthermore: “Lampson expects that the negotiations will shortly reach a stage when, all other points having been disposed of, he will be in a position to offer to surrender criminal jurisdiction in return for the exclusion of certain areas.” Likewise: “The position reached in our negotiations appears to render unnecessary the adoption of the procedure proposed by the State Department for dissolving a possible deadlock.”
The Department feels that the Foreign Office is optimistic.
(2) On March 23 the Chinese Minister called at the Department and asked for a reply to his March 14 memorandum. (This memorandum was telegraphed you in the Department’s 14, March 16, 5 p.m.) Dr. Wu was referred to the March 11 statement by the Department to him and was informed that the Department sees no process by which the three points which the Chinese statement of February 20 raised can be discussed without antecedent and simultaneous discussion of other points; that the Department has felt and still feels it to be desirable, in view of the limitations apparently placed by the Chinese Government upon the Minister’s authority to discuss these points, for the subject to be discussed at Nanking by you with the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs; and that the Department perceives no reason for Dr. C. T. Wang’s not carrying on the discussion with you concurrently with those discussions Wang has with the representatives of other powers.
The Chinese Minister stated that Dr. Wang had laid before the British Minister the same three vital points which had been presented to the Department and that, when Sir Miles Lampson said he was unable to concede these points, an arrangement had been made to begin discussion with Hsu Mo of other points, without committing the Foreign Minister. Wu said Wang could not make any concession as to the vital points.
The Minister was informed that, since the Chinese Foreign Office was discussing other points, the Department’s opinion was confirmed that to proceed as suggested by us at Nanking was more practicable for the present than to indulge here in further discussion until such time as the revision of the Minister’s instructions would make possible such negotiation in Washington as is apparently proceeding in Nanking. Wu was told the desire of the Department is to reach an agreement which is mutually satisfactory, and the Department has no preference regarding the place to conclude the negotiations and to sign the treaty. He was told also that the Department’s view is that matters would be expedited by Dr. Wang’s discussing with you just the kind of points he is discussing with the British Minister.
Wu said he would “think the matter over”.
[Page 777]Then he inquired whether we would be ready to concede the three vital points in the event a satisfactory agreement on safeguards had been reached. The reply was that this Government would be glad to have any balanced project discussed, but the three vital points could be discussed only concurrently with or following discussion of the other points.
(3) We have the impression that the effort of the Chinese is in the direction of evoking a disclosure of the concessions which the Department may be prepared to make, with no commitment on the part of the Chinese to anything other than what they proposed last December. You will perceive the Department desires (a) to avoid being committed in any one-sided fashion, (b) to give the Chinese no occasion or opportunity to declare the negotiations deadlocked, and (c) to inject no factor which might involve the British negotiations in difficulty.
(4) In the light of the foregoing, you should confer with the Foreign Minister and continue your cooperation with the British Minister.
- Quotations not paraphrased.↩