793.003/665: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Dawes)
130. (1) The Department has been informed by the British Embassy that the British Government considers as most important the question of personal status and fears lest more has been given up here in the American negotiations with C. C. Wu than the British Government deems it wise to surrender.
(2) The British Foreign Office may be informed by you that this personal status matter has been dealt with in an exchange of telegrams the Department has had with Nelson T. Johnson. The last telegram, dated May 12, said in part as follows:
“[Here follows quotation of paragraph (1) of telegram No. 40, May 12, 1931, 5 p.m., to the Consul General at Nanking, printed supra.] (The text of this article still is tentative and without commitment.) The main difficulty in the way of American acceptance of the reciprocity clause is due to existence in several States of laws which are discriminatory as regards the question of marriage.”
(3) This appears to the Department to be another example of a Chinese effort to play off Americans and British, or vice versa, for the object of obtaining further concessions.