793.003/765: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in China (Johnson)
[Paraphrase]
Washington, September 10, 1931—5
p.m.
320. Your 486, August 3, 6 p.m.
- (1)
- Most-favored-nation treatment and guarantees against exactions are believed to be assured by provisions of our existing treaties continuing in force in the Shanghai area. The Department sought, while drafting article XVI, to exclude the Greater Shanghai area absolutely from all of the provisions of the proposed new treaty, so that the status quo would be preserved until a separate agreement has been negotiated for this area. Moreover, without the clause mentioned by the Legation, the provision in article XIX of the proposed treaty for abrogation of existing treaty provisions would create a situation in which there might be conflicting interpretations of the provisions for the continued exercise in the Shanghai area of extraterritorial jurisdiction.
- (2)
- With a view to guarding against double taxation, the Department has, after further study, revised and is willing to take up on appropriate occasion with the British Foreign Office the paragraph in article XVI of the Department’s draft in relation to taxation to be levied by the Chinese Government in the Greater Shanghai and Tientsin areas. As revised, the last part of this paragraph now reads thus:96 “be liable for the payment of Chinese taxes referred to in article VI of the present treaty, provided that such taxation shall not discriminate in any way against nationals of the United States of America as compared with nationals of China and/or the nationals of any other country and provided that there shall be no duplication of taxation the levying of which falls within the competence of the authorities of the municipal subdivisions of these areas.”
Stimson
- Quotation not paraphrased.↩