793.94/4378: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister in China (Johnson)
68. Your No. 265, February 24, 11 a.m.
1. Before considering the question of instructions, the Department desires to be informed briefly by Harbin through the Legation (a) to what extent the Consular Body at Harbin, immediately prior to the present situation, participated in the municipal affairs of Harbin; (b) likewise, to what extent did American nationals participate; and (c) in expressing his opinion that it is advisable for the Consular Body or the extraterritorial consuls to attempt to participate in the reorganization of the Municipal Government at Harbin, does Consul General Hanson contemplate that the Consular Body or the extraterritorial consuls would act upon their own initiative or upon the request of the de facto authorities, Chinese and/or Japanese at Harbin?
2. For your guidance and for the guidance of the Consul General at Harbin:
Regardless of whatever practical advantages there may appear to be at this time in participating in a reorganization of the Municipal Government at Harbin, the Department questions whether it should approve participation by its representative at Harbin in such move. The Department feels that this question should be considered in the light of our note of January 7 to the Chinese and Japanese Governments (see Department’s No. 2, January 7, noon, to Nanking, repeated to the Legation by Nanking) in which the American Government stated inter alia that “it cannot admit the legality of any situation de facto …”.4 The action of the other interested governments would presumably also be considered in the light of the communication to the Japanese representative on February 16, by the President of the League Council, on behalf of his colleagues, in which it was stated:
“The 12 members of the Council recall the terms of Article 10 of the Covenant by which all members of the League have undertaken to respect and preserve the territorial integrity and existing political independence of other members. It is their friendly right to direct attention to this provision particularly as it appears to them to follow that no infringement of the territorial integrity and no change in the political independence of any member of the League brought about in disregard of this article ought to be recognized as valid and effectual by the members of the League of Nations.”
3. Department desires Legation’s comment in the light of the above.
- Omission indicated in original telegram.↩