493.11/1632: Telegram
The Minister in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 18—5:20 a.m.]
538. Nanking’s 183, April 21, 11 a.m., to the Department.
- 1.
- Foreign Office replied under date of April 27th but certified the original instead of the revised phraseology. I therefore returned the note to Nanking suggesting the omission of the words “principal” and “complete”.
- 2.
- Peck now reports under date of May 2 as
follows:
“The Vice Minister deleted the word “principal” from the Foreign Office reply but stated that to delete the word ‘complete’ would be to give an erroneous impression of the purpose of the Chinese Government in asking for the postponement of the indemnity payments. He pointed out unless a large portion of the postponed payments were to become available to the Chinese Government for other than their present stipulated uses, the postponement would be of practically no assistance to the Government in its financial difficulties. The Vice [Page 616] Minister said that his Government wishes to avoid all possibility of misrepresenting its intentions in this regard and he therefore asked that you invite the attention of the Department of State to the reasonableness of a plan whereby the cultural projects supported by the indemnity payments in question should submit to the partial curtailment necessary at present in all other branches of tire Chinese Government and should utilize temporarily a portion of their accumulated surplus.
I will retain the Chinese and English texts of the Foreign Office’s reply pending receipt of your instructions.”
- 3.
- I suggest we accept the text of the Foreign Office’s reply with the word “principal” deleted but retaining the word “complete.”