793.94/5794: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Great Britain (Mellon)
Washington, January 24, 1933—5
p.m.
21. Your 6, January 10, 7 p.m. and Department’s 13, January 13, 7 p.m. [Here follow paragraphs No. 1 to No. 3, which report the exchange of aide-mémoire with the British Embassy and Department’s telegram No. 16, January 14, 9 p.m., to the Minister in China with regard to the Chinese aide-mémoire of January 10 (quoted in telegram No. 5, January 10, 5 p.m., from the Consul General at Nanking).]
[Page 125]- 4.
- At the time the Chinese memorandum referred to was handed to a representative at Nanking of the Legation, an officer of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs informally and orally suggested that the powers signatory to the Boxer Protocol of 1901 should attempt to dissuade the Japanese Government from abusing its privileges under that Protocol. With regard to that suggestion, the Department orally informed the Chinese Legation here that in its opinion the circumstances of the Japanese occupation of Shanhaikwan flowed from factors in the conflict between China and Japan and not from provisions of the Protocol of 1901 and that, if developments should involve provisions of that Protocol, the American Government would give consideration to those developments as the necessity arose and in the light of this Government’s rights and obligations thereunder.
- 5.
- The Department has no very definite information that the Japanese have actually taken abusive advantage of their position under the Protocol of 1901. To the Department it would seem advisable to refrain from making representations, whether to the Japanese or to the Chinese or to both, until there shall have occurred or shall be imminent developments clearly and indisputably involving or threatening to involve provisions of the Protocol or of arrangements thereunder. To raise the question on general grounds or on the basis of a disputable allegation would, in the opinion of the Department, give the Japanese an opportunity to make a denial and/or to reply with a suggestion that the other signatory powers make representations to China requesting that China observe the letter of certain provisions of or under the Protocol which the Department feels it would be unfortunate to have invoked under existing circumstances.
- 6.
- You should discuss this matter with the Foreign Office in the above sense, keeping in mind the telegrams under reference and expressly asking for information as requested in the Department’s aide-mémoire.
Stimson