861.77 Chinese Eastern/1190
The Chinese Legation to the Department of State
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nanking, issued the following statement today concerning the report of the Soviet Government’s contemplating sale of the Chinese Eastern Railway to Japan:
“It appears that certain questions have recently arisen regarding the status and administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway. The Chinese Government desires to point out that the only parties, which have legal rights and interests in that Railway, are the Republic of China and the Union of the Socialist Soviet Republics, and that, so far as China is concerned, her rights therein will not be impaired or prejudiced by any action on the part of any other party or parties, far less any party which has no legal existence or which has unlawfully seized regions traversed by the Railway. It needs scarcely be emphasized that all matters pertaining to the Chinese Eastern Railway should continue to be governed by the Agreements concluded between China and the Soviet Union in 192428 and should be exclusively determined by the Governments of these two countries. Any new arrangement concerning this important means of communication, made without China’s consent, would constitute a violation of the Agreements of 1924, should therefore be considered null and void, and would never be recognized by the Chinese Government.”
Dr. W. W. Yen, Chinese Ambassador to U. S. S. R., had been instructed to hand a memorandum similarly worded to the Soviet Foreign Commissar.
- Signed at Peking, March 31, 1924, Foreign Relations, 1924, vol. i, pp. 495–501.↩