Office of the Historian

793.94/5796

The French Embassy to the Department of State82

January 13, 1933

The French Minister of Foreign Affairs asks the Ambassador whether the Chinese Government has sent to the American Government a memorandum requesting for himself [itself] the right to deal with any situation arising from an abusive interpretation by the Japanese of the rights which the international troops are enjoying from the dispositions of the 1901 Protocol and from the exchange of notes of the 15–18 July 1902.83

According to the point of view of the French Government, it is only to ensure the liberty of communication between Peking and the Sea and to avoid a contact between the Chinese and foreign troops that these agreements have entrusted the guard of the railway to the international troops and have forbidden the Chinese troops from approaching less than two miles from the railroad tracks and less than 20 li from Tientsin.

The French Government would like to know whether the American Government will not consider it necessary that the signatory Powers of those agreements safeguard the régime instituted in 1902 by making known to the Japanese Government their wish that the dispositions of such agreements be observed, notwithstanding any consideration concerning the present conflict.

On the other hand, the French Government would like to know whether, in case the Japanese troops would make an advance on Peking, the American Government would be ready to give its approval to a proposal examined last September by the various Ministers in China and which provides for a neutralisation of the City or of the diplomatic quarters.84

  1. Handed to the Under Secretary of State by the Second Secretary of the French Embassy on January 13, 1933.↩
  2. Foreign Relations, 1902, pp. 198, 201.↩
  3. See ibid., 1932, vol. iv, pp. 561 ff.↩