893.113/1627
The Secretary of State to the British Ambassador (Lindsay)
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Your Excellency’s note of January 31, 1936, with further reference to the procedures which our two Governments are following in respect to the export of aircraft to China. I note that your Government does not feel that bilateral action in respect to the enumeration of arms, ammunition and implements of war affecting the United States and Great Britain only, would provide a satisfactory solution of the difficulties which have been the subject of recent correspondence between us. In this connection, I enclose, for your information, two copies of Laws and Regulations Administered by the Secretary of State Governing the International Traffic in Arms, Ammunition, and Implements of War. I invite your attention particularly to Section VII of this pamphlet.29 You will note that the arms, ammunition and implements of war enumerated in Categories III and V of the President’s Proclamation of September 25, 1935,30 are almost identical with the enumeration contained in Category III in the list of arms, ammunition and implements of war which your Government, in common with the other Governments of the League of Nations, has adopted in connection with the embargo on the exportation of arms which it has put in effect in respect to Italy. Both of these lists conform closely to the list prepared by the Committee for the Regulation of the Trade in and Private and State Manufacture of Arms and Implements of War. In view of the fact that your Government has adopted such a list in respect to exports from Great Britain to Italy, I again venture to express the hope that it may find it possible to adopt a similar list in respect to exports to China. Such action which would bring the procedure of our two Governments into harmony would, I believe, even if followed by our two Governments only, do much to achieve the objectives of preventing the development or the continuance in China of conditions of domestic violence and of cooperating with the Chinese Government in its efforts to maintain an effective control of the import into China of arms, ammunition and implements of war which both of our Governments desire to achieve.
Accept [etc.]