761.93 Outer Mongolia/14: Telegram
The Counselor of Embassy in China (Peck) to the Secretary of State
89. My 87, April 10, 9 a.m.41 An official of the Foreign Office has unofficially sent to an officer of the Embassy the text of a note to Soviet Ambassador dated today as follows:
“Your Excellency: With reference to the signing of the Protocol of Mutual Assistance between the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Outer Mongolia, I had the honor to address to Your Excellency, on the 7th of April, a note of protest, stating that the signing of the protocol constituted an infringement of the sovereignty of China and a breach of the Sino-Soviet Agreement of 1924, and that the Chinese Government could under no circumstances recognize such a protocol.
On the 9th of April, I received from Your Excellency a copy of the note addressed to the Chinese Chargé d’Affaires at Moscow by the [Page 110] Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs in reply to the above-stated protest. The note declared that ‘the Soviet Government confirms once more that the above-mentioned agreement (the Sino-Soviet Agreement of 1924), as far as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is concerned, remains in force in future’. I have taken cognizance of the pledge thus again given by the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics that it recognizes Outer Mongolia as an integral part of Republic of China and respects China’s sovereignty therein.
I am, however, obliged to consider as without ground the explanation given by the Soviet Government in regard to the signing of the protocol by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with Outer Mongolia. Particularly, the Mukden-Soviet Agreement, signed at Mukden in 1924,45 which is cited in the note under reply, cannot be regarded as a precedent for the present protocol.
The contention in the Soviet note that the signing of the Mukden-Soviet Agreement did not elicit a protest from the Chinese Government is just contrary to facts. It has to be recalled that before the said agreement was submitted by the local authorities to the Central Government and subsequently approved by the latter as an annex to the Sino[-Soviet?] Agreement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Peiping (then Peking) repeatedly made protests to the then Soviet Ambassador to China, on September 25 and October 11, 1924, respectively, and the Chinese diplomatic representative at Moscow also lodged protests with the Soviet Government. It was not until the said agreement had been approved by the Central Government and all legal procedure has [had?] been complied with that a notification was sent to the Soviet Government in March, 1925 to the effect that the Mukden-Soviet Agreement was to be considered as an annex to the Sino-Soviet Agreement of 1924. Thus, the signing of the Mukden-Soviet Agreement, which was originally an illegal act on the part of the Soviet Government, an act contrary to international practice, was only rectified subsequently by the Chinese Government. In no sense can it be referred to as a precedent for the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to enter into any agreement with Chinese local authorities.
Inasmuch as the present protocol signed by the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics with Outer Mongolia constitutes an infringement of China’s sovereignty and is in complete contradiction with the Sino-Soviet Agreement of 1924, the Chinese Government has to renew its protest in respect of the protocol and to reiterate its stand in that regard as enunciated in its last note of protest on the same subject.
I have to request Your Excellency to transmit the above communication to Your Excellency’s Government.
I avail, etc.”
- Telegram in two sections.↩
- Not printed.↩
- See telegram No. 377, October 4, 1924, 5 p.m., from the Chargé in China, Foreign Relations, 1924, vol. i, p. 510.↩