693.002/367: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in China (Johnson)
Washington, September
18, 1937—4 p.m.
247. Your 648, September 13, 2 p.m., and 668, September 16, 6 p.m.
- 1.
- Our Ambassador at Tokyo has been authorized to consult with his British colleague and, in his discretion, to inform the Japanese Government of the American Government’s interest in the preservation of the administrative integrity of the Chinese Maritime Customs and of the Chinese Salt Administration and of its interest in the safeguarding of the revenues of those administrations, and in this connection to invite attention to reports of measures which the Japanese contemplate taking with regard to Chinese Customs and Salt Administrations at Tientsin and reports of Japanese military action directed against Chinese Custom houses on the coast of Kwangtung Province, with particular reference to the attack on the Customs house at Taishan.
- 2.
- With reference to your expression of belief that the “Chinese Government will be loath to accede to an arrangement which will deprive them of entire customs revenue in favor of foreign bondholders,” the Department desires to point out that in expressing approval of the group banks’ proposal and authorizing you to support that proposal, it was acting on the assumption that the plan proposed offered a practicable (and perhaps the only) means of preserving, in a modified form and against a definite Japanese threat, Chinese control over the Customs and Salt Administrations. The foregoing statement applies also to the special plan with regard to the Tientsin Customs. The Department understood that you held similar views. This government has always sought to avert rather than to cause financial difficulties for the Chinese Government. In expressing an interest in safeguarding American interests in the customs and salt revenues, the Department has primarily in mind the question of the preservation of the Customs and Salt Administrations (a question of considerable importance to the Chinese Government).
- 3.
- The Department wishes to emphasize that it is primarily interested in the objective of preservation of Chinese revenue administrations and not on behalf of any particular plan put forward, and it is relying upon you to offer or comment upon practicable methods to attain that end.
Hull