893.52/499: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in China (Johnson)
116. Your 311 [319], July 5, noon,6 and Shanghai’s July 6, 2 p.m. Please make suitable acknowledgment of the note of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and reply in substance along lines as follows: [Page 753]
“The Government of the United States understands that when the duly constituted Chinese authorities of the Municipality of Shanghai were compelled by circumstances to withdraw from the Shanghai area, they requested the Municipal Council of the International Settlement to take custody of the Shanghai land records; that the Municipal Council, without obtaining the approval of the consular body, undertook the custody of those records; and that for some two years the Council continued to hold them in the face of considerable pressure and at the cost of considerable inconvenience in connection with land transfers. This Government considers that, in the circumstances, the question whether the Council could longer reasonably continue to hold the land records is one primarily for decision by the Council. It may be observed in this connection that in other areas in China where circumstances have led to the withdrawal of the duly constituted Chinese authorities, it is understood that land records are in possession of subsequently established local régimes.
Under the circumstances, as above outlined, this Government feels that it would not be appropriate for it to intervene in the matter of the land records at Shanghai.”
Sent to Chungking. Repeated to Peiping and Shanghai.
- Not printed; it transmitted translation of a note from the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs requesting the American Embassy to ask the authorities of the International Settlement at Shanghai not to hand over the archives of the land bureau “to the Japanese bogus regime.”↩