793.003/12–2642
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Assistant Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs (Atcheson)
Mr. Liu Chieh telephoned me at noon and stated that a telegram had been received from the Chinese Foreign Office in which the Foreign Office requested that we revert to the preamble which we had suggested in the original draft of the treaty handed to the Chinese on October 24. He stated that he would come to the Department to discuss the matter with me. Before his arrival I consulted with Mr. Hornbeck and it was decided that I should hand to Mr. Liu a counter-suggestion drafted by Mr. Hornbeck, copy attached, as a basis for discussion.
Mr. Liu arrived at 1:00 p.m. He said he felt most apologetic in the matter; he realized that our “final” suggestion in regard to the preamble had been formally accepted by the Chinese in the Chinese Embassy’s memorandum of December 7 and that also Dr. T. V. Soong, the Chinese Foreign Minister, had informed the American Ambassador at Chungking that the suggestion in question was acceptable to the Chinese; he hoped nevertheless that as we had in the first [Page 413] place offered the draft preamble which the Chinese now desired to adopt there would be no objection to adopting that preamble.
I said to Mr. Liu that when our original draft treaty had been presented to the Chinese it constituted a comparatively simple document providing for the relinquishment of extraterritorial and other special rights and for the taking care of immediately related matters which required attention. I said that we had hoped to avoid including in the treaty extraneous matters but that a number of them had been brought in and that the “final” draft presented to the Chinese on December 19 covered, at the instance of the Chinese, a number of questions not originally envisaged as part of the treaty: coasting trade and inland navigation, visits of merchant vessels, foreign pilots, visits of naval vessels, et cetera. I added that we had striven very hard to meet Chinese wishes in every appropriate way; that, as the treaty had been considerably broadened and was now actually a quite comprehensive document, we felt that the preamble should be broad enough to include some of the thoughts we had in mind when we presented our draft of November 27, which, as he had mentioned, had been formally accepted by the Chinese Government, and which exemplified an earnest endeavor to meet the wishes of the Chinese Government in regard to the preamble.
I said that I could not at this moment make a definitive counter-suggestion in regard to the preamble but I could offer him informally a tentative draft to serve as a basis of discussion, and I thereupon handed him the text of the draft attached. Mr. Liu stated that he was afraid that reference of this counter-suggestion to the Foreign Office at Chungking would, as the time was so short, cause delay in the signing of the treaty. I said that I thought that it was quite possible that the desire at the last moment of the Chinese to abandon the agreed upon preamble might have that result.
We discussed various phases of the matter, Mr. Liu handed me a revised and “confirmed” Chinese text of the treaty, and after the usual amenities he departed. Our conversation was friendly and cordial throughout.
- Handed to the Minister Counselor of the Chinese Embassy on December 26 by the Assistant Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs; text transmitted to the Chargé in the United Kingdom in Department’s telegram No. 6574, December 26, 5 p.m. The telegram added: “This development may conceivably delay the signing of the treaty for two or three days.” (793.003/1055a)↩