893.34/11–1846: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Stuart) to the Secretary of State
[Received 3 p.m.]
1900. As requested Embassy has carefully considered situation described in Deptel 966, October 30, 8 p.m., and has come to conclusion that it would be both useless and impolitic to attempt to obtain re-introduction of article 22 into draft agreement. General Marshall is of same opinion.
Some 600 Chinese naval cadets are now en route to England. They have been specially selected mainly from middle school graduates and thus do not compete with our Naval Advisory group training program. Since there is no question of setting up in China arrival [arival?] British training center, neither the letter nor the spirit of article 22 would seem to have been violated.
There have been many informal discussions between Chinese and United States Naval authorities regarding acquisition of these British men-of-war which, incidentally, Chinese always refer to as being “gifts” and British as “loans”. As recently as last month, Admiral Cooke took Dr. T. V. Soong over units of our fleet at Tsingtao in order to demonstrate the complexities of a modern destroyer and other heavier ships. However, Chinese attitude is essentially a gift horse one. The British, far from sharing our Navy’s view that they will thereby gain the preponderant role in China’s naval affairs, now obviously fear a boomerang and are decidedly concerned that cruiser, and perhaps other units as well, on reaching China, will remain immobilized at anchor and that carefully trained crews will seek more lucrative employment in mercantile marine and elsewhere.
Chinese Navy has almost certainly not yet reached stage where it is capable of taking over and operating reasonably large modern men-of-war. In all circumstances, Embassy strongly recommends that our Govt refrain from injecting itself into this affair and unless instructed to the contrary will not raise unprofitable question of inclusion of article 22 after having agreed to its exclusion.