711.933/34
Memorandum by the Chief of the Division of Far Eastern Affairs (Hornbeck) of a Conversation With the Chinese Special Representative (C. C. Wu)
Dr. Wu called after urgent insistence upon an immediate appointment, his explanation being that he was leaving at noon for Montreal to be gone several days.
Dr. Wu said that he would like to have as much information as possible with regard to the Department’s views concerning the provisions [Page 549] which would need to be considered in an arrangement to facilitate a gradual relinquishment of extraterritorial rights (the reference being to statements made by Mr. Hornbeck in the conversation of the preceding day). Mr. Hornbeck said that he was not prepared to state what those provisions would need to be, but that they should be conceived with due consideration of the situation in China and due study of the report upon that situation and the recommendations arrived at and presented by the Extraterritoriality Commission.
The conversation lasted for an hour, and toward the end Dr. Wu asked whether the Department would be willing to consider entering into a treaty similar to the recently signed Italian-Chinese Treaty. Mr. Hornbeck said that he could not commit the Department, but that if the substance of a group of provisions similar to but perhaps in some respects differing from those which appear in the Italian Treaty could be informally and unofficially reduced to writing, he would be willing to submit it to higher officers in the Department for consideration.