711.933/76: Telegram
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
573. For the Secretary of State: Reference your 226, July 9, 5 p.m.
(1) Reference your paragraph (1). What follows here relates to the events and conditions of the last 4 years only, with no differentiation between the various regimes which were established in Peking and the Nationalist regime which is now established in Nanking, because the objectives pursued by these regimes and (to an extent greater than is commonly realized) the personnel actually dealing with foreign relations have coincided to a large degree, the difference between the two groups having been chiefly one of degree instead of kind.
In regard to the so-called “unequal treaties” which China has claimed were forced upon it in the period of subjection, the principle of action which has prevailed is that no obligation binds China if it is found to be irksome. Not only have political agitators proclaimed this principle, but even the more well-disposed and sober political leaders have accepted it as axiomatic. The clearest examples of its application are, perhaps, in the case of matters concerning the Customs. Some two years ago, admittedly in violation of treaties and despite protests, the so-called 2½ percent interim surtax was put into force. When the treaty powers, other than Japan, had acquiesced, the Chinese authorities ignored their correlative undertaking that likin would be done away with. Again, after various powers, including the United States, had concluded tariff treaties, in which the treaty restrictions upon China’s tariff autonomy were relinquished as from a given date, the Chinese authorities availed themselves, prior to the coming into effect of the United States and various of the other treaties, of this renunciation. Furthermore, in subsequent negotiations it was disclosed by others that the Chinese had adopted and were endeavoring to give effect, in the case of other powers, to a construction of the text of the American treaty which would largely have nullified the non-discriminatory treatment principle.85
(2) Not only in regard to treaties allegedly concluded under duress, but also in regard to treaties to which China at the Washington Conference was a voluntary and even a solicitous party, the Chinese have adopted and have acted upon the view that China would be bound only by provisions which were deemed to be favorable to Chinese [Page 586] interests. A direct statement to this effect was made to me by Dr. C. T. Wang, now Minister for Foreign Affairs, on the eve of the Special Tariff Conference in 1925 at Peking when he was chairman of the Chinese delegation. An attentive examination of the Washington Conference treaties and resolutions reveals that hardly an obligation therein assumed by China has not been evaded, ignored, or repudiated. Related closely to the question of the Washington Conference treaties is the question of the Federal Telegraph contract; by an understanding between the then Chinese Minister Sze and the then Secretary of State Hughes this had been made a test case of the open-door policy. My personal efforts to have this contract carried out during the autumn of 1925 merely resulted in an exchange of notes86 which professed to pave the way for action, but the Chinese refused thereafter to take it. …
(3) When, going behind the terms of the treaties, the American oil and tobacco companies had drawn up definite contracts with the Ministry of Finance, by which the companies, by paying fixed special taxes, would commute other taxation upon their respective products, they were shortly told by the Finance Ministry that it was in need of more funds, that the trade could stand it, and that, therefore, the contracts would have to be replaced by new contracts which would greatly increase the special taxes. Only an insignificant fraction of the very considerable financial obligations of the Chinese Government to Americans has been or is being paid, even as to interest. Transfers of provincial revenues have not met the defaults in payment of the Hukuang loan, as stipulated by article 9 of the loan contract, and despite protests various other loans, in disregard of the apparently clear equity which the Hukuang loan contract establishes, have been made first charges on the increase in Customs revenues. The Chicago bank and the Pacific Development Company loans continue completely in default, and the refusal to put their provisions for security into effect continues. Unpaid and ignored are the large accounts to supply railways and other government services with American equipment; and in cases such as the car-accounting agreement on the Peking-Suiyuan Railway the carrying into effect of definite arrangements to liquidate the accounts has not been permitted by the authorities. Americans who were employed as technical experts and advisers under contract by the regimes which preceded establishment of the Nanking Government, not only are unpaid but cannot obtain a clarification of their status by having their resignations accepted.
(4) The greatest difficulty is constantly met in inducing the Government in China to take an adequate view of their obligations under international law to afford the usual protection to the persons and [Page 587] property of resident aliens. In the Department files are numerous claims arising from torts for which Chinese Government agents have been held responsible; and for years the Chinese Government has evinced toward such claims either little or no interest providing adequate compensation.
(5) Even in a matter such as the gift to China by the United States in the shape of the indemnity remission of 1924,87 a diversion of the funds from the agreed object was attempted and unquestionably would have been carried through had the United States not been in a position to retain the installments when due.
(6) Some of the principal evasions of general obligations are cited above. The individual evasions by provincial and local officials in China of particular responsibilities are so numerous and occur so constantly that it would be idle in a telegram of this character to attempt recapitulating or describing what may, in fact, be said to constitute the daily routine in China of every diplomatic and consular official; namely, the effort to induce the Chinese authorities even moderately to carry out their express agreements or in other circumstances to do simple equity.
(7) Reference your paragraph (2). According to my understanding, the acts of the Washington Conference were intended to establish among the interested nations, including China, the principle of cooperation in working out the problems arising from China’s particular conditions; they took cognizance of existing treaties as essential elements in said conditions, and provided, in the case of extraterritoriality, for means which might make possible an orderly and legal adaptation to improved conditions such as China might succeed in bringing about. If China, which sought eagerly the establishment of these arrangements, were now to withdraw from the afforded international cooperation, repudiate the arrangement to deal with extraterritoriality, and defy the powers which have not yielded such rights, it is rather China electing to place itself in opposition to the powers having common interests in this regard and not we who are organizing an international bloc against China.
(8) The Coolidge administration’s independent policy in China I have hitherto persisted in and tried to carry out, on the assumption that it, like its predecessor, still recognized international cooperation concerning Chinese affairs as a desideratum, while liberty of action was reserved to it in those cases in which American interests and policies might be found irreconcilable with those of other nations; but, as I understand it, it has not placed the United States under any necessity to pursue a different course from that of other governments. Therefore, I should not have inferred, from either the [Page 588] instructions heretofore sent me or my actual experience in the last four years, that the fact of cooperation by the United States with other nations in protecting common interests or in preserving identical rights would have involved any reversal of policy.
(9) Regarding the danger of any nation thus associated with the United States dropping out, my own view is that the danger of the United States being “let down” by the most vitally affected nations would be negligible in proportion to the definite understanding of the objective of American cooperation. …
(10) As to the tendencies of American public opinion, I am, of course, not competent to advise. However, may I offer the query whether the knowledge that the Hoover administration proposes resolutely to discountenance the forcing upon the United States by China of an issue involving the flagrant and open repudiation of treaty obligations would jeopardize the support by home opinion of the administration’s policy. Further it may be asked whether in that case any danger of immediate popular reaction compares with what seems to me to be the certainty that, if Chinese-American relations continue taking the course indicated now by China’s present political leaders, American public opinion will suffer: within a few years such disillusionment and violent revulsion of feeling as were characteristic of Japanese-American relations in the period immediately after the Russo-Japanese War.
(11) Even if the risks of betrayal by the associates of the United States and of alienation from its China policy of home opinion were as great as feared, still I should urge that the proposed denunciation of extraterritoriality by China threatens so vital an emergency as to justify the United States in taking such risks. …
(12) It is not easy to make a detailed statement of the reasons for believing that American and other foreign interests, in such a contingency as is contemplated, would tend to be driven out of China. This is sensed in the temper and attitude among the Chinese, even of one’s personal friends, and is also apparent in incidents, in themselves trivial, which constantly recur and convey in their total the inevitable impression that a desire is widespread and easily aroused to humiliate and be rid of foreigners as such. Confirmed indirectly by the occasional comments of officials, the most far-reaching and significant was that of Dr. Wang Chung-hui, Minister of Justice, as reported in my 459, June 10, 5 p.m.88 I believe this conviction prevails generally among the best-informed Americans resident in China. While it has been expressed more freely by members of the business community, even among missionary institutions officially proclaiming their hope that adaptation to new conditions will succeed, there [Page 589] is, I have reason to believe, a very impressive proportion of local workers who are skeptical, if they are not indeed persuaded that they are now gallantly fighting for a lost cause. The results of past developments appear in the very considerable personnel reductions and retrenchments adopted by both business and missionary organizations which maintain fixed staffs in China and, more generally, in the evident diminution during the last three years of American residents. Although at Shanghai, it is true, there is a considerable influx of new individuals and firms which have arrived in the hope that relations may be established with what is understood to be a new order here, with a sound economic and political basis, the fact remains that there has been, on the whole, a conspicuous exodus of Americans from all other ports and from the interior, many of whom have informed me that they were departing from China because of the feeling that the Chinese were making it more and more impossible for them and other foreigners to live here.
(13) In the absence of extraterritoriality, it seems to me that the expected intensified harassment of foreigners and their interests would lead inevitably to a year-after-year embitterment of relations. The contention that a premature concession on the part of the United States would ease the situation is, in my opinion, entirely without foundation. No one who is familiar with Chinese temperament and traditions can suppose that any yielding on an issue will dissuade the Chinese from raising further issues. In 1908 the United States remitted a portion of the Boxer indemnity; the Chinese then asked remission of the remainder, this being agreed to in 1924; and now the fact of such remission of the American indemnity is made the basis of their claim that the United States has abandoned all its rights under the Boxer Protocol of 190189 and ought to be forced to recognize the latter as obsolete. At the Washington Conference the United States agreed to an increased Chinese customs tariff, following abolition of likin, but the Chinese thereupon demanded that complete tariff autonomy be given in exchange for likin abolition; the United States accepted the principle of Chinese tariff autonomy subject to likin abolition and the funding of China’s unsecured debts, then waived its insistence on the latter condition during the Peking Conference; the Chinese, however, insisted that tariff autonomy be granted without any condition whatsoever; the United States signed a treaty granting China tariff autonomy without condition, although on the understanding that American trade should not be discriminated against; and the Chinese then tried to pare down the meaning of the nondiscrimination clause in the treaty. In negotiations by [Page 590] the United States or by other powers with the Chinese, every example I know evidences similarly that the Chinese make a new demand on the basis of each demand already granted. It is possible for the United States either to contend for any given right or else to abandon the same; but it would be deceiving ourselves to assume that we would gain any assurance of better treatment for American citizens in other respects by giving up any right.
(14) Reference your paragraph (3). Announcements that the Nanking Government intends to abolish extraterritoriality on January 1 have become increasingly frequent; on July 12 one was made in Peking by the Minister for Foreign Affairs in an interview given representatives of the native and foreign press. So far as I am aware, however, all these statements have been made orally; and, judging from my experience of the adroitness with which Chinese gracefully retire from a difficult position, I am inclined to regard these statements still as in the nature of ballons d’essai rather than of binding pronouncements. It is not too late, I believe, to avert a forcing of the issue (as was recommended in my 541, July 5, 7 p.m.), but the possibility of doing this or of avoiding friction by so doing will decrease rapidly, as such statements become both more frequent and more confident.
- Completed July 16, 1929, at 4 p.m.↩
- See pp. 773 ff.↩
- Dated October 6, 8, 1925; see Foreign Relations, 1925, vol. i, pp. 930–932.↩
- See ibid., 1924, vol. i, pp. 551 ff., and ibid., 1925, vol. i, pp. 935 ff.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Signed at Peking on September 7, 1901, Foreign Relations, 1901, appendix (Affairs in China), p. 312.↩