793.003/182: Telegram
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
977. 1. British Minister has received from his Government an outline of the basis upon which it considers negotiations should be held with a view to the gradual relinquishment of extraterritoriality. The essential features of this plan are:
- (a)
- Its rejection of the suggestion of proceeding geographically in favor of proceeding by categories of jurisdiction in the order: First, civil; second, criminal; and third, personal status;
- (b)
- Its insistence upon courts including judges of foreign nationality.
It is the intention of the British Government in the near future to lay this plan before the other interested Governments. Before doing so, however, it instructed its Minister to ascertain the views of his interested colleagues. An [In] informal discussion among them yesterday, the French Minister expressed his personal concurrence in the British proposal to proceed by categories of jurisdiction rather than by geographical areas. Dutch Minister and I would personally prefer to commence progress along the geographical line; Japanese Minister expressed himself as wholly undecided as yet but acknowledged a slight inclination to favor the latter plan.
[Page 621]No important difference of opinion was brought out in regard to the other phases of the British proposal. It was decided that each of us should report the discussion to his own Government for its consideration when the British proposal is presented.
2. The official Kou Wen [Kuo Min?] News Service reports from Nanking November 7th that: [“]The Waichiaopu takes the view that these replies offer a definite way for the abolition of extraterritoriality and has decided to adhere to the original resolution to abolish consular jurisdiction on January 1st next. Separate negotiations will be started with the countries concerned, and, if the Foreign Ministers feel that the time at their disposal is too limited for them to seek instructions from their home Governments, the Waichiaopu is ready to instruct Chinese Ministers abroad to conduct negotiations with those Governments direct.” I consider this as meaning that Nanking intends to enter into actual negotiations only upon condition of the recognition of the definite abolition of extraterritoriality as from January 1st and that such negotiations will be for the sole purpose of giving the several interested powers opportunity to seek by [sic] several provisional arrangements pending the coming into force of the regime of unqualified Chinese jurisdiction over foreign nationals.
- Telegram in three sections.↩