861.77 Chinese Eastern/176
The Consul at Harbin (Hanson) to the Minister in China (MacMurray)74
Sir: I have the honor to confirm below two telegrams sent to the Legation in regard to to-day’s actions of the local Chinese authorities against Soviet interests:75
“July 10, 11 a.m. Local Chinese authorities took over Chinese Eastern Railway telegraph system early this morning and arrested a dozen communists connected with the line whom they threaten to deport into Siberia. Department not informed”.
“July 10, 3 p.m. Chinese authorities have closed Soviet trade organizations in North Manchuria. Arrests now sixty. It would appear that there will be little Soviet opposition and no strike of railway employees. Department not informed.”
Harbin was startled early in the morning of July 10th by the news that the Chinese authorities had taken over the public telegraph and line telephone systems of the Chinese Eastern Railway. At 7 A.M. these systems were placed under the control of General Chiang Pin, Chief of the Telegraph and Telephone Administration of the Three Eastern Provinces, who notified the Railway officers concerned that he was acting under orders of the Northeastern Committee of Ways of Communications in taking over the systems. No reasons were given, but the telegraph and telephone apparatus necessary for purely railway operations was left under the control of the railway officials. Chinese agents simultaneously appeared at the Railway’s central telegraph office at the Harbin station and Pristan, the business town, and at stations along the line and took concerted action, which had evidently been carefully planned before. However, the taking over of these systems had been anticipated ever since the taking over from the Railway of the Harbin city telephone system as reported in my despatch No. 1864, dated December 24, 1928,75a on the subject of the forcible seizure by Chinese of Chinese Eastern Railway’s telephone system.
Of more serious import to the Soviet side were the arrests to-day of about 60 Soviet employees of the Railway, including such prominent active leaders as Knaiseff [Knazieff?], Chief of General [Page 199] Affairs in the offices of the Administration, Markoff, assistant Chief of the Traffic Department and the head of the professional union of railway employees. It has been reported that these leaders will be deported into Siberia to-day. No public announcement of these arrests has yet been made.
Later in the day, by order of the Office of the Civil Administrator of the Special Area, the police closed up the local offices of the Gostorg (Government Trading Trust), Neftsyndicate (Government Oil Trust), Sovtorgflot (Soviet Trading Fleet) and other Soviet Government trade organizations on the grounds that representatives of these organizations had been caught in the recent raid made on the local Soviet Consulate General, where evidence had been discovered that they and their organizations had been engaged in communistic propaganda dangerous to the Chinese Government.
Yesterday, it was announced that Mr. Fan Chi-kuan, a member of the Board of Directors of the Chinese Eastern Railway, had been additionally appointed Chinese Assistant Manager of the Railway, in place of Mr. Kuo Chung-hsi, who had been granted three months sick leave. Another English speaking Chinese, Mr. Tu Wei-ching, who was educated in the United States and who was Chief of the Ways Department of the Railway, was also granted sick leave. Mr. Fan was educated in Russia and speaks excellent Russian, which Mr. Kuo does not. It is now rumored that Mr. Fan will be made General Manager, to replace the Soviet General Manager, Mr. A. I. Emshanoff, by order of the Nanking Government, which appears to have ordered the moves mentioned above. This would be in direct violation of the Soviet-Mukden Agreement.
The Soviet authorities are angry, but helpless, and it is not believed that they will make more than verbal objections, although it is reported that about 100 more Soviet agents will soon be deported. There were evidently some feeble attempts made to persuade the railway workers to strike, but, aside from the workers’ unwillingness to sacrifice the only chance they have of making a living in North Manchuria, it was found difficult to put this scheme into practice because the union leaders were placed under arrest. It is also reported that a Chinese gunboat has anchored in the Sungari River near the main workshops of the Railway with its guns trained on them, evidently in readiness to fire if violence breaks out in that direction.
I have [etc.]