Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1929, Volume II

861.77 Chinese Eastern/166

The Soviet Acting Commissar for Foreign Affairs (Karakhan) to the Chinese Chargé in the Soviet Union (Hsia)⁷⁸

[Translation]

Moscow, July 13, 1929.

Mr. Chargé d’affaires: By instruction of the government of Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I beg you to communicate the following to the Mukden government and the National Government of the Chinese Republic at Nanking:

According to information received by the Government of the U. S. S. R., at 10 o’clock in the morning of July 10th, the Chinese authorities made a raid upon the Chinese Eastern Railway and seized the telegraph of the Chinese Eastern Railway along the whole line, interrupting telegraphic communication with the U. S. S. R.; closed and sealed, without giving the reasons, the Commercial Agency of the U. S. S. R. and also the branches of the State Trading Company, the Textiles Syndicate, the Coal Oil Syndicate and the Soviet Mercantile Marine. Thereupon the Duban [Tupan] of the road (the President of the Administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway), Mr. Liu Czhun-khuan⁷⁹ presented to the General Manager of the Chinese Eastern Railway, Mr. Emshanov, a demand to hand over the management of the road to a person, designated by the Duban. When the General Manager of the road, Mr. Emshanov, refused to comply with this unlawful demand, which is in flagrant violation of the agreement on the provisional administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway, concluded at Peking on May 31, 1924, and also of the agreement between the government of the U. S. S. R. and the government of the autonomous Three Eastern Provinces of the Chinese Republic, concluded at Mukden on September 20, 1924, he was removed from his post, as was the Assistant General Manager of the road, Mr. Eismont. Both were replaced by persons designated by the Duban. The Chiefs of the Traffic and Traction Services and other persons were removed, by order also of the Duban, and replaced by Russian whiteguardists. The trade union and cooperative organizations of the railway hands and employees all along the line of the Chinese Eastern Railway were smashed and closed and searches and arrests were made, more than 200 citizens of the U. S. S. R., railway hands and employees, being arrested. About 60 Soviet citizens, including Messrs. Emshanov and Eismont, have been expelled already beyond the bounds of China.

News has been received at the same time of the concentration along the Soviet borders of Manchurian troops, which have been brought into combat readiness and have been moved up to the very frontier. According to information, along with the Manchurian troops on the borders of the U. S. S. R. are disposed Russian whiteguard units, which the Manchurian Command is intending to throw over into the Soviet territory.

The above-named acts are a most manifest and a most flagrant violation of the direct and incontestable provisions of the treaties existing between the U. S. S. R. and China, and these infringements are made rather more arrant, and not less, by the fact that the Duban of the road, in his statement, himself cites the obligation of the representatives of the two parties concerned in the Chinese Eastern Railway to observe the treaty, he with this reference endeavoring to mask his own plainly illegal acts.

As appears from article 1 of the agreement of May 31, 1924, on the provisional administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway, and from the analogous article 1, point 6, of the Mukden agreement, all questions relating to the Chinese Eastern Railway are examined and decided by the Board of ten persons, and the “decisions of the Board enter into effect if they are approved by not less than six members of the Board”; moreover, the Chairman of the Board, a Chinese citizen, and the Vice Chairman, a Soviet citizen, “together conduct the business of the Board and both sign all documents of the Board”.⁸⁰

Thus, the very fact of the issue by the Duban of a unilateral order over his sole signature and without securing the assent of either the Board or of the Vice Duban, a Soviet citizen, gives to this act of his a manifestly illegal character, to say nothing of the fact that this act cuts away the very roots of the principle of parity, established by the treaties.

According to article 3 of the same Peking agreement and article 1, point 8, of the Mukden agreement, “the management of the road resides with the General Manager, a citizen of the U. S. S. R., and two Assistant General Managers, of whom the one must be a citizen of the U. S. S. R., and the other a citizen of the Chinese Republic. Said officers are nominated by the Board and are confirmed by their respective Governments”. Their rights and duties are determined by the Board, which likewise appoints the Chiefs and Assistant Chiefs of the various Services of the road.

Thus, the removal of the General Manager of the road by order of the Duban, and his replacement, if only provisional, by a Chinese citizen, and also the unilateral removal of the Assistant General Manager and of a number of officers of the road, violate the fundamental provisions of the agreement of 1924 and from the ground up change the regime of management of the road that was established by agreement between the Governments of China and the U. S. S. R. and was fixed in the treaties in effect between them. This infraction, which is altogether without justification, bears a still more shocking character in that, as plainly appears from the above cited articles of the treaties, the appointment, and consequently also the removal, of said officers is the prerogative of the Board as a whole, and cannot be exercised otherwise, in particular not through unilateral personal orders of the Duban on his sole authority. The Duban in his statement refers to an order, given by him to the General Manager, Mr. Emshanov, concerning compliance with a whole series of demands of the Chinese side, touching the system of management of the road. The General Manager, however, is the executive organ of all the Board as a whole, and may not carry out the orders of the Duban or of the Vice Duban, if they do not come from the Board itself with the signatures of the Chairman and the Vice Chairman, as is required by article 1, point 6, of the Mukden agreement of 1924. The very reference to the non-execution by the General Manager of some sort of personal orders of the Duban on his sole authority merely confirms the illegal character of the acts of the latter.

According to the spirit and letter of the Peking and Mukden agreements of 1924, the Chinese Eastern Railway is the object of management in common by the U. S. S. R. and China, and furthermore, the Chinese Eastern Railway may become the property of China either upon the expiration of the term fixed in the treaties, or, prior to this term, by way of the purchase of the road by China by agreement of the parties. Meanwhile, the unlawful acts of the Duban of the Chinese Eastern Railway, as above set forth, which have been sanctioned by the Chinese Government, mean in substance the seizure of the Chinese Eastern Railway and an attempt at unilateral abolition of existing treaties.

The agreements of 1924 establish a quite definite manner of settling all disputable questions concerning the road. According to article 6 of the agreement of May 31, 1924, and article 1, point 11, of the Mukden agreement, “all questions upon which the Board cannot reach an agreement must be referred to the Governments of the contracting parties for just and friendly settlement”.⁸¹ Each of the parties, thus, has the fullest possibility of putting any question before the other side in a quite lawful and normal way and of striving for the satisfaction of its demands. The Chinese side, however, in this case, as in certain cases preceding it, as, for example, the seizure of the telephone station, preferred the way of unilateral and unlawful acts, not merely violating, but overthrowing, the treaties in effect between the U. S. S. R. and China.

Observing that the above noted acts of the Duban of the Chinese Eastern Railway is a glaring violation of the treaties existing between the U. S. S. R. and China, the government of the U. S. S. R. makes the most decisive protest on the occasion of these acts, and directs the attention of the Mukden government and the National Government of the Chinese Republic to the extraordinary seriousness of the position which has been created by these acts.

The Union government has given repeated proofs of its peaceableness and friendly attitude to China and toward the struggle that the Chinese people has been making for the abolition of the unequal treaties and for the restoration of the sovereignty of China. The government of the U. S. S. R. was the first government that concluded a treaty with China on the principles of equality and of respecting the sovereignty of China. The government of the U. S. S. R. itself, upon its own initiative, as early as 1919 addressed to the Chinese people a declaration⁸² in which it proclaimed its readiness to abolish all the unequal treaties, concluded between China and Tsarist Russia. In the treaty of 1924 these declarations of the government of the U. S. S. R. were made good.⁸³ The government of the U. S. S. R. voluntarily relinquished in favor of China the concessions in Tientsin and Hankow. It voluntarily relinquished Consular jurisdiction and extraterritorial rights for its citizens in China. It, likewise upon its own initiative, relinquished the Boxer contribution, handing it over to the cause of the enlightenment of the Chinese people. Finally, it also voluntarily relinquished all the privileges which were given to Russia on the Chinese Eastern Railway, namely, the right of having in China its own troops, police, court[s], and other military-administrative functions which previously had been the prerogative of the Russian authorities on the Chinese Eastern Railway and the whole strip alienated to this railway. The relinquishment of all the privileges that are still enjoyed by foreign states with which China is in normal relationships was a manifestation of the socialistic character of the foreign policy of the Soviet state. The conclusion of the treaty of 1924 between the U. S. S. R. and China met with the greatest sympathy in all parts of China, for this treaty for the first time realizes the principle of equality of parties and of the full sovereignty of China.

From the foregoing exposition it clearly appears that, if the Chinese authorities had any complaints or demands to make about the regime established on the road, the acts of individual representatives of the U. S. S. R. on the road, or even the rights to the Chinese Eastern Railway fixed by treaties, up to shortening the term of the treaty and buying the Chinese Eastern Railway before the lapse of the term, these authorities had the full possibility, provided by the treaties, to present any complaint or demand of it to the government of the U. S. S. R. in a lawful manner.

The Union government finds that in questions touching the Chinese Eastern Railway it has invariably shown willingness to settle any disputable matter in a friendly spirit. Not longer ago than February 2, in a note, handed by the Consul General of the U. S. S. R. at Mukden to the Central Diplomatic Office of the Three Eastern Provinces of China, the government of the U. S. S. R. declared that it “deems it very desirable that all disputable questions, and in particular the questions touching the régime of the road, which have remained unsettled during the past years, have caused misunderstandings and have interfered with the normal work of the road, should be submitted to discussion and settlement with the object of the removal of possible misunderstandings and conflicts”. This proposal, which shows how ready the government of the U. S. S. R. is to meet the reasonable wishes of the Chinese side, gave the Chinese Government the possibility of putting for discussion any of the questions of interest to it. The Chinese side, however, did not wish to avail itself of the possibility that was opened by the offer of the Union government of February 2, a. c., and this proposal remained unanswered. Neither was there an answer to the telegram, despatched on the 11th of this month over the signature of the People’s Commissar of Ways of Communication of the U. S. S. R. to the address of the Chairman of the Board of this Chinese Eastern Railway, announcing willingness at once to discuss all disputable questions and stating that the negotiations upon these questions were entrusted by the People’s Commissariat of Ways of Communication of the U. S. S. R. to the Member of its Collegium, Mr. Serebriakov.

All these facts exhaustively attest the utter baselessness of the references, in the declaration of the Duban which has been mentioned, to alleged fruitless attempts having been made by China to regulate disputable questions.

The present Chinese authorities are disposed, obviously, to view the above exposed policy of seeking a peaceful and friendly solution of all disputable questions and the policy of respecting the sovereign rights of China—which radically negatives the bases of the imperialistic policy of the bourgeois states—not as a policy following from the very nature of the Soviet authority, but as a manifestation of its weakness. This, obviously, is just why the Chinese authorities permit themselves a series of glaringly violent and provocative acts with respect of the U. S. S. R., thus abusing its peaceableness. The Union government is obliged therefore to remind the Chinese authorities that it has at its disposal sufficient means, requisite for guarding the lawful rights of the peoples of the U. S. S. R. from any and all violent encroachments.

Remaining true to its peace policy, the Union government, regardless of the violent and provocative acts of the Chinese authorities, once more proclaims willingness to enter into negotiations with China on the whole complex of questions connected with the Chinese Eastern Railway. Such negotiations are possible, however, only in the condition of the liberation at once of the citizens of the U. S. S. R. who have been arrested and the undoing of all the unlawful acts of the Chinese authorities.

In correspondence with this position the Union government proposes:

1) to call at once a conference for the settlement of all questions connected with the Chinese Eastern Railway;

2) the Chinese authorities at once [to] undo all unilateral acts in respect of the Chinese Eastern Railway;

3) All Soviet citizens that have been arrested are [to be] set free at once, and the Chinese authorities [to] put an end at once to all persecutions of Soviet citizens and all encroachments upon their rights and upon the rights of Soviet institutions.

The Union government invites the Mukden government and the National Government of the Chinese Republic to weigh well the serious consequences that rejection of this proposal of the U. S. S. R. will have.

The Union government states that it will await the answer of the Chinese Government to the above exposed proposal for three days, and gives warning that, in the event of non-receipt of a satisfactory answer, it will be obliged to resort to other means of defense of the lawful rights of the U. S. S. R.

Accept [etc.]

L. Karakhan

78. Translation from text printed in the Moscow Izvestia, No. 159, July 14, 1929; copy transmitted to the Department by the Minister in Latvia in his despatch No. 6291, July 18; received August 2, 1929.
79. Other more common transliterations of name are “Lu Jung-huan” and “Liu Yung-huan.”
80. cf. Foreign Relations, 1924, vol. i, pp. 499, 500.
81. cf. ibid., p. 501.
82. See Foreign Relations, 1922, vol. i, p. 931.
83. Ibid., 1924, vol. i, p. 495.