10
Sir H. May as to the stage in descent at which China
will agree to withdraw its claim to regard Chinese born
abroad as Chinese subjects, before we proceed to enter
into negotiations on our own account.
The Dutch Minister informs me that the Chinese
All
Government fully realize that their present Law of
Nationality is unworkable and must be revised.
legislation in China is in a very fluid condition et
present and this particular enactment would no longer,
I fear, form a solid basis on which to base an arrange-
ment with China.
The Ministers of the Wai Wu Pu have little or no
knowledge of these questions which are left to other
departments and for the purposes of the negotiations
with the Dutch Minister it has been necessary to recall
to Peking the Chinese Minister at the Hague who has had
long experience abroad.
As to the inhabitants of the Kowloon extension and
Wei Hai Wei, I do not think that the Chinese will ever
admit that the two cases are in any way distinct.
They
regard both as leased, and not as ceded territories.
The wording of both leases is practically the same
ex-
cept
12
except that the former is an enlargement under lease
of Hongkong which is territory previously ceded by
Treaty. Both places are, from the Chiness point of
view, on the same basis as Klacchow end Dairen and so
long as the Germans and Japanese do not claim to
protect Chinese inhabitants of Klaochowand Dairen out-
side the limits of the leased territory, I do not see
how we can expect to enforce such a claim.
The
Chinese snswer would simply be that Kiaochow wes
leased to Germany for 99 years in March 1898, that
Kowloon was, as a political concession, similarly
leased to Great Britain for the same period three
months later, and that the treatment in both cases must
be the same. Had there been any idea of a cession of
territory, as distinguished from lease, we should,
they would add, have doubtless stipulated, as the
Japanese did in the case of the cession of Formosa,
that the inhabitants should have the right of "orting".
(see Article V of Treaty of Shimonoseki of 1895).
It never, of course, occurred to the Chinese that
the principles of international law were going to be
strictly