This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
Printed for the Committee of Imperial Defence. April 1927.
64
31
SECRET
793-B.
(Also Papers Nos. C.O.S. 82
and C.P. 128 (27).)
COMMITTEE OF IMPERIAL DEFENCE.
Copy No.
33
THE SITUATION IN CHINA -APRIL 17, 1927.
Possible Sanctions.
SECOND REPORT BY THE CHIEFS OF STAFF.
AT the Meeting of the Cabinet on the 13th April, at which we were instructed to re-examine the question of the form of sanctions in respect of the Nanking outrages, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs drew attention to the rapid changes now taking place in the situation, and in consequence we were asked to keep the subject constantly under review as the situation changes from time to time.
2. On the 14th April we submitted an Interim Report* on the subject of possible sanctions, in the course of which we expressed our view that in present conditions the destruction or occupation of the forts on the Yangtse and of the Arsenal at Hankow should be abandoned as a measure of sanction, though if circumstances changed it might again prove useful. We deprecated the reoccupation of the British Concession at Hankow, involving the maintenance of a military garrison there; we suggested that the seizure of the Cantonese fleet would exercise some pressure on the Southern Government; we recommended that the seizure of customs revenues should be examined by the Foreign Office; and we intimated that we were examining the view of the local naval and military authorities at Hong Kong in favour of the destruction of the forts covering the sea-approaches to Canton.
3. The information received since we rendered the above Interim Report well illustrates not only the rapid changes in the situation referred to by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs but also the imponderabilia of trying at this distance to prescribe sanctions where we have to consider the views of so many interested parties. Not only have we to consider, and often to consult, the Naval Commander- in-Chief, the British Minister at Peking, the Governor and the Naval and Military Authorities at Hong Kong and the Consuls-General at Canton, and may be also elsewhere, as at Shanghai and at Hankow, but also the diplomatic and naval authorities of the Powers who were equally concerned with us in the Nanking outrages, and who have, with some difficulty, been persuaded to co-operate in a demand on the Nationalist Government.
4. To-day we have before us a telegram from the Naval Commander-in-Chief, dated the 14th April (Appendix I), in which he states that an informal discussion with the American, Japanese, French and Italian Senior Naval Officers, based on the hypothetical assumption that all had been asked by their Governments for views on concerted action, had revealed-
(a.) That the French Admiral is reluctant to, and thinks that his Government would not consent to, any stronger measures than the pacific blockade of the Yangtse.
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* Paper No. C.O S. 80,
B
Semperlite?