Ca...
30154/27/14.
This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
RECEIVED
CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[F 6077/36/10]
}24 AUG 1927
COL. OFFICE
No. 1.
[July 8, 1927. |
SECTION 4.
28
(No. 510.) Sir,
Sir M. Lampson to Sir Austen Chamberlain.-(Received July 8.)
WITH reference to my despatch No. 318 of the 4th to submit the following review of the present position in embargo :-
Peking, May 16, 1927. April, I have the honour regard to the China arms
2. It is important, in considering this contentious and complicated question, to be clear in one's mind as to what the arms embargo really means and involves. Before its introduction by common understanding between the principal Powers in 1919 the import of arms into China, except to the order or with the authorisation of the Chinese Government, was prohibited to Chinese and foreigners alike under the treaties, and the prohibition was enforced by the Customs on the strength of the relevant treaty provision (rule 3 of the Rules of Trade). In 1919, with a view to discouraging civil war, the principal Powers agreed between themselves to prohibit their nationals from exporting arms to China altogether, so that, taken with the existing treaty prohibition of import to private consignees, the embargo was primarily directed against the acquisition of arms from foreign sources by the Chinese Government and Chinese central and local authorities. The Chinese Central Government and local governing authorities never recognised the embargo, which they regarded, indeed, as an offensive restriction on their sovereign activities, and they continued to issue "huchao" (permits) authorising the import of consignments of arms on official account through the Customs. As the process of political disintegration continued, not only the so-called Central Government at Peking and the rival Kuo Min-tang Government at Canton, but also various local prinvincial authorities issued their own "huchao,'
"huchao," which were accepted and respected by the Customs, who had come to follow the practice of recognising (in the absence of any real Central Government) the authority in such matters of whatever local de facto administration controlled the port in question. There was, therefore, never any co-operation on the Chinese side in enforcing the arms embargo, either from the Chinese Government, or from the local authorities, or from the Customs. There is a further point which should also be borne in mind, namely, that, while the arms embargo understanding between the Powers, as agreed upon in 1919 and reaffirmed in 1922 after the Washington Conference, referred to the prohibition of export to China of arms by their respective nationals, His Majesty's Government alone amongst the Powers took the further step of enacting local legislation (the King's Regulations issued in 1919) prohibiting the import into and dealing in arms in China by British subjects.
3. In 1925, when, after the Shanghai incident of the 30th May, the anti- British movement had developed amongst the Cantonese Kuo Min-tang in the South and Feng Yu-hsiang's Kuo Min-chun in the North, and it was common knowledge that both were being freely supplied with arms from Russian sources, the question of the arms embargo, which had been giving rise to criticism and complaints from British interests for some time past, was under the consideration of His Majesty's Government with special reference to two points, namely :-
(a.) The prejudicial effect on British interests concerned with the arms trade, who were prevented by His Majesty's Government from supplying to China arms which were being freely furnished by competing foreign interests from Russian, German and other foreign sources; and
(b.) The effect of the embargo in preventing the supply of arms from British sources to friendly pro-British Northern elements, while Russia was freely furnishing arms to the hostile anti-British Kuo Min-tang and Kuo Min-chun.
On these two points a strong primâ facie case could be made out against the arms embargo, the advocates of which replied with the original arguments that, in existing conditions in China, the trade was an immoral one, which promoted and profited
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