...s Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government, and should be returned
to the Foreign Office if not required for official use.
From CHINA.
Commander-in-Chief (China)
Decypher.
9
7th October, 1957.
D.
T/T
7th October, 1987.
R.
9.30 8.m. 8th October, 1987.
10. 302.
123
Addressed to admiralty o. 302 and Commodore Hongkong
No. 564 for Tokyo lo. 40.
Reference messages 491 and 492 from Tokyo concerning question
of providing Japanese ruthorities with information of sailings
of British ships, I agree with His Excellency that this is a
tall order. I have always been careful to ignore any requests
put forward by Japanese for notification of movements such as
in Whangpoo. The present sugestion is referred to previously in Tokyo message lo. 335 to Foreign Office. I strongly deprecate
any avoidable concessions to Japanese unless they are definitely
to our advantage. notification of sailings could be used by
petty Japanese officials as thin end of wedge to control and
obstruct British shipping, all sorts of excuses being raised if
they wished to postpone a sailing, etc. Flea of danger is a
favourite excuse. It is observed that while suggesting this
further measure which will probably have restrictive results
Japanese have not yet given any orders to their fleet to
implement the major arrangements agreed to between the Governments
in regard to closing the Chinese coast to Chinese shipping.
Repeated to Hanking No. 86 and to Foreign Office for
information,