(F 2715/31/10).
NO DISTRIBUTION
Cypher telegram to Sir R. Craigie (Tokyo).
Foreign Office.
No. 493.
19th November, 1937.
10.30 p.m.
41
Your telegram No. 638 [of the 18th November: aircraft to China through Hongkong].
delivery of
Facilities
As you will have seen from Hongkong telegram to Colonial Office No. 287 this batch of aeroplanes has now been forwarded to China. In any event, however, I could not have countenanced delaying them. These aeroplanes happened to be available for purchase by the Chinese Government and Chinese Ambassador was assured in August that there would be no difficulty about the grant of export licences. for their assembly in Hongkong have had on wider grounds to be refused, but the least that could be done was not only to permit but also to
No embargo has been placed on the facilitate onward transit to China. export of arms to Japan either from the United Kingdom or Hongkong, and it could not be expected, especially having regard to the League of Nations resolution that States members should take no action likely to weaken China's powers of resistance, that a discriminatory embargo should be placed on the export of arms to China from Hongkong.
Addressed to Tokyo No. 493, repeated to Peking No. 556, to Nanking No. 481 and to Hongkong unnumbered.