[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government, and should be
returned to the Foreign Office if not required for official use.]
65
(F 11844/6941/10)
To CHINA.
Cypher telegram to Mr. Allen, (Shanghai).
Foreign Office,
No. 971.
10th November, 1938,
10.30 p.m.
0:0:0:0
Sir A. Clark Kerr's telegram No. 4 Tour Series A and Burma Office telegram No. 241 to Rangoon [of the 23rd and 27th October;
import of arms through Burma into China.]
As regards Chinese request for concessions in respect
of safety provisions and railway freights, please reply in sense
of Rangoon telegram No. 257 C [of the 4th November].
As regards exemption from customs duties for military supplies,
please inform the Government to which you are accredited that Govern- ment of Burma, while regretting inability to grant total exemption, are prepared to extend the drawback system to all goods imported
into Burma and re-experted to Yunnan via Lashio and the new through road, and to accord sympathetic consideration to a Chinese request
15 for increase in drawback on such goods up to 16ths of the duty levied
on import, on the understanding that the Chinese Government are
prepared, in the same helpful spirit as underlies the present
extensive concessions by the Government of Burma, to enter in due
course into negotiations for an agreement on wider lines regarding
Burma-Yunnan trade, and that the question of customs drawback would
be brought into consideration as part of such negotiations. You
may add that the Government of Burma are giving further consideration
to possibility of fixing a higher rate of drawback for special
categories of munitions provided that the consignments are shown to
be to the order of the Chinese Government.
2. The Chinese Ambassador in London is being informed of these instructions.
Repeated to Mission Chungking No. 93 and Rangoon.