OUTWARD TELEGRAM
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government, and should be
kept under Lock and Key.]
30
(F.12871/4027/61).
LIITED DISTRIBUTIO.
Cypher telegram to Sir A. Clark Kerr, (Shanghai).
Foreign Office.
No. 1267.
IMEDIATE.
28th December, 1939.
-o0o---
9.50.p.m.
Ly immediately preceding telegram [of 28th December: British policy in the Far East, paragraph 2.
At the
It is as you will appreciate highly important to prevent supplies of tungsten reaching Germany or the U.S.S.R. instance of the Export Credits Guarantee Department, therefore, P..Kuo has made tentative enquiries of Dr. Kung as to whether any of the commodities hitherto supplied to Germany under the Sino- German Barter Agreement could now be made available for sale to His Lajesty's Government. Our idea at present would be to take any of these commodities which we need or which we wish to prevent reaching Germany or the U.S.S.R. and to let China have in return on a barter basis the wireless and telephone material. If a barter deal is impossible we would probably supply wireless and telephone equipment out of the Credit Agreement, but this should not be mentioned to Chiang Kai-shek.
2. For your own confidential information the goods which we require from China would be silk waste and tung oil. je have adequate supplies of wolfram and tungsten, but the French require some 5,000 tons from China. We do not at present require silk or tin.
Bristles are in short supply here but the lack of them is not of great consequence.
る。 I suggest that you should ask Chiang Kai-shek without
committing us to any definite undertaking what amounts of tungsten
are now available, particularly those formerly sent to Germany under
the barter agreement and also whether China is able to supply silk
waste.....
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