(F 8082/828/10)
Dear Monson,
FOREIGN OFFICE, S. W. 1.
5th December, 1942.
146
210
113-
You
Thank you for your letter of the 1st December relating to the extraterritoriality negotiations. will have seen the telegram which we have sent to Chungking on the subject of Kowloon. I ascertained by telephone from Gent that you would have no objection to the modification which we have made in the line agreed upɔn between us.
2. As regards your paragraph 2 I wrote to Seel on 3rd December concerning the Kenya difficulty. The position as to the other points which you raise is that we have instructed our Ambassador at Chungking to try for national treatment for commerce and the right to acquire real property; but we may not get either since the United States Government are not asking for them. If we do not get these rights in China our only remedy will be to deny them to the Chinese in the territories to which the Treaty applies, provided that policy is regarded as desirable from other points of view.
3.
The Chinese have never insisted (nor could they) on a British company being 51% Chinese. But whereas we do not insist that a British incorporated company comprising foreign interests should in fact be 51% British, the Chine se do insist on a Chinese incorporated company comprising foreign interests being 51% Chinese. It is unlikely that the Chinese will change their legislation on this point. Nor are they likely to allow foreign industrial enterprises in China to compete on equal terms with their own, since their avowed policy is to discriminate in favour of Chinese industries.
W.B.L. Monson, Esq.,
Colonial Office.
Yours sincerely,
Hohly Clarke.
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