CO537-3711 — Page 145

PART II

COPY

--

Hertslet's China Treaties, p. 509.

Ca. 1936 No. 42, Art. VII.

Article 4 of the additional agreement of May 7th, 1898, between China and Russia respecting the boundaries of Port Arthur and Talienwan etc. reads:

"The Russian Government assents to the request of

the Chinese Government that the Administration and police of the City of Kinchow shall be Chinese. Chinese troops will be withdrawn from Kinchow and replaced by Russian troops...

#

2. According to Young's "The International Legal Status of the Kwantung Leased Territory" (8V0 11795) Chinese civil administrative authority at Kinchow was completely displaced during and after the Boxer Rising until the war with Japan. It is also stated that by the autumn of 1903 Kinchow had been definitely excluded from the Chinese provincial administration of Mukden, an apparent abandonment by the Chinese authorities of their jurisdiction over the City.

3. It is pointed out, however, in this same work, that at the outset the Russians did permit the exercise of municipal jurisdiction by the Chinese, but that the difficulties urising from the interpretation of the Article of the Treaty became so great that in February, 1901, they asked for the abolition of Chinese administration. article to this effect was included in the draft Russo- Chinese agreement regarding Manchuria, but it proved unacceptable to the Chinese and was therefore excluded from the agreement as finally signed in 1902.

An

4.

As regards the position following the Japanese assumption of authority in 1905, Young writes that it did not appear that the Chinese Government had ever made any serious effort to recover any form of administrative authority over the City and that for a quarter of a century the Japanese had exercised complete civil and military authority.

Foreign Office,

April 6, 1948.

(Signed) C.H. Fone

Page 145Page 146