CO129-501-8 General policy in China 30-11-1926 - 30-11-1926 — Page 173

- 2

-

177

kemE949

this Consul-General by the Japanese Government to deal

with questions concerning the whole of that region. I

now see from the third paragraph of Sir John Tilley's

despatch to the Foreign Office, No 421 of the 27th August, a copy of which is enclosed in your secret des- patch to me, dated the 16th October, that Mr. Debuchi,

the Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs at Tokyo, on the

16th August informed our Ambassador in the course of conversation that, as regards China, "at present Japanese Consuls had instructions to deal with the provincial Governments themselves and were acting prac- tically as diplomatic representatives.

3.

In these circumstances I venture to think that His Majesty's Government might well consider whether some change in the machinery of our diplomatic represen- tation in China should not be made upon the lines already adopted by the Japanese Government. The result would in effect be to make the British Minister in China a co-

ordinating rather than a controlling authority so far as His Majesty's Consuls General and Consuls in that country are concerned; and, in view of the fact that a new British Minister has just arrived in China, I would repeat that, as things now are, there could hardly be a worse centre from which to direct British diplomacy in the Eighteen Provinces than Peking. Shanghai would be far more suitable; but under existing conditions I fear that, however inconvenient it may be in many respects, the British Minister, if he is to keep in touch with the regional Chinese authorities and effectively co-ordinate British consular activities, will have to become peripa- tetic and travel much more widely and frequently than

has been usual in the past.

4./