254
255
20. The situation may be summarised as follows:--
(i.) The Canton Government can only be recognised as either (a) the Govern-
ment of China, or (b) the independent Government of part of China. (ii) The facts do not warrant (a), and the Cantonese Government have not yet
advanced any formal claim to it.
(iii) The facts may or may not warrant (b), but the Cantonese Government do
not desire it.
(iv.) His Majesty's Government must wait until a claim is advanced, and then consider it on its merits, with due regard to the facts of the situation and the treaty position.
(v.) There is nothing in the Washington Treaty which would debar His Majesty's Government from recognising the Cantonese Government as either (a) or (b) if the facts warranted it, but
(vi) Even if the facts warranted either (a) or (b), His Majesty's Government would be bound by the treaty at least to notify the other treaty Powers of their intention to recognise before they could proceed to such a step.
21. No immediate action by any of the Powers in the direction of formal recognition is, therefore, to be expected. Matters are, in fact, at an impasse. The only recognition which the Cantonese would accept is not warranted by the facts'; the only recognition which, even at a stretch, the facts could be held to warrant, would not be acceptable to them. Even were this not so, it is very doubtful whether the facts would as yet justify any formal act of recognition, for
(i.) The Cantonese Government is but newly established on the Yang-tsze, and
there is no guarantee of its permanence.
(ii) For the moment the only important treaty ports in its possession are Canton and Hankow; it may be taken as axiomatic that no Govern- ment which does not control Shanghai deserves special treatment in the matter of recognition.
(iii) Its territories have no settled frontiers.
(iv) It is merely one Government of several in China.
(v.) It is a revolutionary Government and its declared attitude* of indifference to the treaty and other obligations undertaken by the Government of which it would be whole or in part the successor is such that no Power is likely to commit itself to so formal and irrevocable an act as recognition without first making every effort either to bring the Cantonese Government to assume responsibility for the obligations of its predecessors, i.e., the unequal treaties, which would be impossible; or, in return for recognition, to negotiate fresh arrangements to take their place, which would require much time. Otherwise the act of recognition would imply the complete and formal abandonment by the Powers of existing treaty rights in China in the territory over which the Cantonese Government exercised authority.
II. Recent Developments.
22. Strict considerations of law and fact lead, therefore, to a negative conclusion, but our representatives in China do not contemplate or seem likely to be satisfied with a negative conclusion. It is, of course, possible that, as so often happens in China, a solution may be found, though logically no solution seems possible.
Mr. O'Malley, for example, thinks that we shall have to treat the Cantonese Government as equal in every respect to Peking and that it will not be enough to indicate to them that, as soon as they are in a position to claim to be the Government of China and to assume full responsibility for the treaty and other obligations of their predecessors, we shall be prepared to recognise them as the Government of China and that in the meantime we shall deal with them in a friendly spirit as a de facto outhority.
Mr. Lampson suggested in his first review of the situation since his arrival:- (i.) That, provided the Canton Government admits the heritage of existing treaties from their predecessors and calls off the present anti-British
* But now see Mr. Chen's statement in paragraph 28 (iv), in which, however, Mr. Lampson had no great confidence.
boycott, we should legalise the present illegal surtaxes by granting the Washington surtaxes; and
(ii) That, if, during a given period. the Cantonese Government have proved their good faith, we should grant them full recognition as the Govern- ment of the territory actually in their occupation and enter into formal negotiations for treaty revision.
Mr. Brenan reported in a telegram, dated the 3rd December, that the Cantonese would be ready to sign a reciprocal commercial treaty fixing the tariff for a term of a a year and would be prepared to make special judicial arrangements in place of the present extra-territorial rights. His own suggestions were:--
(i.) That His Majesty's Minister should make it clear by public statement that he is not accredited to any Central Government of China and that the Peking Cabinet will only be treated as the de facto authority over
the area it controls.
(ii.) That we should then try to reach an understanding with the Nationalist
Government regarding the area they control.
We could only ascertain its possible terms by discussion, but his impression was that although the Kuo Min-tang desire complete equality of treatment, the Cantonese Government might be inclined to compromise.
23. Whether a solution can be found on any of the above lines depends upon two conditions:-
(i.) That the Powers should be willing to admit modification by irregular and
informal means of the existing treaty position.
(ii) That the Canton Government should waive its claim for formal recogni- tion as the Government of China, or, indeed, as anything more than one, if perhaps the most legitimate, of the several existing de facto authorities; and that they should consent to treaty revision as opposed to treaty abolition.
a
24. As regards (i); this would imply that the Powers, realising that there is no longer in China any recognised successor to the Government with which their treaties were negotiated and that the time has. nevertheless, come for a revision of those treaties, would consent to negotiate modifications piecemeal and on provisional basis with such de facto authorities as they can find. Could this be done in regard, say, to tariffs and extra-territoriality without recognising the independence of such authorities?
25. There are two precedents and neither of them exact :--
(a.) The consular body at Shanghai concluded with the Provisional Government of Kiangsu a provisional agreement for the rendition of the Shanghai Mixed Court subject to ultimate ratification by Peking. This agreement implied no recognition of the Kiangsu Government as other than a local administration. The agreement dealt with a purely local issue which had at no time been the subject of a formal treaty between China and the Powers.
(b.) In 1924 the Soviet Government concluded an agreement with the Government of the Autonomous Three Eastern Provinces of the
..
4
Republic of China about the Chinese Eastern Railway without recognising Chang Tso-lin as anything other than the de facto ruler of those provinces still nominally subject to Peking. The subject of the agreement was a matter wholly within the jurisdiction of Chang Tso-lin, but it had the previous year been the subject of a formal treaty between the Soviet Government and the Government of Peking. The Mukden Agreement was, however, in amplification of and not in drastic modification of the Peking Agreement.
The present proposal differs from both the above in that the contemplated local agreements would be in fundamental modification of formal treaties between China and the Powers, and in the case of Canton in this further respect, that they would be concluded with an authority that entirely repudiates Peking.
26. His Majesty's Government. for their part, are prepared to fulfil condition (i) if it is legally possible to do so, and to adopt a less rigid attitude than in the past to treaty rights.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.