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This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.
108
CHINA.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[February 8, 1927.]
SECTION 1.
!F 1203/115/10]
No. 1.
Sir
Sir Austen Chamberlain to Sir E. Drummond (League of Nations).
Foreign Office, February 8, 1927. I VENTURE to send you for the information of members of the League of Nations the following statement of British policy in China :—
Since 1922 British policy in China has been based on the letter and The spirit of the agreements then reached at the Washington Conference. principal Treaty Powers there agreed among themselves, in conjunction with the representatives of the Chinese Government, that their future policy should be guided by certain general principles designed to safeguard the integrity' and independence of China, to promote her political and economic development and the rehabilitation of her finances. It was agreed that she should obtain certain increases on her treaty tariff in order to provide the revenue required for these purposes. It was further agreed that a commission should examine the question of extra-territoriality with a view to amending the system now in force by the elimination of abuses and accretions and by the removal of limitations on China's sovereignty, no longer necessary.
2. Such is the Washington Conference policy of His Majesty's Government and of the other Washington Treaty Powers, as defined in the statement communicated by the British Chargé d'Affaires to the representatives of the Powers at Peking on the 18th December and published on the 26th December, 1926. As regards general principles, His Majesty's Government still adhere to this policy; but its complete success depended on co-operation between the Powers concerned and a single Central Government in China. Unfortunately, since 1922, China has become more disunited than ever. For instance, the Canton Government was in 1922 confined to the city of Canton. Even then it was in revolt against the Central Government at Peking, and did not consider itself bound by the undertakings entered into by the Central Government's representatives at Washington. That Canton Nationalist Government has now increased its authority over the greater part of the country south of the Yang-tsze River, and claims to be recognised as the only Government of all China. This fact has modified the hypothesis upon which the Washington policy was based.
3. Further, the extremists of the Canton Nationalist party have singled out the British people for an implacable campaign of calumny and boycott. Indeed, enmity against Britain has been deliberately and persistently cultivated by this section and their advisers in order to promote the solidarity of the Nationalist party and stimulate its aggressive spirit.
4. The events of 1925 provided the anti-British propagandists with the kind of material most useful for them. The Shanghai International Settlement is governed by an elective Municipality which was at that time presided over by an American chairman. This municipality has its own police force. In consequence of an outbreak of mob violence the police opened fire. His Majesty's Government have no control over these police, but the fact that they had British officers was seized upon by the propagandists to represent the incident as an act of British aggression. Similarly, when an armed procession of Chinese fired on the Anglo- French concession at Canton and the troops in the concession were obliged to fire in self-defence, the fact that a part, though only a part, of those troops were British, was again seized upon as material for anti-British propaganda. The extremely friendly and considerate attitude of His Majesty's Government towards China, as shown at the Washington Conference and on many other occasions, was contemptuously brushed aside. A boycott of British goods was put into force throughout China, and long after the boycott had ceased in the north, it was continued at Canton.
5. The Nationalist Government at Canton have now extended their authority to Central China, and with it has spread the current of anti-British agitation fomented by the extremists. At Hankow, on the 3rd January, a large and threatening mob attempted to break into the British concession. For a whole afternoon it was kept at bay by a handful of British marines, whose admirable
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