CO129-502-8 China- general situation 27-4-1927 - 15-9-1927 — Page 162

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This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.

Printed for the Committee of Imperial Defence. May 1927.

18

168

Copy No. 40

SECRET.

798-B.

(Also Papers Nos. C.O.S. 90

and C.P. 141 (27).)

COMMITTEE OF IMPERIAL DEFENCE.

30045B

64

THE SITUATION IN CHINA, MAY 5, 1927: SANCTIONS. (Previous C.I.D. Paper No. 796-B.)

FIFTH REPORT BY THE CHIEFS OF STAFF.

OUR Second Report on Possible Sanctions, dated the 19th April, 1927 (C.I.D. Paper No. 793-B*) contained, inter alia, a recommendation which was summarised in our Conclusions as follows :-

"11 (a). In view of the rapid changes in the situation in China and of the difficulty in securing agreement by all the British and international authorities concerned in any particular sanction, there should be a change of system. The attempt to prescribe sanctions from home should be abandoned, and the Admiralty should be empowered to authorise the Naval Commander-in-Chief not only to reply to fire directed against His Majesty's Ships, but whenever fire is directed against any ship flying the British Flag to take retaliatory action against the offender with all the forces at his disposal, and if necessary to land parties for the purpose of completing the destruction of forts or guns guilty of such action. For this purpose the Naval Commander-in-Chief should be authorised to draw on the Shanghai Defence Force for any troops he may require and which the General Officer Commanding can spare. The War Office should be empowered to give the necessary authority to the General Officer Commanding."

This proposal was considered by the Cabinet on the 27th April, when it was decided not to adopt it as a sanction. The question whether this proposal should be adopted on its merits, not as a sanction but as a measure of security, was reserved.

2. The question was again brought to the notice of the Cabinet on our behalf by the Chief of the Naval Staff on the 2nd May, when Lord Beatty quoted the following passage from Sir Miles Lampson's telegram No. 805 of the 30th April :

"Of course if His Majesty's Government deliberately decide to adopt a new policy and are henceforth prepared in serious earnest wherever practically possible in future to defend by force and at once any attack on British lives and property, matters at once assume a new aspect. But in that case it should be dealt with on that basis and not as a reprisal for Nanking. I should welcome such a modification of policy which (two groups undecypherable) is overdue and should see with a sign of relief such encroachments as are taking place almost daily at practically every Yangtse port forcibly resisted. If we did that as we are not only justified but now in a position to do-such encroach- ments would quickly cease and our whole position in China would be immediately improved. Our prestige would at once rise 100 per cent.”

3. On this occasion the Cabinet decided that further enquiry should be made into the proposals we had submitted in our Second Report, quoted above, as well as into those contained in the above quotation from Sir Miles Lampson's telegram No. 805.

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* Also C.O.S. 82 and C.P. 128 (27).

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