This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government, and should be returned to the Foreign Office if not required for official use.]
165
From CHINA
Decypher.
Sir M. Lampson (Nanking)
30th March 1931.
D.
5.40 p.m.
30th March 1931.
R.
3.10 p.m.
30th March 1931.
No. 87.
(On Tour).
IMMEDIATE.
Very Confidential.
Extraterritoriality.
The time having come to place the cards on the
table, I saw Minister for Foreign Affairs alone this
morning and told him that if he would meet us on re-
served areas I could practically promise him criminal
jurisdiction subject to necessary detailed safeguards
regarding arrest, imprisonment etc.
2.
He replied by saying that attitude of Central
political council was definite - no cojudges, no criminal
jurisdiction, no reserved areas. He would be especially
frank: if they met us on our four reserved areas
(Shanghai, Tientsin, Canton and Hankow) the ground would
be cut from under their feet in meeting forthcoming
Japanese demand for reserved areas in Manchuria to which
they could never agree. He knew that we had no
ulterior motives and that our whole policy was a bona
fide trade policy no one suspected us of political
designs; but his government had to be extremely careful
of doing anything which weakened their case vis a vis
Japan.
3. I argued that on the contrary to give us a few
areas would .trengthen his hands. No one could
ribute any special political interest to those areas.
Moreover to give us them would ensure that we carried
British
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