CO129-564-12 Status of leased territories in China 29-9-1937 - 30-10-1937 — Page 18

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"from the use by the other of what was in any sense its "territory in or in support of warlike operations against "a thin. e cust then agree with Despagnat who, after "remarking that the restoration of the territory at the "end of the specified ter.. is very unlikely, says that "these pretericä leases are aliena:ions disguised in order "to spare the susceptibility of the state at whose coat "they are made. He adds the motive of avoiding disquiet "to rival powers, but it cannot be imagined that any power "would be deceived by the fallacious appearance, The "complete transfer of sovereignty for the specified term "is also the official German interpretation of an inter- "national losae, the Incrial Gazette of Berlin having "announced with regard to Klauchau that the Imperial "'Chinese government has transferred to the Gewan govern- "Iment, for the period of the lease, all its sovereign "'rights in the territories in question.' On the other "hand the official statement in the Russian presa bore "that Fort Arthur and Talienwan, with the adjacent "territories, had been 'ceded in usufruct to the imperial **government for a term of 25 years, and that this was "an arrangement 'safeguarding the integrity of the "'goversign rights of China, and satisfying the essential "'needs of Russia alike as a maritime power and a terri- **torial neighbour.' Thin may pass se rhetoric, but it "cannot be doubted that the practical Russian view was the "same as the German, and that the Japanese view is such "also."

The assuption made in the above quotations that leas€6

of this kind are merely disguised cessions, or at any rate

stepe intended to lead up to a full cession, has been falsified

in the cases of Klauchau and wei-hai-wei, and, I believe, in

certain other cases where the leased territory has duly

reverted even before the end of the appointsá tera of years

to the Chinese Government. A position of complete theoretical

anomaly is thus created, for, on the one hand, there can be

Heal no doubt that these are leases and not cessions, in strict

law, the territory remains Chinese territory under, so to

speak, residual Chinese sovereignty; and yet, on the other

hand, they are treated during the term of the lease as being

the actual territory of the lessee, in the same way in all

respects as if the territory had been ceded to him in full

sovereignty. It is therefore difficult to find, from the

theoretical/