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.
To CHINA.
Cypher telegram to Sir A. Clark Kerr Foreign Office, 7th June, 1939.
(Shanghai).
10.30 p.m.
No. 440.
C
42
117
30 Your telegram No. 510 [of 4th June: Tientsin terrorists]. Chinese Ambassador on 6th June transmitted an appeal from Chiang Kai-shek that the terrorists now interned in Tientsin should not be handed over. He spoke on the lines of the 5th paragraph of your telegram No. 18, tour series, and also gave an undertaking from Chiang Kai-shek not to give us cause for further embarrassment in the British Concession.
2. The Ambassador was informed of the principles on which we had decided to act as set out in penultimate paragraph of my unnumbered telegram to Hongkong of 22nd May, and of the procedure
His Excellency was mentioned in Tientsin telegram No. 203. reminded of the assurances received from the Chinese Government last July (see Shanghai telegrams Nos. 1119 and 1138 of 1938) and of the notification of 11th March issued by His Majesty's Consul-General at Tientsin (Tientsin telegram to you No. 132). Chinese Government therefore had no reason to complain if His Majesty's Government now took a strong line since the Japanese authorities had threatened drastic action if steps were not taken
The to control anti-Japanese activities in the Concession. situation was very precarious, and any action by the Chinese Government which might expose concessions to the risk of being taken over by the Japanese was most unwise since the foreign concessions admittedly constituted one of the greatest obstacles to Japanese economic plans in China.
3. The Ambassador agreed and said he would represent this point of view forcibly to the Chinese Government.
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