€ 2112
THIS DOCUMENT IS THE PROPERTY OF HIS BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT
Printed for the War Cabinet. December 1942.
SECRET.
W.P. (42) 600.
December 19, 1942.
WAR CABINET.
190
12
41
Copy No: -
EXTRA-TERRITORIALITY IN CHINA.
MEMORANDUM BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
AS I informed my colleagues at the meeting of the Cabinet on the 30th November, the Chinese Government proposed, as part of our treaty on extra-territoriality, that we should agree to abandon our position in the Kowloon Leased Territory or "New Territories" acquired under the Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory of 1898. I attach a map which shows the island of Hong Kong as originally ceded in the Treaty of Nanking of 1842, the additional territory in the Kowloon peninsula ceded in the Peking Treaty of 1860 and the territory leased as an extension of Hong Kong territory in the Convention of 1898 just mentioned. It is the latter area which the Chinese are now asking us to relinquish.
2. Since extra-territoriality relates to special privileges in Chinese territory, and since this area is, as stated in the Convention, an enlargement of British territory, I instructed His Majesty's Ambassador (after consultation with the Secretary of State for the Colonies and the First Lord of the Admiralty) to inform the Chinese Government that His Majesty's Government regarded the New Territories as outside the scope of the present treaty. Sir H. Seymour so informed the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr. T. V. Soong, on the 14th December in the course of discussion on the provisions of the treaty.
3. Dr. Soong made the points that the Chinese public regarded leased territories as in the same category as concessions, that the matter had been raised in the People's Political Council (a representative body corresponding roughly with Parliament), that it was desirable to remove all causes of misunderstandings between the two peoples and that the Chinese Government felt that a treaty which did not secure a settlement of the Kowloon lease question would fail to achieve this object. The Minister for Foreign Affairs also pointed out that the Chinese Government had refrained from raising the question of Hong Kong itself. He requested that these views be conveyed to His Majesty's Government.
4. A private and personal suggestion was subsequently received from a Chinese official of standing to the following effect: that the Chinese Government. should address to His Majesty's Government a communication stating that, while recognising that the question was not concerned with the matters now under negotiation, they desired to raise it later at a more appropriate time and that His Majesty's Government should make a suitable response.
5. His Majesty's Ambassador fears that the Chinese Government may not be satisfied with an answer which implies the continuance of the lease. He feels that the Chinese Government have placed themselves in a position over this question from which they find it difficult and perhaps impossible to withdraw, and he recommends that a solution be found along the above lines.
6.
Although I should prefer to adhere to the plain statement that this is not a matter which His Majesty's Government are prepared to discuss at the present time, a rigid insistence upon this would be likely at least to delay the
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