CO129-588-24 China- British extra-territorial rights- negotiations with China 23-11-1942 - 1-1-1943 — Page 289

C.O.

REGISTERED No.

DRAFT AND RECORD COPY

LETTER

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Colphial office,

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289

Downing Street, S.W.1. 1st December, 1942.

DRAFT

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Dear Ashley Clarke,

Gent 201.12.42. 25th November (P 7822/828/10) regarding the New

With reference to your letter of the

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Territories of Hong Kong, our Secretary of State has now considered the draft telegram to Chungking which you enclosed, and, as you know, the matter was raised yesterday in the War Cabinet. Colonel Stanley has no objection to offer to the draft telegram.

2. We have been carefully considering the question of the right to be accorded to Chinese nationals and companies to acquire and hold rights of all kinds in real property in British territory on the same conditions as British nationals and companies. Seel has explained to you in his letter of the 21st November our particular difficulty in Kenya, and the Foreign Office is no doubt considering how this can be met. The draft note, a copy of which was contained in your letter to Rumbold of the 11th November, postulates a reciprocal right of nationals and companies of His Majesty to acquire and hold rights of all kinds in real property in China on the same conditions as Chinese nationals and companies. Are we satisfied that this will be a real reciprocity in practice, and can we rely on the substantial revolution in Chinese policy to be forthcoming as regards the freedom of British companies to function in China and their consequent right to acquire and hold lands in that country in the same real sense as we are contemplating for Chinese companies in British territory? It would, of course, be no reciprocity in the full sense if there were the old insistence in China of a "British" company being in fact required to be 51 per cent Chinese.

I

H. ASHLEY CLARKE. ESQ.

(0004) Wt. 25408—113 40,000 ea. 2 serta 9/40 T.S. 695