CO129-588-24 China- British extra-territorial rights- negotiations with China 23-11-1942 - 1-1-1943 — Page 301

With the Compliments

of the

Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

COPY

(P 7910/828/10k 7 NOV 1942

REC

28NOVIC?? C.O. F

colonial Office

(W.B. L. Monson. Esq.)

copied to:-

10

BO

30

Toy.

BIT

P.L. No. 449 of 29th oetabet, 1942, from Embassy Chungking

Foreign Office.

EXTRATERRITORIALITY,

MOT

HO

log

Adry 301

Father Ferrary, the leading representative of the Catholic Church in Chungking and representative of the Apostolic Delegate in China, and Canon Allen of the National Christian Council, called on His Majesty's Ambassador and Sir Eric Teichman today to request that the interests of the Christian Church in China might not be overlooked in the forthcoming negotiations for the abolition of extrality in China.

2.

Canon Allen's main point was that advantage should be taken of the opportunity of the negotiations to secure from the present Chinese Government, which included so considerable a Christian element, adequate assurances of continued religious toleration and freedom for christian missionary work in China.

3. Father Ferrary went a good deal further and urged that provision be inserted in the Treaty reaffirming the rights of missionaries to carry on their work, and especially their schools, and to own the necessary land for their missionary work.

4. Both gentlemen stressed the nationalistic tendencies now at work in China and the dangers of these nationalistic trends taking charge after the war; resulting possibly in the establishment of an ultra-nationalistic confucian state, which would follow the examples of Japan and Germany and drive out the missionaries altogether.

5. It was pointed out in the course of conversation that there was another side to the picture; namely that the Chinese Government would under no circumstances agree to recreate for foreign missionaries any form of special Treaty rights and privileges; that His Majesty's Government had as long ago as Christmas 1926 offered to renounce all special rights of British missionaries in China; that the National Christian Council and British Missionary opinion in general had repeatedly supported such renunciation; that any attempted foreign government intervention in the missionary question would nowadays only provoke suspicion and hostility; and that, as regards education, the modern Chinese Government were obviously determined to control it and eliminate what they might regard as undue foreiga influence.

6.

Canon Allen repeated, when questioned, that he only had in mind some form of voluntary declaration by the Chinese Government of religious tolerance, with special reference to Christianity, based on principles of reciprocity. Father Ferrary, it was evident, sought something more effective, and argued that there was no reason why everything should be given to the Chinese and nothing obtained in return.

He was particularly interested in land ownership and schools.

BRITISH EMBASSY,

CHUNGKING,

29th October, 1942.