Directory_and_Chronicle_1941 — Page 70

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EXTRATERRITORIALITY

given to their nationals by Chinese law and have had no cause for complaint that their interests nave been in any way prejudiced. Your Excellency's Government may, therefore, rest assured that the legitimate rights and in- terests of your nationals will not be unfavourably affected in the least by the relinquishment of the exceptional privileges which they now possess.

As Your Excellency's Government has always maintained a friendly atti- tude towards China and has always shown its readiness in the adoption of measures for the removal of limitations on China's sovereignity, I am happy to express to Your Excellency, on behalf of the Chinese Government, the desire of China to have the restrictions on her jurisdictional sovereignty re- moved at the earliest possible date and confidently hope that Your Excellency's Government will take this desire of China into immediate and sympathetic consideration and favour me with an early reply so that steps may be taken to enable China, now unified and with a strong Central Government, to right- fully assume jurisdiction over all nationals within her domain.

I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to Your Excellency the as- surnce of my highest consideration.

His Excellency

(Signed) CHENGTING T. WANG,

Minister of Foreign Affairs.

THE AMERICAN REPLY.

Peking, Aug. 10. 1929.

Dr. Chengting T. Wang,

Minister for Foreign Affairs,

Excellency:

Nanking

I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of the Chinese Government's Note of April 27th in which there is expressed the desire that the United States should relinquish the further exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction over its citizens in China and the hope that the American Government will take this desire into immediate and sympathetic consideration.

I am directed by my Government to state that it is prepared to give sympathetic consideration to the desires expressed by the Chinese Govern- ment, giving at the same time, as it must, due consideration to the responsi- bilitics which rest upon the Government of the United States in connection with the problem of jurisdiction over the persons and property of American citizens in China. My Government, has, in fact, for some time past given constant and sympathetic consideration to the national aspirations of the people of China, and it has repeatedly given concrete evidence of its desire to promote the realization of these aspirations in so far as action of the United States may contribute to that result. As long ago as the year 1903, in Article 15 of the Treaty concluded in that year between the United States and China, the American Government agreed that it would be prepared to relinquish the jurisdiction which it exercised over its nationals in China "when satisfied that the state of the Chinese laws, the arrangements for their ad- ministration, and other considerations warrant it in so doing." As recently as last year, the American Government gave very definite evidence of its desire to promote the realization of China's aspirations by concluding with the Government of China, on July 23, 1928, a Treaty by which the two countries agreed to cancellation of provisions in earlier treaties whereby China's authority in reference to Customs duties on goods imported into China by American nationals had been restricted.

The exercise by the United States of jurisdiction over its citizens in China had its genesis in an early agreement that, because of differences be- tween the customs of the two countries and peoples, and differences between

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