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CHINA.

The Kailan Mining Area.

(Previous

Reference: Cabinet 31 (28) Con- clusion 3).

ي

S

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

asked the Cabinet, as a matter of urgency, to

consider a series of very urgent telegrams,

marked "State", from the British Minister at

Peking, viz., Nos. 647-651 inclusive, relating

to a serious development of the position in

the Kailan mining area.

The Cabinet were reminded of the previous

history of this question. Danger had arisen

some weeks ago in this area, owing to the fact

that as the Nationalist forces advanced northwards

the Americans withdrew their troops from their

section of the Tientsin-Peking railway, in which

this important mining area was situated. The

question had been considered as to whether the

American detachment should be replaced by

a British force. There had been two strong

objections to this; first, the section in

question adjoined the Japanese section, and at

that time the Japanese were particularly

liable to be embroiled with the Chinese, owing

to the Tsinan-fu incident, and British troops

would be in the adjoining section / liable to become

involved; secondly, the general objection to

scattering our small forces in China, and the

particular military difficulty in feeding them

if the railway were interrupted. In these

cir cumstances the British personnel in the

Kailan mining area had been advised to withdraw.

Both the British and some Belgian personnel,

however, though apprised of the danger, had

In a

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