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American Diplomacy and the Financing of China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 May 2017

Extract

In his last annual message President Taft thus described the diplomacy of his administration: “ The diplomacy of the present administration has sought to respond to modern ideas of commercial intercourse. This policy has been characterized as substituting dollars for bullets… It is an effort frankly directed to the increase of American trade upon the axiomatic principle that the Government of the United States shall extend all proper support to every legitimate and beneficial American enterprise abroad.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1922

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References

1 Congressional Record, Vol. 49, Part I, p. 9.

2 Congressional Record, Vol. 44, Part I, p. 3.

3 Foreign Relations of the United States, 1909, p. 144.

4 “The American group, consisting of Morgan J. P. and Company, Kuhn, Loeb and Company, the First National Bank, and the National City Bank, was formed in the spring o f 1909 upon the expressed desire o f the Department o f State that a financial group be organized to take up the participation to which American capital was entitled in the Hukuang Railway loan agreement then under negotiation by the British,French and German banking groups.” (Statement by the American group, March 19,1913, this Journal, Vol. 7, p. 340.)

5 The loan had been in course of negotiation for several years and was on the point o f being finally concluded when the State Department applied for admission of American capital. The foreign bankers and the Chinese director-general o f the railway objected to the delay which would be involved in reopening the negotiations to admit American participation. (Foreign Relations, 1909, pp. 144-178.)

6 Foreign Relations, 1909, p. 178.

7 Annual message, Dee. 3, 1912, Congressional Record, Vol. 49, Part I, p. 9.

8 Foreign Relations, 1897, p. 56.

9 Moore, , International Law Digest, Vol. VI, p. 288 Google Scholar.

10 See despatch of July 11, 1913, from Mr. Williams, Chargé at Peking, printed in Foreign Relations, 1913, p. 186.

11 Moore, , International Law Digest, Vol. VI, p. 705 Google Scholar.

12 Moore, , International Law Digest, Vol. VI, p. 709 Google Scholar.

13 Moore, , International Law Digest, Vol. VI, p. 289 Google Scholar.

14 Annual message, Dee. 7, 1909, Congressional Kecord, Vol. 45, Part I, p. 28.

15 Foreign Relations, 1913, pp. 164, 166.

16 The complete statement of President Wilson, together with the statement of the bankers announcing their withdrawal from the loan, is printed in an editorial in this Journal , Vol. 7, 1913, pp. 335-341.

17 Foreign Relations, 1913, p. 175n.

18 For this and other documents relating to the withdrawal o f the American group from the loan, see Foreign Relations, 1913, pp. 167 et seq. For an official Chinese criticism of the terms o f this loan, see translation o f the letter of the Chinese Minister of Finance to the Sextuple Group, dated March 11, 1913, p. 169; see especially also the despatch o f Mr. Williams, American Charge at Peking, Oct. 21, 1913, regarding the reluctance of China to place a further loan with the quintuple group and her desire to place such a loan with American capitalists, p. 189.

19 Foreign Relations, 1913, p. 183.

20 The Foreign Relations of China, by Bau M.Joshua , pp. 67 and 171. (Revell Co., New York.)

21 Foreign Relations, 1913, p. 191.

22 For a history of the controversy see Stead, op. cit. pp. 149 S.

23 New York Times, Nov. 17, 1916.

24 The documents were made public by the State Departemnt on March 30, last, but their bulkiness forbade their textual reprinting. They have now been issued by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in a pamphlet o f 78 printed pages, in an information series published upon questions relating to the Conference on the Limitation of Armament and Problems of the Pacific. Pamphlet No. 40, Division of International Law.

25 In a letter o f June 4, 1919, the Hongkongand Shanghai Banking Corporation,when informing the Foreign Office that they considered the British group as at present constituted fully representative o f British finance, stated that “ they are well content with the general measure of government support which they at present enjoy and have no desire to change it for any other. Their sole object in assenting to the conditions attached to exclusive support was to further the policy of His Majesty's Government with regard to the American consortium proposal, of which exclusive support was a postulate.“ For the full correspondence between the British group and the Foreign Office, see Miscellaneous, No. 9, pp. 12-36.

26 Miscellaneous No. 9, 1921, pp. 27-28.

27 P. 4.

28 “ Good offices” consist merely in a direction to the diplomatic agent “to investigate the subject, and i f you shall find the facts to be as represented, you will secure an interview with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and request such explanations as it may be in his power to afford.” (Moore, International Law Digest, Vol.VI, p. 710.)