The Secretary of State to the Russian Ambassador.
Washington, January 23, 1905.
Excellency: I have given careful attention to your excellency’s note of the 18th instant, in rejoinder to the note I addressed to you on the 17th, by which I informed you that I had communicated to the American minister at Peking the complaint you addressed me on the 13th instant in regard to the course of China as a neutral, and communicated to you the declaration, elicited from the Government of [Page 760] China, that they have constantly observed that strict neutrality in the present war which is imposed upon them alike by their solemn engagements and by the very necessity of the independent existence of China.
Your excellency now states that the declaration of China is met by the facts adduced by the Imperial Russian Government as matters of public knowledge, and you specifically cite the case of the Ryeshitelni at Chefoo as an instance of the disregard of Chinese neutrality by Japan and of the inability or unwillingness of China to enforce the neutrality of which she had assumed the obligations.
It does not seem incumbent upon me to take up the question your note appears to present, touching the asserted inaction of the United States and Europe on that occasion or the consequences of what you term the leniency evinced both to China and Japan. So far as the course of the United States is concerned, the correspondence exchanged at the time shows that the seizure of the refugee torpedo boat in the port of a neutral by one of the belligerents found no encouragement whatever; while our attitude when the Askold and her companion vessels subsequently took refuge at Shanghai was in full encouragement of the efforts and eventual success of China in enforcing neutrality.
The interests of so many powers being deeply affected by the continuance and observance of the neutrality of China, and their keen solicitude for the maintenance of that neutrality and its observance by both the belligerents having been so conspicuously manifested on many occasions, the Government of the United States does not at this moment feel that it is called upon to express an isolated judgment or to consider the adoption of an individual course of action looking to the conservation of that neutral status which we all desire. It would, on the other hand, seem that this general solicitude of all the interested states would make it expedient and proper that the matters concerning which the Russian Government raises an international issue should be considered in a conference of the powers.
Accept, etc.,