893.74/266
The Department of State to the Japanese Embassy4
Aide Memoire
The Department of State has been informed that the Japanese Minister at Peking has renewed his Government’s protest against [Page 790] the contract between the Chinese Government and the Federal Telegraph Company for the erection of certain wireless stations in China. The Department has also been informed that the agreement for the return to China of the leased territory of Kiaochow contains the following provision (Article 12):
“The Government of China declares that upon expiration of the telegraph and cable monopoly granted to the foreign concerns it will discontinue the monopoly upon its own initiative and will not further grant any monopoly for the electrical transmission of messages to any government, company or individual.”
In connection with the Federal Telegraph Company’s contract and the provision above quoted from the Shantung Agreement, the Government of the United States, apart from any question as to the validity of the particular positive grants which the Chinese Government may by contract have vested in companies of other nationality, takes the view that no contractual stipulations on the part of the Chinese Government could suffice to divest American citizens, for the benefit of such other companies, of their existing treaty rights not to be “impeded in their business by monopolies or other injurious restrictions”; and the Government of the United States reserves all its rights with respect to any purported telegraph or cable monopoly.
- The following notation appears on the file copy: “Handed to the Japanese Ambassador on Mar. 9, 1923, by the Secretary.”↩