893.512/485: Telegram
The Minister in China (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 28—1:40 p.m.]
644. Department’s 308, last paragraph. My earnest advice is not to offer or to commit ourselves to make concessions, at present, beyond those in contemplation in the decisions of the Washington Conference as enlarged later in the Special Customs Conference. It would gain us no consideration or respect on the part of the [Chinese] to do so. Indeed it would give them courage to deprive us and other foreigners of all special privileges, and ordinary rights as well, and to open up again the issue of Chinese immigration. Furthermore, to do so would enable the charge to be made by the Japanese and the British that we had, to use the terms which would be used, betrayed the collective interests common to the powers …