Foreign Relations of the United States, 1949, The Far East: China, Volume IX

893.801/11–549

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of Chinese Affairs (Sprouse)

[Washington,] November 5, 1949.

Mr. Ford⁹⁴ informed me this morning that subsequent to the receipt of notification from the Chinese Government by the British naval authorities at Hong Kong that the Chinese Air Force would bomb all shipping entering Chinese ports or territorial waters the British Foreign Office had handed a note to the Chinese Ambassador at London stating that the British Government would view as illegal and as an unfriendly act an attack of this nature on any British ships.

94. J. F. Ford, First Secretary of the British Embassy.