CHINA: Koo vs. Diplomats

Dr. Wellington Koo, Acting Foreign Minister and present nominal chief of China (while the Tuchuns [War Lords] are fighting over the vacant Presidency), replied to the August note of the foreign Diplomatic Corps, which demanded damages, guarantees and sanctions (TIME, Aug. 20) for the bandit outrage which took place near Tsinan in Shantung last May.

The Foreign Minister declined to accede to the Diplomats’ demands, but was willing to consider them as a basis for further negotiations. He declared that the bandit episode was not an anti-foreign demonstration; that progressive indemnities are unfair, because delay in releasing prisoners was caused by the Powers’ insistence on negotiations with the bandits; that guarantees against repetition must be reconsidered, because, in the absence of official connivance in the kidnapping and of an anti-foreign motive, in their present form they would be likely to incense the people and render nugatory security for foreign lives and property. Without foreign coercion, the note said, the Chinese Government is punishing responsible officials and making every effort to suppress brigandage. The scheme for railway police, put forward by the Diplomats in their note under the head of guarantees, was criticized principally because of its inadequacy. Said Dr. Koo: “The Government trusts that through a series of new measures recently adopted relative to the reorganization of railway police, the suppression of brigandage and better protection for foreigners’ lives and property rights, foreigners in China will enjoy added security throughout the country.”

In reality the reply of the Chinese Government to the Diplomatic Corps is a diplomatic protest against foreign intervention in the internal affairs of China.

From Sihwa in the province of Honan, bandit raiders carried off Miss M. Darroch and Miss M. R. Sharp of the British China Inland Mission.