After our Government severed diplomatic relations with Germany, which I believe was early in February, 1917, we approached the Chinese Government officially. I was in Peking at the time. The United States Government officially, through the American minister at Peking, approached the Chinese Government with an invitation and advice that we join with her in severing diplomatic relations with Germany. That was very strongly urged upon the Chinese Government, and for several days there was a very strong diplomatic fight raised in Peking, the German and Austrian legations, of course, opposing it, and the Japanese legation opposing it very strongly, but in a secret way. The British, French, and Russian legations were sympathetic to the proposal, and such influence as they had was exerted in favor of China accepting the American invitation. China did. Well, at that time China was favorably inclined to this proposal. I might say that on two previous occasions China had offered to join the Allies. Both times she had been prevented by the objections of Japan. Japan would not let her come in. Her influence with the other allied powers was so strong that China was not allowed to join the Allies.

-

The result was that when we came along and urged China to join with us we had not at that time declared war on Germany, but we urged her to take the preliminary step and join us in severing diplo matic relations with Germany, which every one felt would be a prelude to war-China was dubious, having been repulsed twice in efforts to join the allies by the Japanese objections; and having knowledge that at that moment the Japanese legation and all the Japanese influences at Peking were fighting bitterly the proposal that China act upon the advice of the United States, the Chinese Government wanted certain assurances. That is, they wanted to know where they would get off. They said: "Suppose we do follow your advice and come in: Now, we want certain assurances. We would like to have definite assurances of the Allies that our territorial integrity will be protected in the peace settlement." An effort was made by the Chinese Government at that time to get such assurances from the French and British Governments. The French and British legations at Peking, while they urged China to follow the advice of the United States, communicated with their Governments, and they could not give any definite assurances; but they told the Chinese Government-tnat is, the British minister and the French minister to Peking told the Chinese Government-"You come on in; you follow along with the United States, and come on in, and we are quite sure you will be taken care of."

The thing hung fire for two or three days just on that point, China quite willing to come in, but saying: "No; tell us just exactly, will you, if we come in, will you guarantee our territorial integrity?" They finally, when they got that kind of a negative reply from the British and French Governments, went after Dr. Reinsch, and said, "Well, at least the American Government can say that you will support us in protecting our territorial integrity." Now, I have this account from Dr. Reinsch, the American minister at PekingDr. Paul Reinsch.

It happened that just at that moment there was a break in the Pacific cable, and for several days Dr. Reinsch was out of cable com

munication with the State Department. It was very urgent, and the thing had to be concluded quickly, or everyone there thought that it should be concluded quickly, because they felt that if they did not get the Chinese to act promptly the various Japanese intrigues would get to work, and they would succeed possibly in preventing China from taking any action. They were holding almost hourly sessions there for two or three days. Two or three times a day Dr. Reinsch was in consultation with the Chinese Premier, Tuen Chi Jui, and Li-Un-Hung, the President at that time-Gen. Li-Un-Hung. They wanted definite assurances. Dr. Reinsch said: "The cable is interrupted, and I can not communicate with my government at this moment, but I feel justified in telling you verbally my opinion that in the event that you follow the advice of the United States now and sever displomatic relations with Germany, and in the event that that leads us into war with Germany, you can count upon the diplomatic support of the United States in seeing that China's rights are protected in the peace settlement." The result of these negotiations was that China did take that action, and, as the document shows, upon the advice of the United States, severed diplomatic relations with Germany. That eventually brought China into the war as an enemy of Germany.

The next important event in this connection was the signing of the so-called Lansing-Ishii agreement, which occurred here in Washington, signed on the 2d of November, 1917. Meanwhile, both the United States and China had declared war on Germany.

The Lansing-Ishii agreement followed the general lines of previous statements of the United States regarding China-the socalled Hay doctrine formula, which had been repeated now in eight or nine international agreements of one kind or another, which had bsen repeated in the Root-Takahira agreement signed in 1907; that i,e guaranteeing the territorial integrity of China, and the "open door"; but it was significant in that it contained in its preliminary paragraphs a recognition of Japan's special position relating to China. That agreement was made, the negotiations were conducted, without China being informed, without consulting China in any way. China first learned of it when it was published. I might say in that connection that it was given premature publication at Peking by Japan. As the document itself shows, it was signed on the 2d of November, 1917. By a sort of general agreement, the two Governments were to give it simultaneous publication on November 7 at a stated hour-to give it simultaneous publication in Tokio and in Washington. However, as we know now, I think it was two days, even, before the thing was signed-it was either October 31 or October 30-that the contents of the agreement were communicated to the Russian Government by Japan through the Russian ambassador at Tokio.

As I say, it was to have been given simultaneous publication on the 7th of November. On the 4th of November-and meanwhile our Government had not even informed our embassy at Tokyo or our legation at Peking of this matter at all-on the 4th of November the Japanese minister at Peking officially informed the Wei Chow Pou-that is, the Chinese Foreign Office of the signing of the Lansing-Ishii agreement, and provided them with a text in Japanese and Chinese. In those texts in Japanese and Chinese, the phrase "special position"

was translated in a way to amount to a recognition of Japan's paramountcy in China. The Chinese Government was naturally dumfounded at this thing, and immediately went to the American legation.

Now, if you know anything of the diplomatic atmosphere of Peking under those circumstances, the way that would look to the Chinese was this: Japan comes and tells them of this thing under the circumstances, which gives it the circumstantial appearance that "Now, we are paramount here, and we inform you about this, and if you do not believe us go up and ask the American legation." They went over to the American legation and inquired, and the American legation had never heard of it, of course. It immediately cabled for information. Meanwhile, through Japanese sources at Peking, and Chinese sources, too-they were bound to blab a thing like that; it completely flustered them-the Chinese Government and the Chinese Foreign Office and the newspaper men there in Peking got hold of it, and the result was a little telegram carried by the Associated Press and Reuter's New Service all over the world, to the effect that this had been signed, and the news was given out at Peking. I was in New York when I read that short telegram in the papers, and then our Government, of course, cabled the text immediately to the minister at Peking, to the legation at Peking, and we then communicated it to the Chinese Government; but our translation of the term "special position" differed very materially, when translated into Chinese, from the way that Japan had translated it in the original text communicated by Japan. That led to some little diplomatic controversy there at Peking, but we stuck to our text, and Japan sticks to hers, and so that matter stands to this day, so far as I know; the Chinese having two texts of this thing in their Foreign Office, one the first one communicated by Japan in Japanese and Chinese, in which the term "special position" is translated into the equivalant of paramountcy, and our text, which translates into the interpretation which Mr. Lansing exhibited to you in his examination the other day, which, so far as I know, has been the first official delineation of the American position on the subject. Meanwhile it has stood in China's eyes in that obscure position, with all of the circumstantial indications favoring the Japanese interpretation.

Moreover, Japan went ahead and acted on her interpretation. From that time she assumed a position of paramountcy in relation to China. She went ahead and began the establishment of civil government over Shantung Province. She extended her civil government régime in Manchuria. She began actually to acquire the possessions and the position of a sovereign in those parts of China where she had obtained a foothold by the methods I have indicated. She went on, and she obtained, through that influence, a great influence at Peking. The Chinese Government, you might say, threw up their hands and said: "Well, America will not support us; they have recognized Japan's paramountcy; we have got to do the best we can."

Japan bribed several high Chinese officials up there, and began to press for other secret agreements and things. However, the Chinese Government resisted. They did obtain a so-called supplementary agreement to the 1915 agreement, signed, I believe, in September, 1918; but they could not get that signed at Peking. They seemed to have reached the Chinese minister over in Tokio by the money

process I am only repeating the open accusations made in the press of China-and got him to sign a memorandum, the so-called secret 1918 agreement, which is further confirmatory of Japan's position in Shantung, and which amounted to the fact that they would have certain additional railway concessions there over and above what Germany had had, and that, providing the peace conference would give Japan Germany's position in Shantung, China would consent. That thing was signed at Tokio by the Chinese minister, and if that holds China, that is all there is. It was never confirmed by the Chinese parliament; it was never confirmed by a meeting of the Chinese cabinet or anything. Now, that is what that so-called 1918 agreement rests upon.

Senator POMERENE. Will it interrupt you to ask you just this question, to clear that up: Does the Chinese law require ratification by the Chinese Parliament?

Mr. MILLARD. Yes; the only constitution that is in existence.
Senator POMERENE. Excuse me for interrupting you.

Mr. MILLARD. You see, China has been in a more or less turbulent state ever since the revolution. They have a so-called constitution and under their forms it would have required at least ratification by the cabinet and also ratification by the Parliament. It was never ratified. In fact, the text of it was never even disclosed to anybody until the Paris peace conference.

That brings us along up to, say, the armistice. I was in Peking at the time, and China made preparations

Senator HITCHCOCK. Before you leave that, will you please make it clear whether there was any disagreement between the Ishii note in Japanese and the American note in English?

Mr. MILLARD. As I say, it was a question of translation. Of course, we can all read the American note in English, but we can not read it in Japanese or Chinese. Now, the Japanese Government, of course, immediately telegraphed this out to Tokio and then telegraphed it over to Pekin, and they had translations made. They had a translation made into Chinese and another translation made into Japanese, those, of course, being the languages of the two Governments.

Senator HITCHCOCK. Is there any question whether the Japanese note is correctly translated into Chinese?

Mr. MILLARD. That, of course, as I say, led to a dispute, because our sinologues say that our translation is the better translation.

Senator HITCHCOCK. Is the translation of the Japanese note into Chinese?

Mr. MILLARD. Our translation of the Lansing-Ishii agreement into Chinese is accepted by everybody except Japan. She made her own translation.

Senator BORAH. As I understand, in translating it into Chinese and Japanese they used a certain word

Mr. MILLARD. They used a certain character.

Senator BORAH. They used a character or word.

Mr. MILLARD. They used a different character than we used in our translation.

Senator BORAH. Which indicated "special interest" or "paramount," according to which character was used.

Mr. MILLARD. Something which they translate paramount. Senator BORAH. Ours indicates nothing but "special interest." Mr. MILLARD. Ours indicates the interpretation which Mr. Lansing gave you gentlemen the other day. There is just that difference, but as you say, it is a very important difference.

Senator POMERENE. In view of these questions may I ask this further question: Are you able to state whether the word which was used by the Japanese was correctly translated into our word "paramountcy?"

Mr. MILLARD. There would be no way of making an exact_translation, but the sense of it would be that according to the sinologues. Our legation has Chinese experts, as every legation has, and these sinologues got together and translated this thing, and the general unanimity of opinion outside of the Japanese legation is that our translation is correct and theirs is a translation fixed up to suit what they want to put in there.

Senator POMERENE. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. You may continue, Mr. Millard.

Mr. MILLARD. Now the next step would come after the armistice, when China began to make her preparations. The Japanese had been making a fight up there for some time by which they were attempting to secure representation in China. They even produced at Peking-they never had the nerve to produce it at Paris-an agreement which this same Chinese minister, Mr. Lou, had signed, whereby Japan was to represent China at the peace conference.

However, when they tried to put that over, China absolutely resisted that, and of course the British, American, and all other legations said, "Do not recognize anything like that. You send your own delegation." They did that. They nominated their representatives. They sent their minister of foreign affairs, Mr. Lou Tseng-tsiang. Then the Chinese delegates had been working with various experts on the subject of their case, how they would present it at the peace conference, and the matters they would want to bring up at the pesce conference. I understand you have summoned Mr. Ferguson to appear. He was among the foreign advisers they had employed. When I was in Peking, last October, I went up there, and I had two interviews with the Chinese minister of foreign affairs, merely in my capacity as a journalist, in which we discussed these various matters, and what China ought to do, and what China purposed to bring up, and things like that. Just about that time the Chinese foreign office went up to our legation and said, "Now, we have followed along with you people. We came into the war under your wing, and we are going to continue in that way. We are going to Paris in that way. We are not going there under the wing of Japan, like she is trying to fix it up, and here is what we propose to ask. What do you think about it?" And they laid down a list of the matters which China wanted to bring up at the peace conference. I will say that I have this information in a way so that I do not doubt its substantial accuracy, and I presume that that list perhaps was cabled by Dr. Rice, the American minister, to the State Department, and eventually the Chinese were advised by our Government that it would be better if they would not raise certain questions.

I might mention what those questions are. One of them was the question of extraterritoriality in China. Another was the question