500.A 4 e/478: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the American Delegation
5. The French Ambassador called on November 27 …
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He told me that apparently his Government thought that the Chinese were getting rather the better of the other delegates, that in granting tariff autonomy to the Chinese without making the abolition of likin a correlate we were too easy with them, and that there should be an agreement of some sort that no other kind of tax should be imposed in place of likin.
I informed the Ambassador that the American delegates had been given no specific instructions as to the form of declaration with respect to tariff autonomy and likin, that as I understood it the delegations were agreed in principle on the granting of tariff autonomy on January 1, 1929, the Chinese to abolish likin in the meantime, that a committee had been appointed to consider likin and that doubtless it would define likin in a manner to prevent the Chinese from replacing it with a tax substantially identical. I informed the Ambassador also that I did not think the American delegates had taken any special lead in granting concessions to the Chinese.