The Karakhan Mainfesto:Sino-Soviet Relations, The First Phase 1917-1920, by LEONG SOW-THENG. Contemporary China Papers No. 1, Australian National University, Canberra, 1971
Abstract
BooksThe Karakhan MainfestoSino-Soviet Relations, The First Phase 1917-1920, by LEONG SOW-THENG. Contemporary China Papers No. 1, Australian National University, Canberra, SAGE Publications, Inc.1972DOI: 10.1177/000944557200800606 Mira Sinha On July 25, 1919 Leo Karakhan, Deputy Commissar for Foreign Affairs of Soviet Russia, addressed a manifesto to 'the Chinese people and the Governments of North and South China', renouncing the rights and privileges acquired by Tsarism in China. Owing to disturbed conditions in the Soviet Far East, the oflicial text of this manifesto reached China only in March, 1920. This First Karakhan Manifesto promised to return, among other things, the Chinese Eastern Railway to China "without compensation of any kind". Six months later, however, the Soviet Government denied this remarkable offer. The Second Karakhan Manifesto, handed over to a Chinese delegation in Moscow by Karakhan himself, sought instead a special treaty which would guarantee Soviet Russia's privileged use of the railroad. Since then the Soviets have continued to deny the First Manifesto, claiming that the controversial clause had been inserted 'by mistake'. Dr. Whiting, who helped to clarify this mystery somewhat in 1951, argued instead that this change marked the shift from a new revolutionary diplomacy to a diplo- macy of