The British Government has received a very unusual affront from
that of China. A Chinese doctor of Hong- kong, named Sun Yat Sen, was suspected of a conspiracy to dethrone the Mings, and fled first to America and then to England. On Saturday week he either visited the Chinese Embassy (this is Sir H. Macartney's account) and was de- tained, or, as the newspapers at first asserted, he was kidnapped and carried within the Embassy house in Portland Place. At all events, he is admitted to be there, and the Embassy decline to give him up, alleging that the Ambassador's house is Chinese territory, that the doctor is a Chinese subject, and that the Ambassador has a right to do as he pleases on national soil irrespective of British laws. The police, it is alleged, have set detectives round the house to prevent the doctor being spirited away, but as the Ambassador is within his legal rights, however extreme his use of them may be, the position of the Government is a difficult one. The British right of asylum would appear to have been violated, but by legal means. It is of course impos- sible to give up Sun Yat Sen, or we shall have half the Armenians in London caught by the Turks, but the only legal course is, we imagine, to declare that this particular use of an international right is an unfriendly one, and to send the Ambassador his passports. He must then leave his captive behind him.
