Had he been party to private conversations within the Wilson administration, Koo would have been even more indignant. In September, Colonel House had proposed to Wilson that the vast population of China be placed under the administration of an international mandate, made up of three trustees nominated, with ‘Chinese consent’, by the USA, Japan and the ‘other powers’. China, he felt, was ‘in a deplorable condition. The prevalence of disease, the lack of sanitation, a new system of slavery, infanticide, and other brutal and degenerate practices make the nation as a whole a menace to
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