Introduction We may take as a convenient starting point for this account of the origin of airmail in China, the Convention for the Regulation of Aerial Navigation in Paris on October 13th 1919. The preamble to the Convention sets out its purpose - “The United States of America, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, the British Empire, China, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, the Hedjaz, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Roumania, the Serb-Croat-Slovene State, Siam, Czecho-Slovakia and Uruguay, Recognising the progress of aerial navigation, and that the establishment of regulations of universal application will be to the interest of all; Appreciating the necessity of an early agreement upon certain principles and rules calculated to prevent controversy; Desiring to encourage the peaceful intercourse of nations by aerial communication; Have determined for these purposes to conclude a Convention...” Article 2 of the Convention states - “Each contracting State undertakes in time of peace to accord freedom of innocent passage above its territory to the aircraft of the other contracting States, provided that the conditions laid down in the present Convention are observed. Regulations made by a contracting State as to the admission over its territory of the aircraft of the other contracting States shall be applied without distinction of nationality.” The President of the Chinese Republic appointed Mr Vikyiun Wellington Koo, Envoy extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of China at Washington to sign the Convention on behalf of the Republic. Thus the framework of international cooperation so essential to airmail was agreed in Paris. The account of events following the Paris Convention which follows can be relied upon as accurate because it is taken from the files of the British Air Ministry.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUzMjY3MA==