Colonel Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald, GCMG, GCVO, KCB, PC (12 June 1852 – 10 September 1915) was a British soldier and diplomat, best known for his service in China and Japan.

In 1899 MacDonald was the author of a diplomatic note which he proposed, on behalf of British India, a boundary line between Jammu and Kashmir and the Chinese Turkestan, ceding roughly half of the Aksai Chin plateau, in return for China relinquishing its shadowy suzerainty over Hunza.

As a military man, MacDonald led the defence of the foreign legations in 1900 which were under siege during the Boxer Rebellion, and he worked well with the Anglophile Japanese colonel Shiba Gorō.

[8] He headed the British Legation in Tokyo during a period of harmonious relations between Britain and Japan (1900 to 1912), swapping appointments with Sir Ernest Satow who replaced him as Minister in Peking.

Before 1905 the senior British diplomat in Japan had simultaneously held the joint positions of (a) Consul-General and (b) Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary; the latter being a rank just below that of ambassador.

Awarded the Royal Red Cross (RRC) and a Member of the Executive Committee of the Overseas Nursing Association, Lady MacDonald was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in her own right in 1935.