Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1935. JAPAN AND CHINA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 26, 12 November 1935, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1935. JAPAN AND CHINA.

With the world preoccupied over the war in Abyssinia little has been heard lately of affairs in the Far East, but the cabled news, during the last fewi days, have furnished a reminder that - there still exists in that region a menace to peace. It was reported last week that Increased activity on the part of the Japanese army in North China and the arrest by Japanese gendarmes of numbers of Chinese in Peiping and Tientsin are causing nervousness among Chinese officials. A Tolcio message published yesterday stated that despite official assurances that Britain is not negotiating a loan to China, a Japanese War Office communique vigorously criticises Britain s supposed intentions in that . connecFurther complication has arisen at Shanghai as a result of a Japanese marine being shot allegedly by a Chinese civilian. The gravity of the latter incident is that the Japanese naval authorities declare it was an act of direct provocation. Better relations between the two countries might, it has been suggested, follow the removal of the old causes of friction in Manchuria if China could resign herself to accepting the.new situation and if Japan would refrain from exploiting her new power. The chief aims credited to Japan have been the winning of complete racial equality for herself, in virtue of which triumph she would expect to be acclaimed leader of all yellow peoples, and the achievement of hegemony in the Pacific and in Eastern, Asia would follow. Whether she will succeed in persuading China to forgive and forget, and in getting herself acknowledged as the champion of the Far East, can only be a matter of speculation. A writer in the Fortnightly Review” some time ago presented an interesting category of what he termed the "long designs of Japan. Thus interpreted, her intentions are to drive all her white competitors from the Far East, and the destruction ot their trade is to be the first lever employed for this purpose. But whether these be her aims or not, it is agreed that the Far Eastern key is in the hands of China “The impartial student of world forces will surely conclude,” observed the writer in the “Fortnightly Review, that upon her ‘success or failure in conciliating the Chinese, and in inducing dhem to regard Japan -as the spear-head ot the Oriental thrust against Western arrogance and aggression, jhe ultimate fate of Japan depends.