Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1935. JAPAN IN CHINA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 63, 26 December 1935, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1935. JAPAN IN CHINA.

The trouble which has occurred on the frontier of Manchukuo is regarded in some quarters as a prelude to a Japanese drive to seize Outer Mongolia. This, following the recent Note demanding the virtual cessation of six border provinces to Manchukuo, indicates the seriousness of the position, for Japan has for long been advancing her outposts on the Asian Continent. Her first large territorial acquisition was Korea. Next came fruits of victory over China and Russia, from Port Arthur, at the tip of the Liao-tung Peninsula, up to Mukden. Then, Russia being elbowed out of Manchuria, to set up the "independent” State of Manchukuo was an easy step in itself, however difficult to justify in the eyes of China and Western Powers. More recently Manchukuo’s purchase of the Russian rights in the Chinese Eastern Railway bowed the Soviet Union out of Manchuria and bowed Japan farther in. But her activities have not been confined to that area; she has been stejadily exerting her influence within the borders of China proper, in order that the stage may be properly set for any assertion of what she maintains are her rights. It is only a few weeks since Chinese provinces in the vicinity of Peiping were said to be bent on independence, Japan being frankly interested in the movement, so much, indeed, that she talked of using fotce if the Chinese Government opposed the movement. Now, after the outbreak of anti-Japanese disturbance in the region, Japan has placed troops there and warned the Chinese authorities that if they cannot keep order she will do so. The desire for expansion is based, not on terntoria , but on economic, e-roundsc laDan is increasingly dependent upon the importation of raw materials. ohe is literally at the mercy of foreign countries for these. Her relations with China and the rest of adjacent continental Asia give proof of her anxiety about their supply. Unless her industries can be fed by them m time ot peace, she can have no prosperity; to be cut off from them in time of war would mean national overthrow it not extinction. So she has a twofold object in exerting influence in China, one the cultivation of a contact essential for a common defence against possible Western aggression, the other a care for her own good. These motives need not conflict, Japanese spokesmen say.