KWANTUNG ARMY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 65, Issue 268, 23 August 1945, Page 8

KWANTUNG ARMY.

POWER IN MANCHURIA. ’ INDEPENDENCE OF TOKIO. » The Kwantung army, which is figuring prominently in the fighting in Manchuria, has for long operated independently of the Japanese Government. During that fateful night of September 18, 1931, when Japanese troops (started moving on the old Manchurian capital of Mukden, Japan herself, it has been stated, was unaware of the event. Neither the people, nor the Government, nor even the military leaders in Tokio, appeared to know that their vanguard had begun to commit the country to a far-reaching venture. “It was only after the military leaders had tacitly followed the lead of the activists in Manchuria —associating their own vague plans, which were waiting for execution at some future date, with the actual operations that were already sweeping over that country—that the promising operations in Manchuria could be elaborated and made known to the public,” writes Guenther Stein in his “Far East in Ferment.” Two Japanese Agencies. Two Japanese agencies took charge of the “aclvisorship” to the new state. They were the Kwantung army and the South Manchurian Railway Co. Although both were controlled from Tokio, each had considerable power for action at its own discretion, and in them the radical and daring pioneer spirit, of the military type was deeply ingrained. “They act as one in their opposition to whatever they regard as defeatism, lack of understanding and capitalist egoism .on the part of the more conservative elements in Tokio,” wrote Mr Stein of these two agencies in 1936. When the Kwantung army had conquered the country for the Government, it moved its headquarters from the Kwantung Leased Territory on the southern tip of Manchuria, to Hsinking (formerly Changchun), the new capital of Manchuria. Its commander-in-chief was made conjointly Japan's ambassador to the court of the then newly-created Emperor Kangte of Manchuria. From then on, the Kwantung army penetrated into every corner of the huge territory, developing it in a military way, wherever necessity arose, and directing its every policy according to military requirements. Fought the Bandits. This army also fought the bandits, which had troubled Manchuria for many years, killing 4400 and capturing 4800 of them in three months in 1935. At this period, the Kwantung forces were also drawing assistance from the Manchurian army, consisting of about 100,000 Chinese. Throughout the Sino-Japanese war which followed its movement into Mukden in 1931, the Kwafttung army continued to display an indifference to the wishes of Tokio whenever it preferred its own course of action.