JAPAN AND SIBERIA.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 149, 24 June 1918, Page 4

JAPAN AND SIBERIA.

The suggestion that Japan should send troops to intervene in Siberia presents moro difficulties than many who so warmly advocate the idea imagine. Iv the first place, tbe Japanese view the war from a rather different angle to ourselves. Their main concern is with

I the war as it affects the Far East. Most I particularly is Japan interested in the i effect of the war on her relations to the continent of Asia. China is the most important country as far as Japan is ; concerned, and the Siberian question is so intimately bound up with the Chinese question that Japan is bound to act i question that Japan is bound political with caution. But even if the political wisdom of intervention in Siberia was 1 clear there would still be military diflij culties to be overcome. The loyal Russians are inextricably mixed with the ! disloyal, and it would be hard to distinguish friend from foe. Then, again, the j Germans in Siberia are not organised ; into regular armies, but are rather wanI dering bands of robbers, without the , standing ' or discipline of soldiers. It j I would be difficult for a regular army of ' trained troops to bring- these irregular .' hordes to battle, and the fighting might j I degenerate into guerilla, warfare,, the

most difficult kind of warfare for troops to engage in when they are on enemy soil and their foes are on soil which they know well. The Japanese also would find it difficult in 'the case of guerilla bands to distinguish between Germans and Russians, for to the Oriental there is the same difficulty in distinguishing between two Western races as we experience in distinguishing between the Japanese and the Chinese. | Great difficulty would be experienced in carrying on the war in the territory of a people with whom we are nominally on friendly terms, and this difficulty would be enormously increased in the. case of Siberia, as some of the inhabitants would be for the Allies, some for the Germans, and others would be seeking the overthrow of some political faction which had gained ascendancy for the moment. Yet another difficulty would be found in the fact that a military expedition would have to cross Chinese territory, and this at a time when the situation in China is almost as uncertain as it is in Russia. Above all, the Japanese would start without any definite objective. The Japanese dislike taking any action without sufficient preliminary study, and in the case of armed intervention in Siberia any real study of the situation from the military standpoint would be practically impossible, owing to the chaotic political condition of the country. Unless the Russian situation clears, Japanese intervention might do more harm than good, and the Far Fast is peculiarly sensitive just now to disturbing influences.