Japanese Aggression

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 196, 16 May 1936, Page 20

Japanese Aggression

IT is idle to ignore the fact that the threat of an eventual war does exist” (says the "Round Table"). “At the present moment, and as long as Japan continues to pursue her continental course, the danger is one that concerns Russia more actively than either America 01 the British Commonwealth. Therefore, in the shorter view, Australia and New Zealand are justified iu believing that Japan’s present commitments in Manchuria and Mongolia give them relief from the risk of Japanese expansion, southward by sea, which might sever their communications with Europe and the home country and leave them at the mercy of Japan.

"But the situation will change when Japan discovers that her economic expectations from her Manchurian-Mongolian policy cannot b c realised: for then, whatever she may believe to be necessary for the strategic defence of her expanded frontiers facing the Soviet Union, she will be driven to divert her programme of territorial and economic expansion towards other goals. . . .

“For the British Empire there are three possible situations to meet: First, a struggle between Russia and Japan in the north, which would relieve the threatened pressure on the oceanic interests of the overseas Empire and America; second, Japanese expansion towards Hong Kong. Manila and Singapore that encounters American resistance; third, the same expansion not encountering an American veto, which would bring Japan upon the exposed flank of British imperial communications from the Indian Ocean to the South Seas.

“The first of these —assuming Japanese victory, which is not by any means certain—would postpone Japanese expansion southwards for a considerable time, and might engage Japan so deeply in continental commitments in north-east. Asia that she would be unable to pay much attention to anything else. What the consequences of a Russian victory would lie fol India we do not for the moment propose to inquire, but the consequences in the Far East would probably bring the whole Far Eastern question into closer connection with Europe than has been the case for many years. “The second eventuality would almost certainly find the British

Empire supporting America in the determination to resist imperialist aggression outside the Asiatic mainland. "If that be a true diagnosis, it is desirable that the English-speaking Powers should forestall the threatened conflict by showing Japan that, iu the last resort and undeterred by differences of interest in other fields, they will be found standing together, and by showing her also that this cooperation is not designed to encircle her with iron bands to stifle her life, but solely as an insurance against an intolerable inroad on their vital interests. . "There is here a genuine basis of Anglo-American co-operation winch does not exist in any other region. . . . "The third situation is the most critical of all. and, although it is not immediate, it cannot be regarded as so improbable as to be ignored in a review of the Far Eastern ami Pacific Ocean policy of the British Commonwealth. Nakedly stated, it presents the British nations with the possibility of a threat to the communications between them, if not to their very existence as partners in a common peaceful enterprise of economic growth and political development. Doubtless it would affect them unequally; and if it be admitted that the immediate threat must be felt first by the United Kingdom. Australia and New Zealand, with India, Burma and Malaya in danger, in the final resort every corner of the Empire must be involved. "Cold realism so far compels us lo face these formidable prospects in terms of eventual appeal to force. But in so presenting the case the ■Round Table’ is not prophesying inevitable war. Rather is it attempting to foresee the ultimate fate of war, if certain conditions obtain in the future, mid if, meanwhile, policy, of which war is but one expression, fails to deal with the developing situation and thus to forestall by adequate measures the resort to force.

"One of these measures is certainly the readiness for self-defence, within both the League-wide and the British collective systems. But a policy Unit rests solely on the lie-terminal ion to meet force with force is quite inadequate. Without exaggerating the importance of the economic factor in the Japanese problem, we are convinced that it plays a pait in Japanese policy to-day that requires us to shape our policy to meet it.