Coming Show-down in Mongolia

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 220, 13 June 1936, Page 26

Coming Show-down in Mongolia

UNTIL 1935 Hie Mongolian People's Republic was free to com.-eu trate on the problems of internal reconstruction. Except for occasional rumours of an overthrow of the new revolutionary regime Outer Mongolia was largely forgotten by Hie outside world. On January 24, 1935, however, the first of the long succession of "border incidents” occurred near Lake Bnir Nor, on the Manchurian-Outei Mongolian frontier. A conference to settle these disputes met on June al Manchouli in north-western Manchuria. At this conference Japanese officer attached to the Kwautung army shamelessly browbeat Hie Mongolian dele gates. Their aims were bluntly expressed in a note handed to the Mongolian delegation on July 4,' which demanded the right of permanent residence foi Japanese military observers in Outer Mongolia and permission to run tele graph lines into Mongolia to facilitate contact with Manchukuo. Border raids staged by the Kwautung army, designed to test the strength of Hie opposition, have been thrown back by the Mongolian guard detachments with out ceremony.

These attacks are directly related to the inner political strife in Japan, which in turn derives from the financial and diplomatic crisis of Japanese imperialism. The assassinations of February 26 in Tokyo have not solved any problems. In the new Cabinet Premier Hirota and the Finance Min ister. Eilchi Balia, continue to bar the immediate realisation of Hie army > programme. Despite the retirement of the firebrands. Araki and Mazaki, the army is still committed to continental expansion, which means it must have more funds to speed up Hie pace of rearmament. On the other hand, the Premier and the Finance Minister represent the conservative views of tinmajor section of Japan’s business interests, which is anxious to delay Hi" plunge into a “big war” until adequate diplomatic and financial preparation has been made.

■ The most immediate issue revolves around Hirota's efforts to come to% an agreement with the Soviet Union on a joint border commission to investigate disputes on the frontiers of Manchukuo. On March 17 the U.S.S.R.

(•oiiceded a point by agreeing that Hie proposed .-ommission might delimit Iho boundary, interpreting this tu mean “verifying Hie border ns fixed by treaties” by setting up additional border posts, stretching barbed wire, and digging ditches between Hie posts. Negotiations then struck a snag over Tokyo's insistence that the commission's competence be restricted to one section of Hie Manchurian-Siberian border, while the Soviet authorities held that ii' should cover Hie whole of the Manchurian-Siberian as well as the Man-(•hurian-Outer Mongolian frontier. Tills issue closely affects the Kwautung army-—Hie Japanese force in Manchuria which lias been the moving spirit behind Japan’s continental expansion since September 18,1931. The formation of a Soviet-Japanese border commission would tend to limit the Kwanrung army’s ability to resort to independent military action on the Manchurian frontiers. To this extent it would blunt the edge of a weapon which the army extremists have used to telling effect in the struggle against the moderates at Tokyo. Border clashes at this time thus constitute the Kwantung army’s answer to Hirota's negotiations with the U.S.S.R. The Soviet (inion pointedly alluded to this fact on March 31 by warning the Japanese Government that it assumed grave responsibility if it permitted the action-: of “subordinate organs” to intensify the existing causes of friction. Responsible authorities in Japan continue to assert that there is no po--ilniity of a Soviet-Japanese war. Hirota declared on March 25 that there would be no war while lie was Premier, and ranking Japanese military officers have recently made statements deprecating war witli the Soviet Union, The logic of this position is sound—for the moment. It would lie suicidal for Japan to plunge into war against the Soviet Union unless it had a hard-and-fast military agreement witli Germany, and assurance of financial sup port,from Great Britain. The first of those is rapidly maturing, if, indeed, it' has not already been consummated. But Germany is not yet ready to act. and Britain’s stand is still uncertain. Meanwhile the Kwautung army consolidates its war base in Manchuria, North China, and Inner Mongolia, and the time for the ultimate showdown approaches.—T. A. Bisson in “The Nation” (New York)