DANGER ZONE IN FAR EAST

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 10, 7 October 1936, Page 5

DANGER ZONE IN FAR EAST

Russia and Japan

CONTACTS IN NORTH CHINA

Communism in Mongolia

So far as the greater part of Manchuria is concerned, there is a prospect of its being more and more closely settled. and become a thickly-populated country living mainly by agriculture but developing industries of its own. What developments it will undergo politically have yet to be seen. When we get beyond Manchuria, however, there is a different sort of problem altogether, says the “Japan Times.” We come to a vast region, not without wealth, but one of those tracts where the physical character of the country seems to determine the sort of men who shall inhabit it. Like many other semi-desert tracts, it seems to be made for a nomadic life —a life that has strict social limitations, that is limited in its economic possibilities, where there is no great variety of occupation, and no great possibility of change. Strangely enough, in early times such countries seem to have been capable of great social efforts—popular migrations on a large scale that denoted a vigour and fertility such as one would never expect in such lands. The Arabs and the Mongols have both been great makers of history in the past, their mass migrations proving irresistible, and their numbers astonishing. Their -day, however, has passed. In our times strength goes with concentration, and it is difficult to conceive of the great open spaces as having any particular importance except for the cinema romances. Yet both Arabia and Mongolia have been deemed of great importance in our own day, and, though Japan seems to have settled the Manchurian question for a generation at least, Mongolia is still au enigma, and from its arid steppes may come, disturbances that will shake the world. From time to time, ever since the Second Revolution in Russia, there have been reports, some of them very wild, about Russia’s doings in Outer, Mongolia, which has sometimes been described as a colony of the imperialist Bolsheviks, sometimes as a Soviet Republic, and sometimes as an unchangeable nomadic country in which Bolsheviks gave ancient things new and inappropriate names, but in which they had none of the influence that they pretended they had. And sometimes it has been used rhetorically, by way of showing how Japan’s expansion is entirely beneficent, and civilising, though, the League of Nations protests against it, while Russia is making Mongolia a powder-magazine of Bolshevism, and the world makes no comment. ’

Russia and 'Mongolia,

In view’ of the recently-concluded agreement between Russia and Mongolia for mutual assistance, it is an interesting speculation whether this would have been considered necessary if Japan had agreed with Russia over the. proposed non-aggres-sion pact. Or, fjom another point of view, it may be doubted whether Russia could properly have made such a pact, considering her obligations to Mongolia. On April 1 Mr. Stomoniakoff, the. Assistant People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs, told Mr. Ota, the Japanese- Ambassador in Moscow’, that the obligation just undertaken by.. the. Soviet Union to render assistance to the Mongolian People’s Republic in ease of its being attacked by a third party, had actually been in existence since 1921, when the Soviet and Mongolian Governments, defending themselves against a common attack on their territories, agreed to render each other mutual assistance.

This obligation was not reduced to writing, how r ever. until March 12 in the present year, when it was signed at Ulanbator, and was officially made public on April 8. With Russia under an obligation to assist Mongolia in any- difficulty and with Japan under a similar obligation to assist Manehukuo, they would find themselves in a rather awkward position, should- there be a nonagression pact between them, and hostilities broke out between Russia and Manehukuo, between Japan and Mongolia, or even between Alanclnikuo and Mongolia. It must be left to the international lawyers to decide whether, in such a case, the non-aggression pact would be an instrument of peace or only add .an extra explosiveness to war. “Whites” and "Reds.” During the chaos which followed the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, Mongolia became a base for operations against Soviet Russia, the brave buthomicidal Baron L'ngern making his beadquarters at Urge, whence he led “White” attacks against “Red” Russia. until the Soviet leaders, having raised a Mongol army, swept down and annihilated the Ungern forces, this practically bringing “intervention” to an end. There has often been some doubt as to how far the Mongolians were really disciples of Marx according to the Leninite orthodoxy. There is no doubt at all that they disliked extremely the period when they were the unwilling hosts of the White Russian forces, and were supposed to be assisting in the defence of the bulwarks of civilisation against Red Rum. They have since then not become very good Communists, perhaps, but. they have regarded the Soviet Russians as their friends, and have shown appreciation of the masterly manner in which they were led when the’ Bed sians helped them to turn the M hite Russians out. . . It is the final conclusion of this pact, which has been in existence verbally

for fifteen years, which has proved a matter of deep contention between Tokio and Nanking, when Japan wanted China to inform Russia that such things could not be done. There has beeu a verbal difference between the .respective attitudes of the powerful friends of Manchuria and Mongolia as regards the relationship of these two regions to China. The Russian treaty with China in 1924 specifically recognised Mongolia as being under Chinese sovereignty, but since then Mongolia has developed into the Mongolian People’s Republic and is just as far from obeying China as Manchuria is: though Russja has never carried on any such military operations as those which signalised the final detachment of Jehol from China. Both Russia and Japan have followed the practice of the Powers in making agreements with local authorities in China, for which ■the sanction of the Chinese Central Government is understood to be required, but in the last resort is not essential. Neither the Japanese treaty with Manehukuo, however, nor the Russian pact with Mongolia of April last, has received the ratification of Nanking. Soviet Diplomacy. The object of the Russian agreement with Mongolia is obvious. With Jehol absorbed into Manehukuo and Chahar in a state of independence under an Autonomous Council, Japanese influence is already strong in a part of Mongolia, and it increases Russia’s strategic strength, vis-a-vis Japan, to be sure of that influence not extending further into Mongolia, where Russian communications would be much more vulnerable. Last year there was some tension, and the "Izvestia” recorded that Mr. Stalin declared that “If Japan should venture to attack the Mongolian People’s Republic and encroach upon its independence, we will have to help the Mongolian People's Republic just as we helped it in 1921.” On both sides the proceedings are inspired by the theory of the danger of having a weak neighbour. Military men are always very nervous of the weak neighbour. They are always afraid that the potential enemy who is on the weak neighbour’s other frontier will steal a march on them and be in a position to attack. It is really the weak neighbour who should be nervous. All that is now needed is the settlement beyond any ambiguity of the position of Chahar, and a delimitation of the frontier between Outer and Inner Mongolia, or Bolshevik and Imperial Mongolia. Then the military obligations of the two great Powers would be coterminous, and there would be pinch less to worry about.