HOPE OF SETTLEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 3, 5 January 1922, Page 7

HOPE OF SETTLEMENT

JAPAN'S SIBERIAN POLICY

KATO'S POSITIVE STATEMENTS.

(tmitl» FMll AMOCIATIOR.—COPMIMT.) (IFICIAt. TO AU«TKAMAN.K.!. ?MB> ASSOCIATION) WASHINGTON, 3rd January. j The American spokesman to-day said there was still a most hopeful prospect iof the Shantung dispute being settled without intervention from outside, though the Chinese delegation were still asserting that they could not make further concessions. Mr. Sze told the press that the Chinese were waiting impatiently to resume. The.Japanese say they have asked Tokio for instructions, arid have received some, but require more, and are still corresponding Vith their Governments. Baron-Kato denies that any direct negotiations are going on between China and Japan at Pekin. He characterises as absolutely false everything published by the Chita representatives, including a new statement issued to-day that a secret treaty had been made between certain Japanese officers and generals connected with General Seminoff, by which Japan was to arm and finance the Russians against the forces of the Chita Republic. Baron Kato says the present Japanese Cabinet hag never financed any Russian groups whatever. He is very emphatic in his denials, and says he must have known if anything of the kind had been going on. It was impossible to conceive anything like it happening. It Waa the Japanese policy to. withdraw the . troops from Siberia, after which the, questions of administration of the country would become matters of Siberian domestic policy. Thetroops would be withdrawn whenever Japan received a guarantee that the Bolshevik troops did not intend to invade Manchuria and Korea. Apparently negotiations to that end were now going on. Japan might not ask for a guarantee of the safety of her nationals' lives and property if she thought it unnecessary to do so. Baron Kato would not' discuss the question of Sakhalin, which he (aid was in a different category. .: It is understood the British have acquiesced to China getting a higher tariff, but France is still' standing out.