FAR EAST CLASH

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 58, 6 September 1937, Page 10

FAR EAST CLASH

GERMAN POSITION

AN EMBARRASSING WAR

Germany hopes that on no account will there be a serious conflict between China and Japan, says the Berlin correspondent of the "Manchester Guardians'/Considerable prominence, therefore, was "given to a German news agency message from Washington reporting that the German Ambassador, Herr yon Dieckhoff, ' informed the Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, o* Germany's intention to remain neutral in the "dispute. The message read:— /, _ "The German' Ambassador, Herr yon Dieckhoff, called oh Mr. Cordell Hull and declared that the Reich Government adopts a strictly, neutral attitude in the conflict between China and Japan, and, as does the United States, hopes for an early settlement." NATURAL ATTITUDE. This attitude is the natural result of Germany's peculiar position in the Far East. German relations with both countries are extraordinarily friendly. China has become of late one of Germany's best foreign • customers, and everything is done here to increase German export trade to China. In January Herr Otto Wolff, one of Germany's leading iron industrialists, visited China, and when Dr. Rung, the Chinese Minister of Finance, paid a visit to Germany last month he was much feted; a mock battle was, for instance, staged for him, enabling him to watch German tanks and guns in action. ■ ■ . On the other hand; Germany concluded an agreement with Japan in November last year providing for close co-operation in all matters concerning Communism, ponsiderable importance was attached to this agreement when it was signed, and numerous references were made to the combination of Berlin, Rome, and Tokio, as a bulwark against Communism. It is therefore' clear that the last thing that Germany wants is a conflict between her ideological ally and one of her best foreign customers thai helps to provide the much-needed foreign exchange. The situation would become especially awkward if the Soviet Union should help China at all, as this, according to the GermanJapanese agreement, would necessarily compel Germany to support Japan, at least morally. . . • ■

COMMERCIAL INTERESTS.

Undoubtedly both the Japanese and the Chinese Ambassadors indicated the desirability for friendly relations with their respective countries when they called on Baron yon Neurath, the German Foreign Minister,1 recently. The "Berliner Borsenzeitung," commenting on the whole question, writes:— "The world knows that Germany pursues solely legitimate commercial interests in the Far East, and can have no other wish than to ■ see peace preserved between the two nations which are its friends. The German-Japanese agreement for the warding off of Communism is quite a different proposition. The German Press has observed exemplary impartiality in its reports on the conflict, giving as much space to the reports from Peking as to those from Tokio, and it is showing as much sympathy for Tokio's wishes as for China's, attitude. Both countries are urged to consider that an armed conflict would plunge them into utmost distress, apart from threatening to lead to the most dangerous consequences. The tragedy is that Japan, in wishing to fortify her position in China against the Soviet Union, is brought into conflict with China, the "Volkischer Beobachter" recently wrote. The hope is time and again expressed in the German Press that some solution may be found, and that peacefully and speedily.