RUSSIA AND JAPAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 78, 29 September 1938, Page 20

RUSSIA AND JAPAN

CHANGKUFENG CLASH

A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR

SOVIET WEAKNESS

The "war scare" rising out of the clash between Soviet and Japanese troops at Changkufeng has been occupying a greater share of the public's attention' abroad than it does in the U.S.S.R,, where the Press, either from inspired restraint or from wariness born of familiarity, has virtually confined mention of the affair to unimpassioned communiques, wrote the Moscow correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian."

The Soviet newspaper public, however, is never totally disarmed by the innocuousness of a headline or the. blandness of an official statement. Consequently there has been an awareness in Moscow this week that the Far Eastern events so laconically described have created a grave tension between the two countries. But the Muscovite has become inured to alarums from the Eastern outposts. He knows that every year since Japan extended its control in Manchuria and Mongolia there has been, a petty local war, or a series of them, waged along sectors of the intangible frontier. A SUBMARINE BASE? The present differences, however, have stubbornly refused to yield to! one of the typical Oriental compromises which usually brought previous clashes to an abrupt termination once that each side had had the opportun- J ityHo test the other's temper. The Russians, having reiterated their claim that the territory is indisputably Russian, aife committed to upholding Stalin's dictum that the U.S.S.R. will not yield,an inch of its soil; the Japanese, haying retaken the hill, must also follow the path leading to a general conflict for fear of "losing face." It is difficult to ascertain whether the Changkufeng Hill has any special military significance which would account for the extreme lengths to which both sides have been willing to go toihold it. The nearest important objective is Possiet Bay, just south of Vladivostok, and there have been a number of unconfirmed reports that the Soviet authorities have developed this bay into one of the largest submarine bases on their Pacific Coast. Changkufeng is 20 to 25 miles from Possiet Bay, and foreign experts point out that it would require fortress guns rather than field artillery to make an attack oh Post siet possible from Changkufeng. * It is probable, however^ that Changkufeng occupies a commanding position in relation to other hills nearer Possiet from which the submarine base might be menaced. THE AMUR RIVER CASE. Yet, despite the fact that events would appear to have closed the gates to compromise, well-informed foreign quarters in Moscow do not accept war as inevitable. They recall the outcome of the menacing dispute in June, 1937, over the Amur River Islands, in which lives were .lost on both sides and military vessels sunk, and in which both sides adopted an intransigent attitude little different from that maintained today. The Japanese, now hard pressed for means to pursue their campaign in China, were assuredly in:a better position a year ago than they are today. As for the likelihood of the Soviet authorities' pushing matters willingly and heedlessly to the ttoint of open breach between the two countries; foreign observers reject this as improbable, for they are convinced that a general war is the last thing desired by the Kremlin today. There are top many factors' in the internal situation in the TT.SiS.R. which render the present time unfavourable also for the Soviet Union to test its powers on the field of modern battle. The Red Army is strong despite displacement during the latest "purge" of about two-thirds of its higher officers and three-quar-ters of the political commissars, and it is ready and willing to fight. But there has not been time for the wounds of the purge to heal, and the Kremlin is not satisfied that all the disloyal or untrustworthy elements have yet been uprooted. INDUSTRY STILL SUFFERS. Industry certainly still suffers from the effects of the purge, and many of the promoted younger generation have yet to show that they can direct production as effectively as did the ousted "wreckers." The Donetz Basin and other coalfields lag seriously behind the production plan. Output of pig iron, steel, and rolled metal and of motor-lorries .falls below the schedules regularly. Difficulties are experienced in maintaining supplies of oil to meet the mounting demand. Shortages of petrol occur in both cities and agricultural stations, and reports of villages where kerosene had been persistently lacking were published recently. The condition of the timber industry has been denounced as a disgrace, although an entirely new administration has been installed. The inability of the machine-building industry to keep abreast of technical developments abroad is a common topic in the Press. In light industry serving the consumers' needs the situation is worse than ever in some branches and hardly better in others. Long queues form before daybreak at shops where cotton and linen goods are sold in Moscow. Jn the villages, apparently, there is none of such goods available in the shopsi, for many of those who stand in the Moscow" queues are peasants who have come from village^ sometimes long distances away, in the hope of being able to take back supplies of cloth r for themselves and their neighboursi THE URGE FOR PROFIT. Many others in the queues are, of course, the inevitable "speculators" whose prompt re-emergence when there is a'shortage of necessities proves how hard! the profit urge dies. When they do reach the shop shelves, they are limited in the amounts they may buy, usufc-lly to not more than ten metres of cloth. The production of cotton clo|h was actually less in the first six months of 1938 than in the same period of 1937, so that no relief of this shortage is in sight. Similarly discouraging observations coiidd be made concerning supplies of clothing and shoes, of household necessities, including even matches, and concerning the notoriously inferior qttality of Soviet manufactures, including even items important to defence (tyres, it was admitted, last only 10,000 m&es at most); but enough has been set forth to support the argument that the Kremlin has fcogent reasons for wishing to postpone^ the day of reckoning with capitalist-countries which, tire Soviet peoples are now being insistently warned, is certain to come eventually.

Official Soviet quarters, like foreign observers in Moscow, profess to be somewhat in the dark as to Japanese motives in the Changkufeng affain Official comment has been entirely lacking, but the officially inspired Press has indulged in some speculation as to how far Japan means to go and, what the Japanese hope to gain by playing up the incident. UNOFFICIAL THEORIES. The clearest attempt to explain Japanese motives was made by the "Jowrnal de Moscou," considered to be the organ of the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, which observed, "It is difficult to suspect that Japan really wants to start a war against the Soviet Union at a moment when she is in the mud up to her neck in China," and proceeded to narrow the reasons for the.Changkufeng incidents down to two possibilities. First, this journal conjectures, a weakening of the discipline of the Kwantung Army and Korean corps staffs may have led them to override orders of Tokio in an attempt to provoke a general conflict, or, secondly, Tokio, together with the Kwantung staff, is seeking to re-establish its damaged prestige through a localised conflict which might yield some goals yet not involve the risk of war. Another Soviet commentator has expressed the view that the Kwantung staff, fearful of having part of its forces withdrawn to aid the campaign in China, has seized ori this incident in order to magnify the supposed threat of a Soviet attack which would require the continued maintenance of its full forces. Suspicion has also been directed to the possibility that Japan is acting according: to certain secret terms of the Anti-Comintern Pact, creating a diversion under the cover of

which Hitler may be able to act to advantage in respect to Czechoslovakia. One of the most convincing proofs that the Soviet Government' considers that it enjoys a legal position as regards its claim to the disputed territory and that the Japanese are invaders was shown in the publication in the Soviet Press of photographic copies of the maps attached to the Protocol of 1886 to the Hungch'ung Treaty of 1869. The Japanese authorities have asserted that the border line starts east of Lake Khasan (Chan'gchi) and proceeds along the western shore of the lake. The frontier delineated in the maps is clearly along the summit of the hills on the western side of the lake, and it would appear that it must cross almost directly through the summit of the hill under dispute. This would clearly invalidate the Japanese claim to the slope from the hilltop to the lake shore. Foreign observers in Moscow incline to the belief that a basis for settlement might have been found in the Japanese proposal for the "status quo ante" in the territory, pending appointment of a border commission, if Commissar Litvinov had not returned such a brusque reply to the Japanese Ambassador's protest. Litvinov's unyielding bluntness left no course open to the Japanese except force or loss of face and passed over an opportunity to obtain a long-deferred settlement of the annoying border problem.