JAPAN'S PROGRESS IN CHINA DURING WAR

Evening Star, Issue 16909, 5 December 1918, Page 3

JAPAN'S PROGRESS IN CHINA DURING WAR

It would be as well (writes ' Engineering ') to say something about the extraordinary progress made by Japan in China sinco tiie war began. The chronic state of financial shortage in China ha 3 been Japan's great opportunity, for no other Power has been in a position to _ lend money since the war broke out. Naturally, Japan has availed herself to the fullest extent of tho chance, and has lent money freely for a consideration, the consideration taking tho form of controlling all tha steel and iron ore supplies in the country. As yet she has not worried about railways outside Manchuria, but she controls the Kuikiang-Nanchang Railway, tho Hanyehping steel works, collieries and ore mines near Hankow, and has recently acquired rights, which are still the subject of considerable discussion, over the iron mines in the neighborhood of Nanking. All the abovo undertakings are in tho Yangtse Valley, generally assumed to bo the British sphere of influence. In addition, Japan controls Manchuria, dominates the province- of Fukicn, and has recently taken over the German rights of exploitation in the province of Shantung, where she now manages all the German railway and mining concerns. Tho industrial development of China is therefore in Japanese hands, and is likely to remain so as long as she controls all the known iron supplies. This is not to China's advantage, for she only gets what is available after Japan has been supplied. Japan is daily increasing her hold on China to the detriment, from a trade point of view, of the other Powers, for a dominant Japan in China will mean the stilling of all competition and the shutting of the open door, unless Japanese foreign policy undergoes a very radical change. The rise of Japanese power in China is sufficiently indicated when it is stated that she had lent the country previous to 1910 only £247,000; that this had increased to over £8,000,000 in 1916: and in tho past yoar a further £0,200,000 was added to the total, exclusive of the supposed loan of £4,000.000 for the purchase, of arms in Japan--a rather doubtful transaction when it is considered that half the nations of Europe will in a year or two be able to supply China with the very latest engines of war at a very much lower price.