CHINA AND JAPAN

Evening Star, Issue 19759, 9 January 1928, Page 8

CHINA AND JAPAN

m UNEASY SITUATION f MERCURIAL STATE OF THOUGHT . / [■< ' The cables from China for the past. Jew months have referred, steadily if ■not constantly, to a growing antiJapanese feeling throughout tao Yellow Republic (says the. ‘ Christian Science Monitor-■ editorially). When, in August, the Mikado’s troops appeared in Shantung a renewed boycott Iran from Canton across all the Southern area. Yet more recently agitation 1 against everything Japanese has been .shown in Manchuria in general and in ;Mukden in particular. This is the more surprising, as it was not many months figo that so well informed an authority as the editor of the Shanghai ‘ Far tHaetern Review ’ declared that “ for ,tiia first time in twenty years public opinion in China is friendly to Japan.” The reasons for this volto face are immediate and twofold. The advance pf the Nationalist forces brought them into Shantung, where, close following [the years of German occupation, considerable Japanese financial and commercial interests have come to centre. Instructed by the looting of tbeii Nationals’ properties in cities to tho south, the Tokio Government provided tho ounce of prevention by landing troops to protect mercantile and manufacturing nouses at Tsinan, Tientsin, and Tsingtao. In tho second place, against the background of tho whole ultra-uneasy situation in the great province to tho north-east, trouble aroso as to the land lease laws, avid iu the mercurial state of thought of local officialdom Nipponese rights were everywhere threatened, and iu some instances openly flouted. At once Baron Tanaka adopted that “ positive policy ” ol Which much has since been written, increasing the military police and broadening their duties even beyond the Kwangtung Leased Territory. For the Premier insists on a “ special position ” for his country, in Mongolia as well as Manchuria, not yet formally admitted by the other Powers. There is, however, nothing hero which Inay not be seen as a probably inevitable concomitant of the essentially lawless—that is, authority-less—condition into'which years of civil warfare have brought the most populous state of the Orient. It does not mean a swing hack to or even toward tho frankly antiChines© policy of Tokio Cabinets prior ;to the day of Admiral Kato. It is the obvious fact that to-day’s Tanaka plays a stronger hand than ever was shown by yesterday’s Wakatsuki, bub that is 1)V bo means to say that he proposes any general reversal of this most important phase of the nation’s profrarnme. To the contrary: soon after is assumption of the reins of government last spring he stated categorically in the Lower House of the Diet that bis Ministry would continue to follow the path of non-intervention _ on the (Asian mainland—the policy which began ;to show about 1920, which was given clear manifestation at the Washington 'Arms Conference, and which Japan has Sine© endorsed repeatedly. What is now taking place is quite certainly no more than such protection of her economic rights in the South and her acquired ones in the North as other States in interest have in varying degrees been moved to take. It is to be remembered that there long has been in the island kingdom a powerful Liberal element, favoring tho maintenance of good relations with Japan’s neighbors. This school of thought has gained ground enormously tho few years just past, and at this writing appears at its strongest. It sympathises genuinely witlf .Chines© national aspirations, and yet cannot be expected for that reason to make a spoiled child of China. This section of political and economic Japan upholds with complete honesty the basin ideas of the open door and equal opportunity. Assuredly, it intends that Tokio shall play on hand in the civil war, which for so long a time has kept in turmoil the lands across the Yellow. Bea. It recognises that the ultimate gratitude of a strong and united China will prove far more important to Dai Nippon than the gaining of any monetary advantages. In this these Liberals aro wholly right, of course. The mutu ality of interest involved in this complex situation is gigantic: China needs the aid of Japanese “ know-how and Western initiative, while Japan must draw heavily upon China’s immense reservoir of raw materials. There is every reason to believe, as well as hope, that this is fully appreciated by the Tanaka