CHINA AND JAPAN.

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 February 1917, Page 8

CHINA AND JAPAN.

*' JAPAN’S DEMANDS. ' • i. ' ‘ ■ •. t _ / ■ TIENTSIN DISPUTE WITH THE FRENCH. (MucJTester Guardian Correspqudent). V PEKING, November 23. \ The danger involved to a coving , try like China in leaving Hie portfolio of Minister of .Foreign Affairs unfilled has been strikingly shown by the occurrence of an incident which has led .to friction between the French-Legation and the Chinese Government. As far back as 1903 the French authorities at Tientsin presented a request that the French Concession at that port should be extended. In 1914 they presented t the request again. According to the French, the’Chinese authorities, while admitting that the request was reasonable, could not be prevailed upon to bring the negotiations to a conclusion. Although tb? Frettch amended tbeiv request so as to make the area of the extension about half (hat originally asked for, and also agreed to a proposal made hy the Chinese for its administration hy a dual authority, the Chinese secured further delav by with-, drawing the dual 'authority propositi after its acceptance. , A promise was, however, given that the extension would he’authorised, but this was not to ho done unless local opposition -was-plac-ated. The French claim that the Tientsin local authorities deliberately fomented opposition. In order to bring matters to a head, on October 21st the French’Consul General at Tientsin announced that within forty-eight hours be expected to bo given possession of the area forming the extension. As this was not done he personally took possession, removed some 'Chinese policemen who wore on duty-oh the streets and replaced them by Amianiite policemen. The Chinese version ’of the affair does not differ materially from this, but they ' deny that there was any calculated procrastination in connection with the negotiations. Also they deny (lint the opposition manifested by the Tientsin Chinese had in any wav been instigated by the authorities.- The less responsible Chinese papers have been a series of violent personM attacks upon The French Charge d’Affaires and . the Consul General at Tientsin in connection with the affair. As a result the Chinese public have been bolding meetings at which excited orators urged war with France, a boyeot of French manufacturers, and other punitive

inoasures. A few days ago it seemed likely that the matter would ho amicably settled, but the indiscretion of one of the secretaries- of the Foreign Office in divulging prematurely the probable basis of settlement, and the publication in a local paper of an article that made it appear that France bad made a humiliating surrender, have retarded conclusion of an understanding. The offending secre-

tary and two other officials have been cashiered, and no doubt in a few days’ time an arrangement will be made.

THE FOREIGN MINISTRY. This little affair, the importance of which has been magnified in the Chinese press for partisan reasons, would in all probability not have occurred if China bad bad a substantive Minister of Foreign Affairs. Tfcffriee the Government has nominated a Minister and twice the House .of Representatives has refused to endorse the nomination. Tbeac-tio'n of the House of Representatives did not imply want of confidence in the men who were nominated, but was intended to register a protest against, the methods of intimidation which were employed by some of the military chiefs to prevent Mr Tang Shao-yi from becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mr Tang was the-choice of the “South” for this position; he was nominated by the Government. the appointment was endorsed hy the Senate and the House of Representatives, but be never assumed office on account of the intimidation already referred to. His refusal to take the post necessitated the discovery ■of,a substitute, but the House of Representatives, as has ust been recorded, rejected two successive nominations. Yesterday, however, the nomination of Dr Wu*Ting Fang, the veteran ex-Minister to America, received the endorsement of the House of Representatives, and bp will certainly also receive tile approval of the Senate. JAPAN’S DEMANDS.

During the greater portion , of the last five months the direction of foreign affairs has been in the bauds of Dr Chen Chi-tao, Minister of Finance, who would probably he the most over-worked member of the Cabinet'if he confined himself to .his own department exclusively. No personal blame can attach to Dr, Chen for the delay in dealing with the matters of vital importance still pending in which Japan is concerned. Apart from the fact that he has had literally no time to study the dossiers relating to these matters, he was averse as an acting .Minister to taking any action that might prove embarrassing to the substantive Minister of Foreign Affairs when appointed. Japan, however, has indicated some displeasure at the delay in dealing with the demands put forward in connection with the affray at Chengchiatun, which resulted in the death of several Japanese and Chinese soldiers. The more important of these •demands, or “requests” as the Japanese prefer to call them, call for the' agreement of the Chinese Government to the establishment of ' police stations at certain points in Soulli Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia, and the AN ■

engagement of Japanese military instructors in all military schools and colleges in China, It may be of interest to record that the demand in relation to the establishment of police stations is justified hy the Japanese by reference td a promise made in 190(5 that the police administration in South Manchuria would he reorganised. That promise, given ten years ago, had not been kept, and only last year more than fifty outrages occurred in South Manchuria by which Japanese subjects were killed, wounded, or suffered';loss of property. There is no desire, it is affirmed, on the part of the Japanese Government to interfere in anv wav with the

Chinese police administration; all that was sought was the right to look after the interests of respectable Japanese residents and to control those Japanese who did not come within that category. No explanation has been given of the reasons that prompted the demand that the military schools should he saddled with Japanese instructors.. In Chinese quarters it is contended that if foreign military instructors were required they should he chosen from the armies which have bad first-hand experience of up-to-date methods of warfare, and not from the army of a country that is only nominally a belligerent.. The Chinese have shown no disposition to agree to eitheup of those demands, and certain sections of the Chinese press are counselling the Government to hold out until Japan is compelled to-issue, an ultimatum, thereby damaging Japanese prestige.„