JAPAN'S CASE

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3439, 5 March 1932, Page 4 (Supplement)

JAPAN'S CASE

FACTS AND HISTORY IN MANCHURIA.

INTERVIEW WITH A DIPLOMAT

In answer to a request for the views held by Japanese diplomatists on the Manchurian question, Mr H. Saito, Counsellor of Embassy at the Japanese Chancellory in London, laid stress upon the following points:— (a) About 200,000 Japanese nationals, and at least 1,000,000 Japanese subjects of Korean origin are directly affected by the South Manchurian railway, the cause of the dispute. It is of absolutely vital importance to these people that this great terminal link of the TransSiberian rail system, running down to the coast at Dairen, should be maintained inviolate.

(b) That Japan has neither territorial ambitions nor concealed desire for aggrandisement in that area. She has all that she needs or desires in her present treaty rights, and she merely demands that these rights be internationally respected.

(c) Japan's action in Manchuria is solely to compel respect for her treaty rights, and to preserve the South Manchurian Railway so that Japanese nationals may carry on their lawful business.

(d) As an outcome of the Twentyone Demands, in 1910, there are now under diplomatic consideration —since local legal procedure would be merely in the nature of a farce —some 300 cases of breach of treaty rights in Manchuria, including Chinese refusal to establish a Japanese consulate in Chien-tao area, adjacent to the Korean frontier, thereby adversely affecting many Japanese subjects. (e) There is also the vexed question of illegal impost of duties made upon the goods of Japanese by the local Chinese authorities.

(f) Existing treaty rights provide that land shall be leased to Japanese for agricultural purposes, but the Chinese Government instructs all officials and the public not to lease any land to Japanese, and refuses to draft rules and regulations for such leases in terms of the treaty. All such matters as the foregoing are being contested through diplomatic channels.

(g) It should be remembered that the United States Government declared that American nationals should enjoy similar rights and privileges on the lines of the most favoured nation basis. Although signed and ratified in accordance with international law, the Chinese Government contends that these treaty rights are null and void, because they were coneluded under duress. (Even if that were the case, international law affirms the validity of treaties so concluded.)

(h) The parallel lines of railways laid down by the Chinese, the Takushan and the Tung-liao, built in 1926, and the Chung-chun-Hailung, built in 1929, are entirely in violation of the Chinese undertaking given in the secret minutes, signed by the accredited representatives of both countries, when the treaty of 1905 was concluded in Peking, after the Russo-Japan-ese war, by which Japan succeeded to the rights of the conquered Russians under the treaty of Portsmouth. It was of elementary necessity that China should recognise this transfer from Russia to Japan, which was the basis of the treaty.

(i) Cutting the South Manchurian Railway was the last of a long series of hostile acts against the Japanese, and public opinion in Japan is inflamed against the Chinese Government in consequence, since. Japan quite naturally regards the Manchurian line as being of vital national importance, and it is difficult at the present moment to allay public excitement in Japan.

(j) Japan's demands in Manchuria, supported by the existing demonstration in force, are:—

(1) That an agreement shall be come to whereby Japan shall not entertain any aggressive designs. (2) That the territorial integrity of China shall be respected by Japan. (3) That China shall cease antiJapanese propaganda, such as boycotting Japanese goods in commerce, and school-book nropaganda, inculcating national hatred against the Japanese.

(4) That Japanese lives and property shall be safeguarded and Japanese allowed to follow their lawful pursuits peaceably. (5) That China shall be compelled to observe treaty obligations. These are styled, in current diplomacy amongst the Japanese, the Five Fundamental Principles, and form the basis of Japan's imperative demands upon the Chinese Government, which will be undoubtedly prosecuted by whatever means diplomacy may provide, or, failing diplomacy, by whatever measure of armed force may become necessary.