EVENTS IN CHINA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17523, 5 July 1917, Page 4

EVENTS IN CHINA.

Not many people have been interested in events in China of late, because tbe domestic troubles appeared to have only a remote bearing on international affairs. The tendency to attribute all revolutionary movements in neutral countries more or less to German agencies has inspired some of the comments on tho Chinese situation, but the internal disorganisation has been quite enough to account for the political turmoil and wo may be quite sure that if the developments threatened Allied interests in the Far East Japan would promptly have intervened. As a mat ter of fact the United States Government did propose,.to address a Note to China concerning the unsettled political conditions, but Japan and Britain declined to assqeiate themselves with it, the inference being that the Allied diplomatists in Pekin were working towards a satisfactory solution. The restoration of the Manchu dynasty would not be tho solution they would normally favour, because it implies a domination of a large Chinese population by a Manchu minority, but it is possible that they would prefer, under the present international conditions, to work with a constitutional monarchy that had some elements of stability rather than with a republic that could not exercise authority in the provinces. We do not know that this is actually tho position, but it was evident enough that the republican Government was making little headway with the establishment of its authority in the interior. However, tho restoration of tho monarchy may be only a temporary phase of tho crisis. Tho revolution, so far as wo can judge, is confined to Pekin and the monarchy will obviously depend on the loyalty of the troops in the capital, but the monarchists may have taken steps to prepare in the centre and south, where the strongest Chinese and republican opposition is naturally to bo expected. Shrewd observers of Chinese politics have long been of opinion that tho ultimate solution will be found in partition, not among foreign Powers, but between Manchu and Chinese, tho formor retaining Pekin and tho north' and the latter establishing a separato administration m Nankin, the old southern capital. The crisis appears to havo been precipitated by the diffterence of opinion as to the severing of relations with Germany, but it had long been developing through the conflict between tho Primo Minister, who seems to have been rather a capable politician; and the President, who was obstinate in his opinions and unversed in political methods. Tho inevitable predictions of civil war are now being made, for it is not likely that the republicans will submit without a struggle to tho re-establishment of the Manchu regimo..