BRITAIN AND JAPAN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 194, 18 July 1939, Page 6

BRITAIN AND JAPAN

To the accompaniment of antiBritish demonstrations throughout Japan the conversations between the two countries’ representatives have opened in Tokio in an effort to solve the problems associated with Tientsin and other Chinese cities. The marked manner in which the relations between Britain and Japan, once so cordial, have deteriorated could not have been better illustrated than by these demonstrations which produced an ugly scene outside the British Embassy in Tokio. The vernacular Press has deeply stirred the mass of the people to a belief that Britain is Japan’s enemy, and similarly J apanese propaganda has inflamed Chinese against the British in Tientsin and other cities. The Consulate at Tsingtao was the object of the crowds’ wrath a few days ago when bombs were thrown and windows broken. Offensive posters have been displayed in Tokio and never before, in the history of Japan, has there been such a demonstration against a foreign Power. That it was carefully organised is quite palpable and it reflects the temper of a people deliberately influenced to regard Britain as the “enemy of humanity,” a charge so grotesque as to be immediately dismissed as unworthy of a great race were the situation not so serious. As to the conversations, it would seem that Japan is not prepared to recognise Britain’s rights in China. The creator of what she terms the new order in the Eai East Japan is determined to regard herself as the protector of China, establishing a form of the Monroe Doctrine over the Asiatic mainland. The Chinese are to come under benevolent protection, which means nothing more than that they are to sign away their sovereignty to an implacable enemy. Britain’s rights in this matter are also the rights oi other Powers which enjoy treatyconcessions in China, and the conversations in Tokio affect them just as deeply in the final analysis. In a real sense Britain is taking up the challenge of Japan as much on their behalf as or her own, and much depends upon the outcome of these negotiations as to the future of vast foreign interests in China.