CHINA AND RUSSIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20490, 15 February 1930, Page 10

CHINA AND RUSSIA.

Hope of an amicable settlement of the dispute between China and Russia in connection with the Chinese Eastern Railway is considerably diminished by the latest action of the Nationalist Government. It has punished its envoys who negotiated a settlement, because they exceeded their authority and instructions, and has decided to send a delegate to Moscow for the reopening of the questions at issue. Included in its ground for action is the maintenance by Russia of a military force along the Manchurian border, in contravention of the understanding when it was agreed that the future policy of administering the railway should be a matter for unhampered friendly discussion. In taking responsibility for thus reopening the dispute, the NationalistGovernment would seem to be fully justified. To the contention that its envoys have committed it there is aD effectual answer in the fact that their instructions were made public at the time the envoys were sent—unless it be extravagantly assumed that those instructions as published were vitally at variance with what the envoys were told—and that a safeguarding of Chinese surveillance of the management of the railway was then proclaimed as essential. The present Russian Government has flagrantly violated all its undertakings in connection with the railway, including a promise that it should not be used as a means of Communist propaganda. This violation was the basis of the strong action taken by the National ist Government in dismissing Russian officials from the controlling administrative staff of the railway, and so led to an outbreak of hostilities and the destructive invasionjsf Manchuria by Soviet troops. Russia, although a signatory of the BriandKellogg peace pact, refused foreign mediation and pressed her military advantage. The Soviet leaders are apparently bent on overriGling the Chinese protests, and there is little; apparent likelihood of a peaceful end to the trouble. Intervention by other Powers seems now to be inevitable.