THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1938 JAPAN AND RUSSIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23106, 3 August 1938, Page 12

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1938 JAPAN AND RUSSIA

The possibility of Russia's frank entry to the Sino-Japanese conflict on the side of China cannot be ignored. It is now certain that the clash between Russian and Japanese forces at Changkufeng, on the MancHurian frontier, was serious and sanguinary. Discrepancies in the Russian and Japanese accounts do not affect this fact, and mutual recriminations, concerned only with responsibility for starting the affray, leave untouched the grave attitude taken on both sides when it became the subject of official consideration in Moscow and Tokio. Unlike many border incidents that are merely local and spasmodic breaches of the peace, it soon assumed the proportions of a major engagement, with thrust and counter-thrust. Its gravity is emphasised by news of a Russian bombardment of two Korean towns. Obviously the days of last week, which began with a popular outburst in Moscow against Japan, were marked by belligerent episodes in this northern boundary region. Usually such episodes produce either prompt apology or immediate demands, coupled with threats of swift reprisal, for reparation and future good conduct. It is deeply significant that, although a Japanese protest has been presented to Russia in connection with the fighting at Changkufeng, Japan's Foreign Office is not pressing a case for redress. Tokio, however, recognises a crisis, and there is a warning that Japanese patience has limits. Even this degree of forbearance is utterly out of

key with recent Japanese threats that, if Russia did not desist from giving assistance to China, she must take the consequences. What has happened is open hostility, not opposition more or less covert, and Japan's hesitation to give effect te her stout words must have a reason closely bearing on her militant activity in eastern Asia and future policy there. It has been plausibly suggested that Japan has contemplated abandoning her habitual antipathy to Russia. This is conceivable. Assuming that Japan is irrevocably bent on a hegemony in the Orient—every available avenue of evidence yields unqualified proof of the assumption —it is clear that she must find a modus vivendi in reference to Russia; otherwise her plans of dominance would be in constant danger of being hamstrung by a Russia far stronger than the one she once thrashed. Japan has been made to realise that the Rome-Berlin-Tokio triangle is not likely to provide more than a distant and doubtful aid in dealing with Communism ; beyond that it can pledge nothing of value in the way of an offensive and defensive alliance in the Orient, where other national interests, notably American, British and French, would dictate intervention if she pushed too far, by attempts to drive Russia off that part of the map, her plans of absolute rule. Expediency may well, therefore, furnish ground for seeking a friendly bargain with Russia, in order to get, at a price, freedom to pursue the compulsion of China to accept Japanese control. The thesis is interesting. It crumbles, however, at the sharp touch of an inescapable question. What would be Russia's price for standing aside 1 There is only one answer, dictated by history, economics and practical politics. Russia has ardently sought, and must seek until she finds, a continuously ice-free port on her Pacific littoral. Vladivostok, into whose development she has poured untold money, c&n never be that; and the alternative is in the Yellow Sea. Hence her sedulous penetration of Manchuria years ago, and her chagrin when Japan roughly ousted her army of officials in civilian occupation, and by a series of subsequent actions made their return impossible. The whole story of northern China in modern times is vitally concerned with these facts. They have an essential place in every tale of Russian bids for China's friendship. To think that Japan would pay Russia's price, by granting her a free and unhampered port in the Yellow Sea, when China is conquered with Russia's connivance, is to fly in the face of all that is known about Japan's determination to brook no such rivalry. Russia's hopes are still with China, as they were in the days of the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway, and afterward in Soviet penetration south of the Great Wall when Japan had created a puppet State northward of it. Baulked in both endeavours, first by Tokio and then by Nanking, she has steadily continued her penetration policy by way of Outer Mongolia, until the present conflict gave her a golden opportunity to get on better terms than ever with Chj'na. On which side, her interests lie in this struggle is plain. But Japan, for reasons of military strategy, dare not divert her invading, forces to the Manchurian border. Threatening words were cheap; to try by force to teach Russia another lesson would be to risk losing more than the war against China. Japan has neither the money nor the men nor the assurance of foreign support to venture upon so perilous an extension of her battle-front. Hence the news that she prefers diplomacy to force—although, for the sake of moral effect, her Foreign Office spokesman "discloses" that tho Chinese campaign will not be relaxed in the event of a Russo-Japanese war. Probably neither China nor Russia will be misled by this caveat. Even a defensive demonstration by Soviet troops on the Manchurian frontier can serve China's cause. But should Japan be impolitic enough to provoke Russia in that area, nothing is more likely than that she will have two enemies to fight.