THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1932. RESENTFUL CHINA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21831, 19 December 1932, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1932. RESENTFUL CHINA.

It is not surprising that China should be dissatisfied with what the League of Nations has done—or rather has not done—in relation to the Manchurian question. But the possible consequence of her discontent that is envisaged in a cabled message from Shanghai relative to the policy advocated by leading figures in the Chinese Government at an important session of the Kuomintang party at Nanking last week is rather disturbing. This policy represents an attempt to stimulate the Chinese Government to take steps to assert itself and to recover Manchuria by armed force at the first opportunity. The inability of China to secure any satisfaction through the League of Nations is emphasised, and it is argued that the only course left for her is to fight her own battle and devise means of driving out the Japanese invader. It is apparently advocated that immediate action should take the form of rushing troops and supplies to Manchuria to strengthen the sporadic resistance which Japan is still encountering there from irregular forces. The Chinese Government is also urged to assume official direction of the boycott against Japan, and to do its utmost to intensify the anti-Japanese movement throughout China. This is bold talk, but it does not follow that it will lead to action in the direction indicated. Behind it may be a desire to impress the League of Nations with a keener sense of the danger of letting matters drift. Recent experiences may have left among Kuomintang leaders a fairly strong conviction that discretion would be the better part of valour on the part of China at the present time. But there is no ground for under-rating the force of Chinese resentment at the actions of Japan and their sequel in Manchuria. That China is going to become reconciled to the existence of the State of Manchukuo and all that it represents there is no need to suppose. Brooding sullenly over he? loss, she must continue to find in Manchukuo a constant provocation to attempts to vindicate her rights in relation to the territory. The population of Manchuria is overwhelmingly Chinese, antagonism to the Japanese is rife, and the territory teems with bandits and irregulars. Competent observers do not consider it improbable that the task of sweeping away the disturbers of the peace in Manchuria, who are helped from China

proper, may prove more than Japan can accomplish unless she is prepared to go a good deal further in possessing herself of points of vantage in Chinese territory. If the Chinese Government were to exert itself to stir up resistance on a considerable scale to Japanese domination in Manchuria the Japanese Government would no doubt deem it necessary to take stronger measures than it has yet done to consolidate its position. But Japan’s economic outlook is sufficiently desperate, and the Japanese nation cannot go on indefinitely ignoring the price that must be paid for the military adventures into which its leaders have conducted it. Some writers on the Eastern situation, Dr Dillon among them, take the view that the Chinese nation is fast going to pieces, that the influence and power of the Kuoraintang party are waning, and that the whole country is breaking up and may end in some loose federation of independent States. It may be so, but the latent power of resistance of a country such as China is not to be overlooked. As regards China’s complaint against the League of Nations, the position is, of course, unfortunate. The League has certainly cut a disappointing figure in its attempts to handle the situation in the Far East. The Chinese contention that even now it is playing for time seems to be not wholly groundless. It would be a dismal climax to the League’s procedure in relation to events of which all the consequences are not yet in sight if China and Japan were both to sever their association with Geneva.