THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, September 30, 1936. JAPAN AND CHINA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22999, 30 September 1936, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, September 30, 1936. JAPAN AND CHINA

The relations between Japan and China have long presented a curious study of aggression on the one hand and more or less passive resistance on the other. The aim of Japanese policy is to keep moving on to the destruction of all resistance to the growth of her influence in China. Her ambition is to guide the future development of Eastern Asia. In any effort made by the Chinese to develop their economy independently, or in co-operation with some other nation, Japan sees an attempt to hinder the fulfilment of her own “ manifest destiny ” on the Asiatic mainland. Close economic and political co-operation' between Japan, China and Manchukuo is regarded as essential to this great development. Manchukuo is a puppet State, but China has her own views, and therefore must be subjected to pressure. According to the Shanghai correspondent of the Manchester Guardian the Japanese Ambassador has now presented/to the Chinese Government—that is to say, the Central Government at Nanking of which General Chiang Kai-shek is head—a number of fresh demands. As demands upon her neighbour constitute the common expression of policy of Japan the formulation of a new series is no particular novelty. But in their character those now said to have been presented are bold enough to provide striking illustration of Japan’s assertiveness where China is concerned. .In the first place autonomy is required for the five northern Chinese provinces. This has been for some time an undisguised Japanese ambition. More than a year ago the original plan for the five provinces was promulgated, with the pretence that it was based on a spontaneous Chinese movement for autonomy. But the programme somehow broke down, probably because it would have been necessary for its success for Japan to employ forces on a large scale, which, in China proper, is against the policy of Tokio. On the ruins of the five-province scheme the Japanese managed to erect, however, a two-province arrangement for Hopei and Chahar. But this is linked with the ultimate conceptions that were.behind the plan for the five provinces, and the full scheme now reappears in the demands presented by the Japanese Ambassador at Nanking. As it happens, loss of control of Northern China must mean for the Central Government loss of control over a proportion of the country’s more important resources. Another of the demands, it is stated, is for the economic cooperation of China with Japan. Cooperation of this nature represents an aspiration on Japan’s part which has been freely interpreted as the privilege of exploitation. Further, and more significantly, Japan is said to require that she be conceded the right to station troops at various points along the Yangtse, and to have intimated that'there must be Japanese supervision of Chinese schools in order that all antiJapanese propaganda may be eradicated. These latter demands point to an increasing element of assertiveness in the Japanese policy, and, if conceded, would spell the end of China’s' independence and her admission of Japan’s suzerainty. It is not surprising that it should be reported that the Chinese Government has politely intimated to the Japanese Ambassador that the proposals are not acceptable. The opinion seems to have been commonly entertained that the present year would be one of crisis for China, and in the matter of Japanese aggression the position wears sufficiently that complexion. The Chinese Government has been told during the past year that the situation is such that China must choose, between mutual interdependence or war with Japan. As China’s military strength is not such as could be expected to prevail in a contest with Japan, the course adopted by her Centra] Government will doubtless continue to be that of carrying the avoidance of conflict to the last possible point at which non-resist-ance, as distinct from surrender to Japanese aggression, serves any purpose.