THE CRUCIAL STAGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23885, 12 August 1939, Page 14

THE CRUCIAL STAGE

CONFLICT IN FAR EAST JAPAN FACING TASK OF CONSOLIDATION AMERICAN AUTHORITY’S VIEWS SELF-CANCELLING FACTORS That the next six or nine months will be the crucial stage of the conflict in the Far' East is the opinion with which Dr William A. Johnstone, Professor of Political Science at the George Washington University. Washington. D.C., is returning to the United States after spending some months in Japan, China, the Philippines, Indo-China, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. “ Japan has won all the battles,” he said to a Daily Times reporter last evening. “ Now she Is facing the job of consolidation, and that is not a military undertaking. The method by which it should he achieved is the subject of considerable dissension among the Japanese group in China, and that is an outstanding fact which impresses itself upon an observer. At present, everything is hanging pretty much in the balance.” There was the difficulty on the Chinese side of maintaining unity, getting supplies and keeping the currency stable, which just about balanced Japan’s difficulties of overextended armies flung out over a front of fi'om 2000 to 3000 miles and of not having sufficient troops in China itself to wipe out the guerilla warfare, he said. Japan could keep the main lines and the big cities, but she had, at a conservative estimate, 350,000—-some observers said 450,000 —men in Manchuria and Mongolia kept there by Russia, and that army included some of her best troops. It was a fact that Japan was receiving very little co-operation from the Chinese in the areas supposed to be under her control, and the Chinese whom the Japanese had got to work with them were thoroughly discredited —a poor lot. Prominence of Jealousy “The Japanese invaders have no co-ordinated plans for their conquest, and the plans they do have are not very clear because of the prominence of jealousy among the leaders and business groups,” Dr Johnstone went on. “These factors on either side just about cancel themselves out at present. Virtually a stalemate has beer, reached. The Japanese cannot push into the interior and the Chinese cannot drive them out. “The course of the straggle will depend upon other factors that should develop within the next six months or so,” Dr Johnstone said. “ The currency question is most important just now. If Japan can win her point and get control of the banks in Tientsin, that will be a big point in her favour. It would undermine the confidence of the Chinese peasants in their own currency. If China should bo cut off from supplies and fail to receive ouaside help, it would be a big contribution towards the assistance Japan needs to consolidate. Just the same factors apply to the other side.” If China should get help—and Dr Johnstone spoke of the Russian loan and the Bntish-French-American common front—Japan would receive a severe setback. The stabilisation of the Chinese dollar would help China. Russia’s Interest Dr Johnstone said he had heard a lot of talk in Shanghai to the effect that the Chinese dollar would have to be allowed to slide down to a new level. What .was meant was devaluation, so that the slide could be stopped at whatever level was desired. That would be no great hardship. “If all questions of intervention or a European war are to be ruled out,” he said, “it is likely that China could maintain her territory in the west under her own control for an indefinite period,” he said. “That is, always provided there is not a complete collapse, and I could see no signs of that yet. I do not think Japan could get into the interior. Russia is definitely interested and is not likely to let China fall altogether.” Anti-British Feeling There was nothing new about the anti-British feeling that had developed so emphatically recently, Br Johnstone said. It had existed under the surface for about 18 months, and the only reason that antiAmerican feeling had not developed in the same way was fear. If America should take up a stronger attitude, it would be clearly enough shown, he thought. He had heard much talk about the benefit Japan would be able to give China by ridding her of “Western Imperialism.” There was no bluff about that, either. It was Japan’s broad objective, although there were sometimes quarrels about the way to do it. For example, certain elements disagreed with the antiBritish activities; but they were in agreement with the other factions in this main objective. “They want China for their own purposes,” he said. “The other Powers could have Japan’s leavings, if any. The evidence is all that way.” Dr Johnstone said that an extreme army groun in Japan wanted a military alliance with Germany and Italy, but there was still a big moderate group onposod to such a course on the grounds that Japan would gain nothing from Germany and Italy and lose a lot from Britain and America. That groun thought a threePower pact would be too much of an alliance against Great Britain and America and would be looked at in that light. “Of course it would be, too,” Dr Johnstone said. That opinion had been strengthened by America’s abrogation of the trade treaty with Japan. Germany and Japan “ There was nothing of isolation about that abrogation,” he said. “ There was considerable public support for it and the general attitude is that it has cleared the way for further action. Although he had discussed the position keenly with I newspapermen and all kinds of sources of information in Hongkong, he had been unable to find any direct evidence of the closeness of co-operation between Germany and Japan. The circumstance of Japa- ) nese activity when there was quiet in Europe and German action when there was a lull in the East led j easily to a broad conclusion of co-

operation: but co-operation or no co-operation, it was only logical that that should be the sequence. Any evidence that the people of Australia or New Zealand were trying to think through the problems cf the Pacific arising out of the war was given a great deal of publicity in America, Dr Johnstone concluded. Indications that the Dominion was looking ahead in its own interests and communicating its thoughts to the British Government were welcomed with warm friendliness. Many Americans thought that even if there were not to be another Washington Conference, there would have to be at least a settlement involving all the countries of the Pacific, and there was no question of America’s interest in New Zealand.

A Comprehensive Survey

Dr and Mrs Johnstone arrived in Dunedin yesterday afternoon but have time to spend only a week-end here before going north again on their way to America. They left the United States in February and have spent about a month each in Japan, North China and Manchuria, Shanghai and Hongkong, and visited the Chinese interior, known as "Free China,” South-west China, the Philippines, Indo-China, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies and Australia. “We have travelled on 15 different ships,” Dr Johnstone remarked. " and I assure you we have had enough of sea travel.” It will not be surprising if a book on the subject of America’s position and rights in the East is one of the outcomes of this comprehensive study tour.