The Daily News THURSDAY, JULY 25, 1929. CHINA AND RUSSIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 July 1929, Page 10

The Daily News THURSDAY, JULY 25, 1929. CHINA AND RUSSIA.

The game of bluff is being played quite merrily in Manchuria. Last week China and Russia were ready to spend their last ounce of treasure and sacrifice all their manhood—in words—if either country’s sovereign rights, were attacked by the other. To-day there is a less hysterical note in the statements made by either nation to the other Powers. To sluice an opponent with abuse before commencing hostilities has been an eastern habit throughout the ages. China has long held the essence of Eastern philosophy and outlook, and that she should follow tradition in warlike measures is by. no means astonishing. It used to be said that the statesmen of Western Europe could never understand Russia because they always insisted upon treating her as the most eastern of western Powers instead of the most western of eastern Powers. Her outlook was essentially that of the East. “Scratch a Russian and you find a Tartar,” was the colloquial method of referring to the admixture of Eastern blood that is found in so many of the Russian peoples. With that has come fatalism- and doggedness, and what the outcome will be when these two characteristics have been thoroughly leavened by Communism will be for history to show. But whatever Russia’s internal political upheavals her commercial interests in the East, - and particularly in Manchuria, have been regarded as vital to her interests. Whether ruled by Czar or by Soviet, the country east of Lake Baikal has always been regarded as of immense value to Russia in Europe. West of the lake the land is cold, cheerless and unsuited for settlement. Over the ranges and through Manchuria there are large tracts of country only awaiting settlement to be highly productive, and already rich in furs and minerals. From the middle of last century the idea of linking the eastern possessions by. a trans-Siberian railway was

prominent in Russia, though construction did not actually begin until 1891. Six years later it was decided to vary the plan of keeping the railway in Siberian territory, and by special treaty with China the railway route was taken through Manchuria to Vladivostock, a port that was ice free the year round. The treaty was wholly in Russia’s favour, and until the Russo-Japanese war the portion of Manchuria served by the railway was practically regarded as conquered territory, and administered as such. Japan’s victory was the first check to Imperial Russia. The peace treaty signed at Portsmouth provided for Japanese ownership of the South Manchurian railway, and with it began the challenge of Russian authority. The fall of the Russian Empire, and the bewilderment that followed, added to the ground lost by the Western Power, and the Soviet’s attempts to win back Russian prestige by propaganda have led to reprisals by China and the /present high tension. To the Chinese Manchuria has de-, veloped a new economic importance. By the work of the late Marshall Chang Tso Lin Manchuria was welded into something approaching a compact entity, with a stability that contrasted sharply with the chaos in Southern China, where civil war was apparently never-ending. As a result the Manchurian armies gained new spirit, and an exodus began of millions of settlers from the ravaged south to the fertile lands of Manchuria, where by their hard work and thrift they have transformed waste land into a productive area that has given the province of Manchuria a new economic importance. And in its political relation to China Manchuria is now more closely knit than ever before in its history. Its laws are the laws of China, and its new population has brought with it also the enormous strength of national tradition. Against this Russia can only submit treaty rights that were in .reality the fruits of conquest, and which latter-day China has refused to recognise as valid. It is a further anomaly in an extraordinary situation that it should be the Soviet which has shown.scant regard for international law, or even for former Russian compacts, that is basing a claim upon treaty rights. Judging from latest indications there will be no resort to arms, though it would not be safe to assume that this is beyond the realm of possibility. Should such a catastrophe eventuate the clash of white and yellow races might begin in earnest, the end of which no man can foresee.