IMPERIAL JAPAN

Taranaki Daily News, 7 September 1935, Page 18 (Supplement)

IMPERIAL JAPAN

SWIFT ADVANCE MADE IN 70 YEARS. MASTERY OF EAST OBJECTIVE. The news from the East is disturbing, and it is clear that Japan is determined to control Chinese territory as far south as the Yellow River, says the Children’s Newspaper. After occupying Manchuria and changing it into the puppet State of Manchukuo Japan advanced west and south, apparently aiming at the control of much of the great territory north of the Great Wall of China, which runs from Kansu Province for 1400 miles east to the sea at Shan-hai-Kwan in Chihli Province. The Japanese also demanded that China should cease defending a zone south of the Great Wall, and China complied with the demand. Next Japan alleged that China was actively opposing the Japanese in the demilitarised zone and in Manchukuo by encouraging bandits to attack the Japanese forces. Accordingly Japan is threatening a new advance to Peking itself and south to Tientsin. This would entail the suppression of the power of the Chinese Nationalist Government in all the wide area north of the Yellow River. The Chinese Nationalist Government has its capital far south at Nanking. If this were effected Japan would become master of an expanse of Chinese territory enormously greater than Manchuria. We may remind ourselves of the marveUous history of Japanese expansion since in 1859 she opened her ports to foreign trade. In 1867 the last of the Shoguns (the real kings of Japan for centuries, while the emperors had been merely shadows) laid down his power. After civil war the Imperial dynasty was restored, and Japan by 1871 had begun to remodel her institutions on those of the West. In 1874 she sent ships and men to Formosa, east of China, to punish its people for killing Luchu islanders. In 1895 she defeated China in a war fought for the independence of Korea, and incidentally gained Formosa. The Japanese and Chinese had as long ago as 1592 fought bitterly .over Korea. After despoiling Korea the Japanese withdrew, to return three centuries later. Then followed for Korea a period of desperate conflict, complicated by the rivalry of Japan, China and Russia. After defeating China in 1895 Japan demanded the cession of the Liaotung peninsula in South Manchuria. Russia, France and Germany, however, compelled her to leave Manchuria; Russia then obtained from China a long lease of the Liaotung peninsula (from which Japan had been compelled to retire) and threatened to absorb both Manchuria and Korea. Japan declared war on Russia in 1904, and astonished the world by swiftly and utterly defeating her great adversary. That defeat changed the relations of Europe and Asia./ So Japan gained her footing in South Manchuria, obtained possession of the South Manchurian Railway, and was free to subdue and annex Korea, which she did formally in 1910. The conquest of all Manchuria has followed, and from Manchuria the Japanese forces have now pushed on to the virtual subjection of North China. Russia is profoundly interested in the latest developments, but is unable to intervene, for she fears the new power of Germany. Thus the swift and serious movements of Japan in the Far East have a profound influence upon the European situation.