The Timaru Herald. TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1939 JAPANESE POLICY IN THE ORIENT.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21323, 18 April 1939, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1939 JAPANESE POLICY IN THE ORIENT.

Although the inspired Nazi news sheets are attempting to torpedo President Roosevelt’s message to the Dictators of Europe with the same old Bolshevism ammunition, the plain fact remains that enlightened opinion throughout the world has long since come to the conclusion that the “Red” menace has been invariably paraded as a cover for the real objective of unashamed aggression. In the Orient, for example, Japan has made the Communist movement in China, which has never been any menace to her, and which the Nanking Government itself fought until the principle of class war was renounced by the Red leaders, a rather flimsy pretext to cover Nippon’s designs upon China’s territorial integrity. The Chinese, however, know something of the sinister tactics their neighbours pursue. For long years the Chinese spokesmen have professed readiness to co-operate with Japan on terms of equality and reciprocity. Moreover, official opinion in China denies that Chinese popular antipathy to Japan has any other source than the resentment provoked by the harsh and domineering policy of the Nipponese. On the other hand, the Chinese spokesmen accuse the Japanese militarists of creating Sino-Japanese incidents as a basis for further demands, and they assert that the root cause of the conflict is the insatiable ambition of the Japanese military party and its hatred and obstruction of the progress which China was making towards political unification. It is even being suggested that Japanese agents actually fostered the “Red” elements in China in the hope of creating disturbances in Chinese territory involving Japanese interests and sometimes damaging to Japanese prestige. It is interesting to observe that the policy of Nippon in the Orient bears a striking similarity to the plans laid by Germany and Italy in neighbouring countries in which they seek territorial gains:

China, it is claimed, has made unavailing concessions to Japan during the last few years. The more she gave the more was demanded of her. When after an attack on her economic existence bj’ the organised smuggling which started in 1935, on her territorial integrity by the raids into the Inner Mongolian provinces, and on her administrative integrity by the attempts by the Japanese military to create an autonomous State in North China, she was required to allow foreign armies to come and go freely within Chinese territory, while the Chinese Army must abide by imposed restrictions and allow others to fire on Chinese soldiers who might not return the fire.

It was here that the die was cast, the limits of endurance had been reached, largely by Japan’s own subversive aud domineering tactics, within the boundaries of her peaceloving neighbours, and the Chinese nation was brought to a point where the leaders and people had to resort to armed resistance or renounce China’s existence as an independent State.