JAPAN’S PLAN.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20543, 19 February 1935, Page 1

JAPAN’S PLAN.

Warning Issued to Britain. LORD LOTHIAN’S CALL. CHINA WILL BE ABSORBED IF NATIONS DO NOT MOVE. United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyrignt. (Received February 19, 12.45 p.m.) LONDON, February 18. “ Japan hopes to face the world with a fait accompli in China analogous to Manchukuo at the expiry of her two years’ notice of denunciation of the Washington Treaty,” says Lord Lothian in a letter to “ The Times.” He adds: “Japan is tearing up the Washington treaties and nullifying the integrity of the China Open Door under the Nine Power Treaty.

“ China does not want Japan to absorb her. She wants to stand on her own legs without foreign control. The British Empire, the United States, France and Russia can more effectively help her than the Japanese. “ I urge Britain, without awaiting the arrival of the Empire Prime Ministers, to mobilise the other Nine Power signatories ‘to decide whether Japan will be allowed to repeat in China on a gigantic scale the whole policy of veiled annexation already carried out in Manchukuo.” The Foreign Office says that it is watching the position closely. A Nine-Power meeting at present could not be contemplated. The authorities admit that the situation is interesting, but there is a tendency to regard Lord Lothian as slightly pessimistic. The dispatches which so far have reached Whitehall in connection with the Sino-Japanese conversations do not carry the position as far as Lord Lothian, nevertheless Britain clearly shares the belief of General Smuts and Lord Lothian that the situation in the Pacific is becoming dangerous. The Japanese are flouting the Open Door, but British policy in the Far East is most indefinite. There is the strongest desire to retain Japanese friendship, but simultaneouslj r there is the realisation that Japanese activities challenge all Western interests.