“GREAT RED BEAR”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 254, 26 October 1937, Page 7

“GREAT RED BEAR”

Russia Basic Cause of Chinese War FORCES OF COMMUNISM A MISTAKEN ATTITUDE [ i’er Press Association.! WELLINGTON, Oct. 21. “Japan secs most clearly that in the present struggle in the Far East she is really lighting, not against China or Chiang Kai-shek only, but against the vast forces of Communism,” said Mr Bunshirow Suzuki, prominent Japanese journalist, at present visiting Wellington. He stated that Japan was activated more by fear of Russia than by any actual desire to light with China. “Soviet Russia, like a great Red bear, stands with one paw in Vladivostock and one menacing Manchukuo, and its back feet firmly planted in China, ready to jump upon little Japan,” he said. China had mistaken Japan’s attitude, which was most conciliatory and generous, and that was actually the immediate cause of the trouble. The Japanese attitude had been well expressed by Mr Naotake Sato, former Foreign Minister. When he was recalled from his position as Ambassador to France, to assume the portfolia of Foreign Affairs in General Hayashi’s newly-formed Cabinet last year, he made a speech in the Diet which outlined a most liberal and conciliatory foreign policy, specially in its aspect to China. But the Chinese took that statement to be a declaration of weakness on Japan’s part, and ever since the Chinese attitude to Japan had been anything but decent. The attitude was attributed in Japan to their confidence that Soviet Russia would be constantly behind them, and perhaps there .vas some truth in it.

Never before had China and Russia been friendly to the present degree. They had completed a non-aggression pad; but such a pact was hardly necessary. When the Chinese revolution took place 25 years ago, it was not wholly successful; indeed, the new Government’s territory was restricted to Canton city and suburbs. Eventually, by the aid of Russian money and advice, it extended its influence, and so prevalent was Russian assistance that at one time China looked very like becoming a Communist country. Chiang Kai-shek was one of the leaders of the revolution who did perceive the danger of Russian help an.i subsidy, and the essential threat oi Communism itself. But he was unable to eliminate Communism in the whole of China, and in the far-off countries to the west and north-west lemained Chinese Communist leaders who banded their followers into the powerful Red armies, against which Chiang Kai-shek was fighting right up to 1935. In that year he made a truce with them and turned his attention to Japan. The Reds were happy to see Chiang Kai-shek go to war with Japan. They were confident he would not emerge victorious. It was Russia’s great interest to see him engaging the attention of the Japanese, because it would at the same time sap the man-power of Japan.

If there had been any talk of war in the East in the last seven or eight years, it was of a Russian-Japanese war. So strongly had such a war been lumoured and expected, and such had been the tension, that all but the best-informed Japanese fully expected it to have broken out long ago. The relations between Japan and China had always been far better than between Japan and Russia. Japan had had no wish to go to war with China, she would have preferred to gain her ends by peaceful penetration. All she wanted was freedom for her trade there to expand. But now she had been forced into a war which from her point of view was most inopportune.

“If Japan really wished to conquer China, she would certainly first have straightened out her difference with Russia,” said Mr Suzuki. “But China is unconquerable. She is too vast. Even if she were conquered, it would take an army of occupation of 1,000,000 men to maintain order there. All talk of Japan’s wanting to conquei China and establish a gigantic Asiatic hegemony in the East is utter nonsense. Not Fully Mobilised “Japan has not mobilised her full strength for this war. When I left Japan I observed everywhere military forces, but they were composed oi men of 40 and 50—they were the country’s last reserve. I questioned one of the generals about it, and h? laughed, and replied, “We cannot waste our best troops on a fight witn China. We must withhold our right i hand.” Japan is holding in reserve her youngest and most vigorous soldiers, the flower of her manhood That shows how systematically Japan is preparing for the war that must surely come with Russia. Meantime Russia is waiting for Japan to exhaust her man-power and her resources. “The fundamental cause of the Russian-Japanese trouble is the conflict of Communism and Japanese nationalism. As in other countries, Soviet agents, emissaries of the Third International, have ever been active in Japan, spreading the doctrine ol Communism among the people, with *he idea of eventually affecting a revolution.” Japan had established Manchukuo wholly as a buffer State between herself and Russia. She did it to avoid three Ihings—the conflict of opposea ideas, clashes along the frontier, ana jeopardy of Japanese fishing rights along that coast. What Japan really wanted was unrestricted outside trade. With het vast population she had to make her country into one big factory. Already she had to a great extent succeedea in so doing. But she had small natural resources, and relied for her raw materials on external trade. She needed free access to these sources of supply and free access, unrestricted by tariff barriers, to world markets for her products. As long as she could pursue her industrial activities uninterrupted she would never be troubled by an increase of 1,000,000 a year, even on top of her present population of 80,000,000. Anti-Japanese Propaganda That was Japan’s policy—the only one that had been allowed her by the policy of British and other countries which had shut their doors against Japanese immigration. She was too proud to beg admission where she

was unwanted. But she must be allowed freedom of trade. At present Britain was endeavouring by a worldwide propaganda campaign to encourage boycotting of Japan. She was driving her toward a military treaty with Italy and Germany, other antiCommunist countries. Reports of the high mortality of Chinese civilians and other accounts of war atrocities in China were greatly exaggerated. They had to be greatly discounted. Deaths that were reported to be thousands had in many, cases been shown not even to be hundreds. The Chinese were pastmasters of propaganda—and so were the British. He had interviewed one of the foremost generals of the German High Command at the close of the world war, and had been told: “It was not the battles that decided the war, it was the Northcliffe Press.” Asked how much truth there was in the commonly advanced theory that Japan casts covetous eyes on the Pacific Islands and Australia ana New Zealand’s empty territories, Mr Suzuki replied that, like other countries, and like Germany and Italy, Japan would welcome such opportunities of expansion if her people were freely and friendly accepted; but she would certainly never contemplate taking them at the cost of war with Britain, and the obvious difficulty of retaining them. She had formerly sent 50,000 immigrants yearly to Brazil, but the numbers had since been restricted. Still, however, several thousand went there yearly. The British countries, however, haa elected to close the door, and the only policy left to Japan was to concentrate on the expansion of her industries. Morality between nations, he concluded, had not advanced as had the other manifestations of civilisation, and in international dealings the nations were still barbarians.