Wairarapa Daily Times [Established 45 Years.] WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 1920. JAPAN’S DIPLOMATIC POLICY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 14144, 16 June 1920, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established 45 Years.] WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16, 1920. JAPAN’S DIPLOMATIC POLICY.

Hitherto Japan has- claimed that all her diplomatic relations with other countries have been based on the alliance with Britain. The assertion, often repeated in Japan, that it was for the sake of the alliance, and that reason alone,That Japan took the side of England in the recent war, may seem a little strong in. some eyes, seeing that to have taken any other attitude would have made Japan a- second Germany, with a similar destiny. Japan must, stand, or fslll with the English-speak-ing nations, and she knows it, though not always ready to admit it. But every Japanese of any intelligence knows that the rapid rise of this Empire to its present high place in the comity of nations could not have been possible in the last fifty years without the friendship of England and America. That it was any sacrifice for Japan to throw in her lot with Great Britain in the late war is very hard to see. Japan came out of the war with her national specie some six times what it was before the war, to say nothing of half as much again from shipping, the jump being from 353,000, 000 yen to 2,000,000,000 yen in specie, and about 1,200,000,000 in shipping. Not only so, but Japan has gained further influence in China and the South Seas, to say no thing of her prospects in Siberia. Some apprehend that now the war is over Japan's real war is only just beginning. A feature that.tends to vitiate nil dipolmatie relations in Japan is the age-long conviction that all treaties and alliances are based purely on scltish considerations. Every country is supposed to be bent on taking advantage of others for the sake of self-in-terest, That a country should be supposed to sacrifice itself solely for the good of another country is not expected to cut any figure in diplomacy. Might always takes advantage of right. This fact often leads to apprehension, or suspicion of ulterior motive where it does not really exist, es-

pocially in dealing with altruistic nations. And so Britain is not expected to be very onthusastic for continuaiion of the alliance, unless she can hope for some definite advantage to herself front it. It is even hinted in Japan that Britain, having got ail she could out of Japan during the war, may now have no further use for her. There appears to exist no fear that anything in Japan’s own character would militate against the advisability of continung the compact. Some important Japanese dailies aver that dapan \s adoption of British civilisation,, and the English language as her main medium for acquirement of Western knowledge, makes her desire to renew the alliance imperative. There js something in this, of course; though it is self-interest again. But to a Briton the adoption of British civilisation in Japan is a myth, for Japan has not so mueh changed her civilisation except in a material sense, and that in a. direction more German than English, Having officially rejected Christianity, the national ideals usually remain pagan, that is unaltruistic, save for ulterior motives. The strange thing is that m this Japan fancies she is one of the Englishspeaking nations. Missions and hospitals and schools are all .regarded as Western propaganda by Japan. It is this aspect of the situation that cieates grave suspicion of Japan in all the more altruistic countries.