An Armistice in China.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20489, 7 March 1932, Page 8

An Armistice in China.

It is more than a coincidence that the formal cessation of hostilities in the Shanghai area and the setting up of an independent State in Manchuria should have been announced in the cable news on the same day. The Nanking Government has already expressed the opinion that the Shanghai campaign was intended to distract attention from Manchuz'ia, and the fact that the new Manchurian State has for its chief executive a Japanese nominee, and that it has already signed a 20,000,000 yen contract with a Japanese railway company, confirms this view: It may be assumed, therefore, that unless the Chinese military leaders behave provocatively, which they may do, the unofficial war which has been going on for six months is now at an end. And if this is the case, it is a peace without honour to anyone. In defiance, first' of the League Council, and then of the Powers acting in con-, cert, Japan has driven the forces of the former dictator of Manchuria, Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang, beyond the Great Wall into China proper, putting in his place a man who has for years been under Japanese protection. Her excuse for this step is hinted at in her note to the League Council of December 27th last, when she stated that "the "desertion of the' Chinese local autho- " rities " would have made an evacuation of Manchuria " a breach of duty." The plain yeaning of this, as the Economist has pointed out, is that the Japanese "first created a political " vacuum by destroying ( or evicting "such Chinese administrative organisations as there were in Manchuria '" before the Japanese operations, and "now point to the existence of the " vacuum, which they themselves have "just created, as an imperative reason "for filling the void." The real reason for Japan's action is hef failure to segregate Manchuria from the Nationalist movement, which has a strong anti-Japanese bias. In 1931 Manchuria was for the first time under a Government more friendly to' China than to Japan, and Japan felt that nothing less than direct action could safeguard her interests. This opportunity came last September. China was weakened by a split in the Nationalist movement and by a Communist rising in Kiangsi, while the rest of the world was in a state bordering on financial panic owing to Britain's departure irom gold. Japan has therefore repeated her tactics of 1915, but with this difference, that she has been careful not to overreach herself. The TwentyOne Demands, if successful, would have

made China virtually a Japanese protectorate, an arrangement which the Powers could not acquiesce in; so Japan has concentrated on detaching from China the region in which her most important interests are concentrated. For the moment she lias succeeded, and the Powers,' their hands still tied by economic difficulties, have no option but to accept a fait accompli. But not even the Japanese themselves will imagine that the present settlement in Manchuria is permanent. The uucfficial warfare between China and Jitpan has reunited the Nationalist movement, intensified its hostility to Japan, and shown that it has unexpected reserves of military strength. Sooner or later, unless international action can prevent it, the struggle over Manchuria will be reneAved, and Japan may then regret that she has given the world an excuse for forgetting that her interests there are legitimate .find vital.