FAR EAST CRISIS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 2, 3 July 1939, Page 8

FAR EAST CRISIS

THE POLICY OF BRITAIN

JAPANESE COLLAPSE

EXPECTED

PLAYING FOR TIME

(By "Senex.")

The crisis in the Far East once more emphasises the moderation of Britain in dealing with the successive attempts of Japan to conquer China, and throws into relief the general policy of the British Government of not embarking on any line of action which would result in the formation of a solid front against it. The key to the attitude which has been adopted towards Japan is to be found in the strongly-held belief (now, perhaps, not in its first bloom) that Japan would strangle herself in the attempt to achieve that conquest anyway, and also in the fact that, above; all things, Britain does not desire to be left with a two-hemisphere war on her hands if she can avoid it. Japan is a great deal nearer to China than Britain is, and in plain language, British interests in China are no longer defensible. Since those / interests are estimated at a minimum of £200,000,000 sterling, they are worth swallowing one's pride to retain. And since the whole policy of Japan in the Far East has been one of humiliating and browbeating all the Western Powers, and also the United States, the Tientsin incident cannot be said to have mark- j ed a departure from past; behaviour j except in so far as it is on a larger scale. For some time past it has been clearly perceived by all jobservers on the spot. NO ROOM FOR THE WEST. The "new order" in China, or at least in the Japanese-controlled portions of it, apparently has no room for the West. It is being marked off as a Japanese preserve. And that means the trade with it is also to go to Japan which will not only be un- j pleasant for the Western Powers, but will help to make China pay for the war. In this respect the Japanese have played into the hands of their enemies. For a great deal of Chinese strategy; has been based on the belief that sooner or later the invaders would commit themselves to a line of action which would bring them into conflict with the Powers owning treaty rights in China. The stubborn defence of Shanghai, which might with advantage have been abandoned sooner, and thus made it possible to conserve valuable trained units, was in large part due to the foreign interests there, which it was expected the Japanese would damage and which they did damage. What the Chinese did not foresee was a progressive deterioration of the position in Europe which would tie the hands of the Western democracies more than they might otherwise have been tied, and the growing feeling that a war of defence is one thing but a war of protection of foreign investments is quite another. A BRAKE ON ACTION. Only because Of this feeling, very strongly present in -both the United States and Britain, is it possible to such incidents as the deliberate bombing of the Panay and the Tientsin blockade to fail to produce an imI mediate explosion. In the case of the Panay, it is true, the Japanese made abject apology 4, paid a large indemnity, and might have heard their Ambassador at Washington make a broadcast which was almost tearful. The "second Government" of Japan, the men at the head of the armed forces, had here gone too far. But in the case of the Tientsin affair the "second Govern-! ment" apparently has been empowered to deal with; the situation and understands only one thing,, that in China foreign Powers continue to yield their rights before high-handed action on the part of the invaders. British long-range policy in the Far East, then, is due to the belief that the subjugation of China by Japan is something of such dimensions that even a Power of Japan's organising ability will not be able to carry it out, that the result will be an economic and financial state of affairs from which Japan will be able to emerge only with foreign assistance, and that this assistance will be granted only at the cost of recognition of the treaty rights in China which are now denied over and over again. A DECISION SHELVED. This belief, of course, presupposes a staying power on the part of China which is perhaps over-estimated in view of the power of aerial bombardment. But it enables Britain to pursue a policy which gives credits to. China while not being anti-Japanese, and to shelve the persistent infraction of her treaty rights in China until a time which it is hoped will be more favourable. Also, of course, there is the motive of avoiding any possibility of an open clash with Japan which would throw her into alignment with Germany. In this case, Britain's policy is exactly similar to that pursued in the course of the Italo-Turkish conflict in Tripoli in 1912. At that juncture Turkey approached Britain and the British Government refused to moye because it did not want to confirm Italy in the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria. That policy of temporising paid before the World War, and may it not be that a similar policy will succeed today? That, at least, is the philosophy behind the British policy. And, to be realistic, there are difficulties in the way of action against Japan even if Britain was free to take it. The only effective weapons she could bring to bear would be to reinforce the Chinese armies with her own troops, an awkward and costly business, and the employment of longrange blockade of western-bound Japanese transport. NEEDS AMERICAN AID. By operating from Singapore she could exert considerable pressure on Japanese commerce,' but a mid-Pacific blockade is not open to her unless she has the use of the United States naval base at Pearl Harbour. There have been persistent reports of an understanding between the United States and Britain which might give the British Admiralty this base in wartime, but nothing official has been disclosed. In addition, Britain's direct trade with Japan is small—her imports from Japan were only £9,000,000 in 1938, and her exports to Japan only £2,000,000. The colonial empire, of course, and the self-governing Dominions and India, swell these totals considerably. The exact figures are not available, but before the treaty with Egypt was signed, and before the Chinese war caused changes in 'Japanese trade, the British Empire used to take about one-quarter of the products that Japan shipped abroad and export to her about one-fifth the produce she imported. Those figures mean something in the. nature of a powerful weapon if Britain, ever decides that pressure must be applied. And they serve to give some support to the claim of Dr. Wellington Koo that Japan would be amenable to pressure lof the sort she understands.