Japan's Hand in China

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 122, 13 August 1927, Page 9

Japan's Hand in China

THOSE SECRET DEMANDS MR. WILFORD’S REVIEW (THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Friday. The diplomatic cleverness of the Japanese was mentioned in the House of Representatives to-day by Mr. T. M. Wilford, member for Hutt, who revealed the six secret clauses which Japan had inserted in the agreement she was making with China in 1916. “We are told that Japan puts all her cards on the table,” Mr. Wilford said, “but she does not do so. Japan took advantage of the period of 1915, when there was international strife and when countries were struggling together to settle their differences, to present her 21 points’ demand to China. The world knew of these 21 demands, but the world did not know of the six secret clauses in the agreement which were never published. I am going to put these six clauses on record, so that everyone will know exactly what they were.” The six secret points were outlined by Mr. Wilford as given below: (1) The Chinese Government shall employ influential Japanese advisors in political, financial and military affairs; (2) Japanese hospitals, churches and schools in the interior of China shall be granted the right to own land; (3) Insomuch as the Japanese and Chinese Governments have had many causes of dispute between the Chinese and Japanese police, the settlement of which caused no little misunderstanding, is is for this reason necessary that the police departments in important places of China shall be jointly administered by Japanese and Chinese, or that the police departments in such places shall employ numerous Japanese so that they may at the same time help to make plans for the improvement of the Chinese police service; (4) China shall purchase from Japan a fixed amount of munitions of war, say 50 per cent, or more of what is needed by the Chinese Government, or there shall be established in China a SinoJapanese jointly operated arsenal. Japanese technical experts are to be employed, and Japanese material is to be purchased. (5) China agrees to grant Japan the right to construct railways connecting Wu Chang with Kiu Kiang and Nau chang, another line between Nauchang and Hanchow, and a third between Nauchang and Chaochou; (6) If China needs foreign capital to work mines, build railways and construct harbour works, including dockyards, in the province of Fuhkien, Japan is to be first consulted. “This,” Mr. Wilford went on, “is a stronger ultimatum than was delivered by Austria to Servia in 1914. Yet it has been hidden from the world. It has never been published. America found it out, and when they did they published it in their secret diplomatic circles, and China was prevailed upon to refuse to agree to the proposals of Japan . . . All the trouble between America and Japan since then has been caused on account of this.”