CHINA AND JAPAN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 204, 2 October 1909, Page 4

CHINA AND JAPAN.

I "COMPREHENSIVE DISTRUST." A Pekin correspondent, in n letter dated 19th July, says that Japan is uuwj regarded by China with a comprehensive distrust that is most disquieting. This is shown, for one thing, in a large 1 reduction in the number of Japanese employed in China. Not long ago theic were more than one thousand—in coj- ; leges, in electric companies, 011 railways, etc. Now there are less than four 'Hundred. The number of Chinese being educated in Japan has fallen in three years from twenty thousand to about live thousand. The questions in dispute aru many. There is tlio Fa-ku-inenn railway, of which much has been heard, to begin with. Then there is the Yaiu forestry dispute. A Chinese-Japanese company has the right to buy at its own price all timber floated down the Yalu to Alllung. Of tile three million dollars capital, the Chinese claim that they have subscribed their half, hut that tiie Japanese have paid up only 107,000 dollar.-, and ar e insisting that towards the •a, ance tnerc sliall be counted the stocks of timber sequestrated by tile military before the signing of the agreement. There is a dispute over the AutungMukdeu railway, built duijjng the war on laud for which no compensation was claimed. Protest against this injustice is the real reason of China's opposition to the rebuilding of the railway with standard gauge along a new trae':. Japan has the right to ''improve" the railway, hut this, China says, docs not give her the right to rebuild it. Chii.a also contests Japan's claim to police the railway. So disputes continue. Everything Japan does is wrong' in China's* eyes. Each country protests against the unreasonableness of the other, and contradictory statements on question of fact i are made at almost every point at issue.j Hotli countries say they desire a settlement, which should, therefore, not be I i:\voud the scope of friendly diplomacy. prosperous trade with China 16 essenJapan's economic development. '■ "niiiii believes that delay is less dis advantageous to her than to Japan. She realises that while Japan has greater power, China has a capacity for resisting what she regards as injustice whieli is almost as mighty as arms and infinitely less costly. In Korea, in a spirit of friendliness, Japan has offered to revive in Chemulpo Fu-'san, and Won-san the Chinese settlements which lapsed during the Chine. Japan war. The Chinese decline the alter; they object to Japanese policing -lie settlements; they object to tile form jf lease. Trouble is pending ove v tin Korean fisheries. For years Chinese lave carried on fisheries along the coast )f Korea between the Yalu and Chi-nan-i to and as far down as Mok-pho; but .lie,y have no treaty right to fish in the erritorial waters of Korea, and will lave to discontinue. Japan offers rft irrange a reciprocal treaty—Chinese to ish off the coast of Korea", Japanese to ish off the adjacent coast of China—but ,he Chinese refuse, and there is certain 0 lie conflicts between the rival fishim.')oats. i