CHINA AND JAPAN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 299, 10 May 1913, Page 10

CHINA AND JAPAN

A XEW EXTEXTE. MISSION OF DlFsi-N YAT SEX. POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENT PTTHK FAR EAST. Shanghai, .March ,2. The absorbing subject of interest in the Far East to-day is Dr. Sun Vat Sen's visit to Japan. Indeed, nothing more fraught with great possibilities for the future has happened since China was a Republic. Dr. Sun is making an almost royal progress through Japan. Special trains are put at his disposal, enthusiastic crowds await his arrival at every town, and his days are an unending round of receptions and conferences with bankers, Board of Trade officials and Ministers. With the people of Japan Dr. Sun's popularity is easily explained. Among them ho planned much of that hidden movement which culminated in a mighty revolution, and to them lie stands as ail emblem of those democratic ideals to which the Japanese nation is itself struggling against, the barriers of bureaucracy and feudalism. But some deeper reason must be sought for the readiness of Dr. Sun's reception with the governing classes of Tokio.

A HINT FROM TOKIO. In point of fact, there is ground for believing that when first the visit was mentioned, Dr. Sun received a plaint hint from Tokio that his presence was not desired. The bureaucrats feared the probable effect of a visit from the champion of democracy upon the mob and Constitutionalists of the House of Representatives. All of a sudden, however, this veto was withdrawn, and Dr. Sun's visit has not only been welcomed, but prolonged beyond the time first fixed for its duration. . The reason for this change of demeanor is that Dr. Sun goes as the accredited envoy of President Yuan Shih Kai to take soundings—it need not be put more definitely than that as yet—with a view to a commercial and political entente between China and Japan. To take first China's point of view. That Dr. Sun runs a great risk in undertaking (if he did not actually originate) such work cannot be gainsaid. The Chinese, even many "of those now in authority who were trained in Japan, dislike the Japanese, with all that common antipathy which one nation feels for another that is like itself in many ways and yet not like, which has copied from itself, in some respects has improved, has succeeded where the prototype has failed. CHINESE MISTRUST OF JAPAN.

j Moreover, Chinese statesmen mistriist Japan. She championed Korea against China, took it away from her, and annexed it. She drove Russia out of Southern Manchuria and stayed there herself. Finally she has entered into an entente with Russia, her late foe. Yet, at the beginning of a new regime, China may well feel that she cannot afford to hug old jealousies and suspicions. The worse her relations are with Russia over Mongolia—and they are well nigh desperate—the more urgent' it is for her to be on good terms with Japa.'i. Financially she sees difficult days ahead. It is all important for her to luiake friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, to gain a trusty ally in the Six-Power combination: Finally, China and Japan are near neighbors, mutually good customers, and by temperament ) more capable of understanding each other than any two other nations. In all probability Dr. Sun sees this more clearly than most of the countrymen, but there is good reason to.suppose that he- lias convinced the President at least. ' THE CASE FOR JAPAN.. 1 On the Japanese side the ease for an ; entente with China is even stronger, as- I suming, as there is no doubt they do, that Japanese statesmen look far enough ahead. If Japan had had her way, the Powers would have intervened to keep the Manehus on the Throne as Constitutional Monarchs. I believe it is undis- < puted that Japan proposed as much to Great Britain, and was dissuaded by her. With the establishment of the Republic two alternative possibilities were to be faced. Either China would go to pieces, the victim of undisciplined finance, and | then it would certainly be well for Japan to be on good terms with the remnant of constituted authority in China. But this contingency is not probable. Small evidence as can be found in China today of organised government, the country can go on drifting as it is almost indefinitely, provided no trouble comes from without: and little by little some kind of government will be evolved, after the usual Chinese fashion, of adapting external notions to its own genius, which will suit the people. Thus we come to the other alternative, that, sooner or later, China must develop into something that she has never been before. The immensity of her natural wealth, the thrift and industry of her people—the men on the land —are factors for a growth that cannot be kept down. Crude and impracticable as are the enthusiasms of the student doctrinaires who misrule China to-day, they have touched hidden springs in the life of China which will move in spite of them. I ' MUTUAL ASSISTANCE.

Looking to that result, it is no exaggeration to say that China becomes an economic necessity to Japan, who, with the poverty and tiny area, could not dream of competing with a reformed and awakened China. If, therefore, Japan could not avert the Republic, her only course is to endeavor to mould it hv making friends with it on practical lines of mutual assistance. It is noticeable that of late Japanese publicists have dropped criticising the fact or working of the Republic, to agree that China, has a perfect right to decide what form of government she shall have, and to lay emphasis on the fact that 22 per cent, of all Japans' foreign trade is absorbed by her great neighbor.

As Dr. Sun Yitt Sen runs a risk in the present enterprise, so does Japan. What the Powers would say to the prospect of China's wealth and industry befriended, shaped and exploited by Japan is easily imagined. On the other hand. Japanese statesmen might well prefer to make sure of a profitable friendship with one near and important neighbor, rather than hold by the uncertain goodwill of live more or less remote Powers, a majority of whom certainly regards her as an alien. This article is not written to awake a new form of the Yellow Peril bogey. Japan has very good reasons for not appearing aggressive. Nor is the proposed entente likely to materialise to-day or to-morrow. But both Dr. Sun Yat Sen and his Japanese hosts are accustomed to look farther ahead than that, and the probable trend of events drives the two countries together,