BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 December 1942, Page 4

BLESSING IN DISGUISE

JAPANESE INVASION OF MANCHURIA PROVIDED BASIS FOR CHINESE UNITY. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT EXPEDITED. (By Guenther Stein, Special Correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor.”) CHUNGKING,' China, Sept. 19. “We are not alone any more with our original view that the “Manchurian incident” of September 18, 1931 — or rather the failure of the democracies to block Japanese aggression—marked the beginning of the second world war,” a prominent Chinese told me.

“But this is small consolation in itself and the 11 years that passed have taught us to take a positive view of that event and to regard it as a blessing in disguise. '•“It is proved now that Japan's invasion of Manchuria laid the basis for permanent Chinese unity, an aim which it might have taken us much longer to achieve without that challenge. Today. 11 years after the temporary loss of the North-eastern Provinces, China is at last unified even to the remotest borders of the North-west and the last traces,of that warlordism which hampered 1 the national defense of Manchuria in 1931 are at last completely disappearing. AGGRESSION WEAKENED. 1 ' “It is proved furthermore that Japan did not merely strengthen herself by creating a huge base of military operations in Manchuria but that this action at the same time weakened her aggressive power against China considerably, for she thus caused the Soviet Union tp build up her own strength in the Far East to such an extent that Japan has been forced ever since to tie up against this great Russian force one third or more of her total mobilisable strength. “Finally the development by Japan of Manchuria —of her transport system and especially of large mines, power plants, heavy and other manufacturing industries will.be of tremendous benefit to China as soon as Japan is crushed and the four north-eastern provinces restored to us.” The latter argument of this realistic Chinese has long been ignored. But it deserves attention at a moment when the problems of the post-war reconstruction of a completely liberated China are coming into the foreground. LASTING DEVELOPMENT. Before the Japanese invasion Manchuria was largely an agricultural country. Its mineral reserves were known but scarcely exploited because of the chronic lack of capital and machinery, of skilled engineers and workers and because of unstable political conditions. In the meantime Japan has exported to Manchuria billions worth of her best machinery accompanied by thousands of her best engineers and skilled workers and forced millions of Chinese to help in the execution of her ambitious plans of industrialisation. The greatest heavy industrial concerns in Japan were pressed by the powerful “Kwantung Army,” the forces of occupation in Manchuria, to lend their services, to ignore all considerations of possible Manchurian competition with their own factories at home and to assist in turning “Manchukuo” into a great arsenal. Firms in the engineering, chemical and other manufacturing industries as well as banks were similarly forced to invest in the Manchurian venture although it was never popular with Japanese business men. Industrial plants in Japan which suffered from lack of rationed raw materials and nrofitable sales opportunities were boldly transferred to Manchuria and the “Kwantung Army,” not satisfied with the creation of a great arsenal for itself, succeeded in extorting from Japan the means for building up a virtually complete industrial kingdom of its own. ARMY ECONOMISTS. The efficient South Manchuria Railway Company which had been the spearhead of earlier Japanese penetration in Manchuria and until some time after the “incident” the virtual ruler of Japanese controlled railroads, ports, industries, commerce and labour in Manchuria was gradually submitted to the will of the “Kwantung Army,” and sporadic attempts from Tokio at reviving the influence of efficient capitalistic concerns in order to check the army economists always ended with compromise and relapse into army rule. But all this did not prevent the tremendous investments of a full decade and the reckless exploitation of millions of Chinese .labourers from resulting in considerable achievement. The so-called “Japanese-Manchurian Joint Economic Council” in its five year plan for 1937 to 1941 aimed at the following annual production figures by 1941 which will probably have been approximated, if not actually reached in 1941—35,500,000 tons of coal against an output of 26,000,000 tons in 1940, 12,000,000 tons of iron ore, 4,850,000 tons of pig iron, 2,500,000 tons of steel. SHALE OIL PRODUCTION. Other data are not available, but it is known that the production of crude oil and gasoline from the vast oil shale deposits at Fushun carried on with the most modern machinery has made considerable progress, that copper, lead and other metals are mined and refined in sizable quantities, that, large engineering plants have been set un, and that not only chemical and other manufacturing industries but their own Jocal raw material resources have been developed on a fairly larae scale and oh a basis of efficiency equal to the highest Japanese standards. It is possible that the Japanese when they have to retreat from Manchuria will do much damage to industrial plants especially if they are not warned in time that all destruction will have to be made good from equipment in Japan. It may also be expected that some of the industries they have built up in Manchuria for purely military purposes and without consideration of normal profitability cannot survive competition after the war. Yet in spite of all this there can be no doubt that the industrial development of Manchuria during the years of Japanese occupation will be of enormous value to China after victory. The new mines, railways, and ports will more or less survive the ravages of the last stages of the war and prpve valuable in the future. Manchuria has been more and more isolated from China during the last few years, but reports about the situation are still coming in. They speak of even more reckless exploitation of Chinese labour, the growing dissatisfaction with Japanese rule even among those who became Japanese puppets in 'civilian as well as military services, the survival and continued anti-Japan-ese activities of several tens of thou-, sands of “volunteers” or guerillas in the remote mountainous regions, of the gradual disappearance of party differences among the varied groups of patriots and of slowly growing antiJananese organisations in towns and cities which may come to play a considerable role if a Japanese attack on the Soviet should once more bring the war to Manchuria.