JAPAN-CHINA: Protectorate by Force

To the world Press last week went a photograph of a small, solemn baby just four months old. It was the first official portrait of His Celestial Highness Tsugu-no-Miya Akihito, Crown Prince of Japan (see cut). That this sober infant may inherit an empire as great as it is venerable, Japan’s ministers last week risked once more the world’s wrath.

Tokyo’s Eiji Amau is a Japanese of distinction. He has very curly hair parted in the middle and he is that useful anonymity referred to in cable dispatches as “a Foreign Office spokesman.” Last week Spokesman Amau assembled most of the foreign correspondents in Tokyo and announced in careful, precise English what was instantly recognized as the most important statement of Japanese policy in the Far East since the famed 21 Demands imposed on China by Japan in 1915. Excerpts :

“Japan is endeavoring to maintain and enhance friendly relations with foreign nations, but Japan considers that, to keep peace and order in East Asia, she must act single-handed and on her own responsibility. Japan considers that no other country except China is in a position to share that responsibility. . . .

“Japan will oppose any attempt of China to avail herself of the influence of some other country to repel Japan . . . and also will oppose any effort by China to resist foreigners by bringing other foreigners to bear against them.

“Japan expects foreign nations to give consideration to the special situation created by the Manchuria and Shanghai incidents, and to realize that technical or financial assistance to China must attain political significance. . . .

“For example, supplying China with war planes, building airdromes and detailing military, instructors or advisers to China, or contracting a loan to provide funds for political uses. . . . Japan will oppose such projects.

“Japan is at present in a position to maintain peace in the Far East and does not need the help of others. If the League of Nations should take concerted action in China having political significance, it would be objectionable to us.

“If foreign efforts to disturb peace in Asia are backed forcefully, Japan herself may be compelled to resort to force.”

Correspondents streaked for their offices. Here was not only the thing for which they had long been waiting—an open declaration of a Japanese Monroe Doctrine, a moral protectorate over China —but also a statement of definite complaints against certain powers, chiefly Germany, the U. S., Italy, France.

In China last week was a crisp, white-mustached old gentleman who is one of the world’s greatest military organizers. General Hans von Seeckt almost alone built the German Reichswehr up in the years following the Armistice into the most efficient small army in the world. In 1926 he was forced from the Reichswehr command—because his organizing abilities were embarrassing Germany’s peace & reconciliation policy. Never fond of Hitler, whose 1923 Putsch he put down, his widely publicized views of the waste and inefficiency of unwieldy mass armies clashed with the orthodox Nazi plans for rearming Germany. Last January he accepted the post of military adviser to the Chinese Nationalist Government. Docile Chinese peasants are different material from handpicked German recruits, but Japan well knows that if anyone can build a real fighting machine in China it is Hans von Seeckt.

Also in China last week were famed U. S. Flyers Frank Hawks and James Doolittle. Their job was to demonstrate and sell U. S. fighting planes to the Nationalist Government which last year bought $1,500,000 worth of U. S. equipment. This year competition will be stiffer. In Shanghai were a number of dapper young Italian officers with patent leather hair and no nerves at all. With the prestige of the world’s speed and altitude records in their pockets. Fascist flyers swooped crazily over the tile roofs of the city to demonstrate their wares. To train young Chinese aviators at the great aviation school at Hangchow, the Nationalist Government had borrowed Col. John Jewett, once commander of the U. S. Air Corps’ Third Attack Group.

Nor was France idle in China last week. There has been so much talk of Japanese penetration and aggression in the north that most people forget that France is China’s neighbor to the south. Having quietly extended her influence through the southern province of Yunnan, Nanking suddenly learned last week that great quantities of French money and French munitions were appearing in the armies of Rebel General Li Tsung-jen of Kwang-si Province.

Besides the presence in China of munitions salesmen and foreign drillmasters, Japan had another grievance against the world in the matter of foreign loans. By the Consortium Agreement of 1920 signed by the U. S., Great Britain, France & Japan, to safeguard their existing and future loans to the Chinese Government, Japan may object to loans which in her opinion jeopardize her interests. A major point in Japan’s present Far Eastern policy is to prevent any money reaching China except through channels in which she is represented. Nanking’s tactics are to dodge the Consortium, without violating it, so she can borrow money without Japanese participation. Fortnight ago onetime Finance Minister T. V. Soong devised a clever way of doing this by organizing China Development & Finance Co. in Shanghai which would not supply money but raw materials, mostly from abroad, for government projects. Firmly Spokesman Amau announced that Japan was going to put a stop to this.

By its declaration of Chinese policy Japan brought down a thunder of disapproval and protest upon its small but determined head. Excerpts:

China. Roared the Shanghai Morning Post: “The gage of defiance has been flung in the world’s face. Will the world or any portion of it be so recreant as to misunderstand this contemptuous challenge?”

Russia. Cried the Soviet’s official Izvestia: “Japan has now openly proclaimed herself semi-boss of all China. . . . Preparations in the Far East for attack on the United States or Soviet Russia are as real as ever.”

France. Another Unofficial Spokesman, this time from the Quai d’Orsay, announced: “We have been in close touch with Washington and London, trying to find out whether Japan was really serious or just bluffing in an attempt to bring recognition to Manchukuo. We have no desire to bind France to Japan.”

Britain. In what he called a “friendly communication,” icy Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon politely reminded Japan of something it had by no means forgotten—the Nine-Power Treaty guaranteeing equal rights in China to all signatories.

Washington. The State Department would give no official comment but an always useful Unofficial Spokesman admitted: “Whatever may be Tokyo’s intentions, the statement at such a time seems uncalled for. The United States has no foreign advisers to any unit of the Chinese Government. If any former reserve officers are acting in such capacity they are doing so purely as private citizens.”