BY D. SANDILYA

War of a major character is raging in China. While Spain is being reduced to a shambles in Europe. the events in the Far East have taken a calamitous turn. The two things are not unconnected; Europe’s extremity has always been Japan’s opportunity. The road to Northern China lies, in fact, not through Peiping and Tientsin but through Washington, London and Moscow. A brief account of Japanese imperialism and of the position of the Powers in the Pacific would provide the background to the present conflict and help to clear up the issues at stake.

I

Japan’s great need is raw materials and colonies. She imports 66% of her iron-ore, 87% of her oil, 99% of her cotton and 98% of her rubber. Her economy is still feudal and agrarian and is crippling her industrial development. The pressure on land is severe and emigration has become a grave national problem.

Moreover, Japanese capitalism has turned rotten before it could become ripe. It is concentrated in the hands of a few banking and business houses. The Mitsui control the companies dealing in textiles, minerals, lumber and general merchandise. The Mitsubushi control the heavy industries and ship-building. Together with the smaller Daiichi, Yasuda and Sumitomo, they form the great Bank Sanwa and have the entire financial and industrial machinery in their grip. The Japanese capitalist system is dangerously rigid and top-heavy. Short of an internal economic revolution, Japan can sustain herself only by explosions outward and a continual drive for markets.

This economic incentive has fitted in well with the traditional policy of the Japanese war-lords. They have long advocated territorial expansion. The Navy prefers a southern route, straining towards South China and the Dutch East Indies which are rich in oil fields and rubber plantations. The Army favours a continental path, driving a wedge between Russia and China. The famous Tanaka memorandum of July 1927–the Mein Kampf of Japanese imperialism–insists on the conquest of Manchuria, Mongolia and North China as the essential preliminaries to the real conquest of China. But whatever the immediate objective, both the fighting forces are agreed on making China dependent on Japan.

The Army has been gaining the upper hand. Its secret societies–the Black Ocean and the Black Dragon–and its spies form the advance guard of the imperialist onslaught. Murder, violence and robbery have all been employed in securing its objectives. A periodical ‘cleaning-up’ has become a normal feature of Japan’s politics. The Young Officers’ movement and the League of Blood specialise in political assassination. The Society of Dai Nippon, the Patriotic Society and the League against Bolshevism combat all ‘dangerous thoughts’ and vigilantly watch the Home front. Shintoism (the way of God) and Kodoism (the way of the Emperor), virtually synonymous, have been made the spiritual bulwarks of the State. And beside them even the Nazi philosophy would shrivel into an anaemic etatisme.

It is true that the Army contains in its middle and lower ranks many radical elements; but the High Command is hand in glove with Big Business. They control the two parties of importance–the Seiyukai and the Minseito. It is also true that Liberals like Prince Ito and Saionji have made themselves heard; their liberalism, however, has consisted of a slower acceleration of the same imperialist programme.

But Japan has known how to wait and when to strike. Before the War she chose the years of war scare in Europe to acquire Formosa, Port Arthur and Korea. During the War she presented China with the famous Twenty-one Demands which would have reduced her to a Japanese Protectorate. In 1921 she received at Washington a significant check in the Nine Power Treaty which guaranteed China’s independence. But in 1931–the year of depression in Europe and America–she carried out her conquest of Manchuria. Larger than Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France combined, Manchuria has enormous resources of timber, iron, coal and oil-bearing shales. Her strategic position also is of the greatest value. China appealed to the League, but while the League debated, Japan acted with embarrassing swiftness. She walked into Jehol and walked out of Geneva. In May 1933 she forced China to conclude the Tanku Truce. She created the puppet State of Manchukuo with a puppet emperor. The military took over the banks, the railways and the services. Japanese officers presided over the government departments. The Southern Manchurian Railway was made the chief instrument of exploitation. Investment rose from 29 million yen in 1932 to 78 millions in 1934.

But the pace was too hot and the exploitation too costly. Military exigencies dominated the minds of the Japanese and much of the expenditure was unproductive. Instead of exporting, Manchukuo began to import food. The starving peasantry had to be disarmed in 1934-35. Nor were the people of Japan benefited. They were not allowed the use of cheap Manchurian coal; they could not migrate in large numbers. All that Manchuria meant for them was increased taxation and inflation. Manchuria was manifestly a failure. The Fascist-feudal clique was bound to launch another advance westwards or southwards.

Outer Mongolia was the next item in the Tanaka plan. Japan tried to suck her into her orbit as early as 1920 when she used Ungern-Sternberg to stir up a revolt. But Soviet Russia came to the rescue of the Mongol People’s Party. In 1932 the Japanese made another futile attempt to organise the lamas and the White Russians. And in March 1936 when the U. S. S. R. and Mongolia concluded a military pact for mutual aid, the tension grew fearfully on the frontiers. But Japan would not risk a war with Russia yet. She turned, instead, to North China.

Hopei, Chahar, Shansi and Shantung have 90 millions in population, and form an enormous market. Their imports amount to 200 million dollars. Iron ore, oil, tin, copper and gold can be mined. Chahar can be turned into a vast cotton plantation. Cattle-breeding, dairy-farming and tanning, industries can be developed to a great extent. Moreover, the strategic importance of the provinces is of great value. Trunk lines from Peiping-Hankow, Tientsin-Pukow, Peiping-Mukden and Peiping-Suiyuan command the coast line and open the inland gates into inner Mongolia and the Yangtze valley. Japan has been carrying on a raging propaganda that North China is an essential complement to Manchukuo. In 1932 the lamas and the princes of Inner Mongolia were supplied with arms. In November 1935 Hopei and Chahar were occupied and Nanking was forced to inaugarate a Hopei and Chahar Political Council with Japanese influence predominant. In May 1936 Japan trebled her forces in North China. In November she concluded the German Agreement which insured her against a Russian intervention. And in December she made proposals to China for ‘a settlement of all their differences.’ It was clear that mere influence was not enough for Japan. It was only in the logic of things that she should aim at actual possession. Keen observers in the Far East were anticipating another Japanese coup as early as January this year.

Meanwhile, Japan has not abated the vigour of her blue water policy. Japanese activity has been increasing in the Pacific. The great industries at Malaya are managed by Japanese firms. Siam looks today to Japan for her engineers and naval officers to train her cadets. Siam is the junction for Eastern air routes and forms an excellent base for military operations in the southern Pacific. The construction of the Kra canal would short-circuit Singapore. But as yet there is no danger of aggression in the south. Japan’s next move was bound to be in North China.

II

What would Chiang Kai-Shek do? Could he fight or would he surrender as he did in ’31 and ’35? He has been in a great dilemma. He has foes at home and abroad. He has had at once to fight the Communists in the west, and stem Japanese invasion and retain the goodwill of the Powers. The Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) which he represents consists of a strong centre bloc of merchants and bankers, the bigger landowners and the intelligentsia, and they demand a political and social reconstruction on liberal-bourgeois lines. The older elements and the gentry in particular desire only a perpetuation of the status quo. Both oppose the Communists tooth and nail. But if Japan is to be resisted China must be unified and a compromise effected with the Communists. But that would alarm the bourgeoisie and the Foreign Powers. The Army occupies a strategic position representing the merchants and the landlords, and it is revolutionary in temper. Chiang Kai-Shek has been doing precarious tight-rope walking.

He came to power at a period of great crisis. In 1911 the ancient Chinese Empire was dissolved by the Kuomintang and a Republic was declared. In 1921 the Chinese Communist Party was formed and the Communists and the Nationalists worked in closest co-operation. For six years Soviet Russia sent her officers and advisers, and the affairs of China were stabilised at a new level. But the Powers got alarmed and let Japan act as the constable of the Far East. The right wing of the Kuomintang also took alarm at the rising tide of Communism. It looked to the bankers and the Soongs that China would be plunged into chaos. If China was to escape the clutches of Japan and remain on friendly terms with other Powers, she had to stamp out her Communism. General Chiang Kai Shek realised, although he was trained in Moscow, that Communism was not the real issue but national unity. He had to build, not a Red China but a China able to resist imperialist Japan. With the aid of the Chinese Bankers’ Association he purified the services and the Army from Communism. He split the Kuomintang in 1929 when the left-wing fell away to form the Political Council at Canton: but he got from them a free hand in the north. In 1930 with the help of the foreign gunboats he drove the Communists from Changsha. He started the New Life Movement, revived Confucianism and made a powerful appeal to conservative opinion. He mechanised the army and with the aid of German officers built up air forces.

He was in the throes of reconstruction when the bomb burst on the Mukden Railway in 1931 and plunged China into confusion. The Communists offered their swords; but he could not accept their unholy alliance. Nor could he fight Japan single-handed in 1935 when the Hopei and Chahar Council was created. But in the interval he crushed a revolt at Fukien. The Communists trekked northwards and settled in the borders of Inner Mongolia and in Kansu, Hunnan and Hupeh.

But Chiang Kai-Sheik could not go on surrendering to Japan or fighting the Communists. A great national awakening swept over China, and Young China in particular began to feel that unity could be achieved only at the price of an understanding with the Communists. In the spring of 1936 rumours of negotiation between Nanking and the Communist generals were in the air. A pact between Russia and China was also mooted.^l In the south a mimic civil war deprived Canton of her more radical ministers; and the authority of Nanking was extended. A National Defence Council was formed with the three chief southern leaders as members. And in the negotiations with Japan in December, China displayed a new tone of firmness. It was clear that Chiang Kai-Shek had overcome many of his difficulties; he was making desperate efforts to resist Japan.

But there is one problem he has not solved yet–the problem of Inner Mangolia. The lamas and princes have long been struggling for freedom, but successive Chinese governments have brought them to heel, and have imposed an imperialist policy on their territories. Opium merchants and cattle-breeders have made large investments in Sui-Yuan. So the Mongols distrust Nanking and look to Japan as their liberator. For Chiang Kai-Shek cannot ‘liberate’ them without falling foul of powerful vested interests.

III

But in the last analysis Chinese resistance would depend on the attitude of England, America, and Russia. What are the interests of these Powers and how would they react to a Sino-Japanese conflict?

Great Britain has £ 250 millions invested in China; she exports £ 8 millions worth of goods annually to China; she has a 100 British firms settled in China and the Crown colony of Hong-kong. Her strategic and political position in the Pacific is of vital importance. The Dutch East Indies look to her for protection. New Zealand, Australia and India lie behind the rampart of her navy. Nor can the Far Eastern situation be regarded in isolation. A war between Russia and Japan would be followed by an explosion in Europe, and England would gravely be involved. For years England was friendly to Japan–as a bulkwark against Communism. In 1931 she maintained a benevolent neutrality and turned down the offer of America to honour the Nine-Power Treaty. But when the Red menace disappeared in China, and Japan announced in 1934 a Monroe doctrine in North China, she got alarmed. Since then she has rearmed her Far Eastern bases. Singapore has been well fortified. At the same time she invited Japan in 1935 to grant China an international loan, but Japan torpedoed the proposal. So in November Sir Frederick Leith Ross re-organised Chinese finances by linking the currency to sterling, in fact if not in form. But this affected America’s silver policy and rendered Anglo-American understanding difficult.

America has £ 40 millions of investments, £ 27 millions in annual trade, and 500 firms. She is mainly interested in keeping the open door in China. She is torn between isolationism and trade expansion. Now she seems to be withdrawing more and more into her shell. The Philippines have been granted their independence; an active anti-Japanese policy has been abandoned; the U. S. Navy is being withdrawn for the defence of the Pacific Coast. Guam, Olengapo and Cavite have never really been fortified. The brunt of a Japanese attack would fall on the British navy; the American fleet would operate only from Hawaii. But a joint action is vague and uncertain. Memories of 1931 still rankle.

Nor is Soviet-American co-operation more definite. When America recognised the U. S. S. R., Soviet engineers mapped out the Alaskan Coast and the Bering Sea for trade routes and defences. But nothing tangible was done. Russia has had to fend for herself. Her position is one of peculiar difficulty. Japan plays on the menace of Communism. And by the German- Japanese agreement she can engage Russia on two fronts.

Russia has been forced furiously to fortify her Far Eastern frontiers. The Red Army has been mechanised. The Trans-Siberian railway has been double-tracked. Military roads have been well laid out. Food supplies are protected in the region of Lake Baikal. At Vladivostock a fleet of bombers is kept in readiness capable of reaching Tokyo and returning in six hours. In the sea of Japan, Soviet submarines can play havoc with the enemy ships. But Russia’s intentions on the whole are pacific. She has offered many times pacts of non-aggression to Japan. She has sold her the Chinese Eastern Railway. Yet Russia is suspect and collective action on the part of the Western Powers has been only a remote possibility.

It is true that the Powers, save Russia, are fighting a rearguard action in the Pacific. But their intensive rearmament has made Japan’s position difficult. Japan has had to act quickly. When the Spanish Civil War tied up the hands of Europe, Japan knew her moment had come. She had only to choose the occasion and stage an ‘incident,’ as the prologue to a first-class war.