More Demands on China The presentation of a series of
fourteen demands by Japan to China, and the complete capitulation of the Nanking Government, is serious and alarming. What the demands are we do not know. They have not been pub- lished in full. Some may have been reasonable. Others, like the Stipulation that the Chinese Government's troops shall be withdrawn from the Chinese province of Hopei (which is, of course, well south of the Great Wall) are a plain and undisguised intrusion into China's internal affairs. The excuse is that there must he no anti-Japanese movement on the borders of Manchuria—the seizure of which by Japan has naturally done more than anything in recent years to foment anti-Japanese feeling in China. As usual, action has been taken by the Japanese mili7 tarists in complete disregard of the Foreign Office. That the demands represent one more step in a methodical south7 ward drive, designed to cut off all Northern China from the Nanking Government and establish formal or informal Japanese domination there can hardly be doubted. Western Powers, immersed in the unsolved problems of their own continent, are in no position to offer the Chinese anything but sympathy. That our own Government is sending out Sir Frederick Leith-Ross to discuss financial problems at Nanking is all to the good, and has a sym- bolical value. But good advice alone will not carry China far in her present need.
