Asiatic Destinies
Japan Fights for Asia. By John Goette. (Macmillan. 10s. 6d.) China's Wartime Politics. By Lawrence K. Rosinger. (Princeton University Press. $2.00.1
" THE Japanese," says Mr. Goette, " peddle an ideology which baffles the rest of us but envelops them with a feeling of righteousness of their own devising." The title of his book suits the ideology well, because " for " can be read as meaning both to get and on behalf of. To our way of thinking these meanings are mutually exclusive: in the Japanese mind there is no incompatibility between them. One discovered that ten years ago during conversations with the Japanese Consul-General at Nanking, Yakichiro Suma, now Japan's Ambassa- dor in occupied China. Just as the author was unable to get from Suma a translation of the term hakko ichiu, the Ambassador saying w that it was impossible for a non-Japanese to grasp its " lofty impli- cations," so was I in 1935 unable to get the Consul-General to explain how plans to dismember China were to her advantage.
One made allowance, of course, for Japan's conception of herself as the champion of Asia against Western aggression. The author, too, found that conception still a lively one. " The Chinese," he says, " were told that they were being rescued from British and American imperialism, while they saw their public utilities, major private industries and natural resources managed by the invader." Yet Mr. Goette does not suggest—nor would I—that the Japanese have throughout been complete humbugs. Their resentment of Western domination in Asiatic affairs has been perfectly genuine and. so far at all events as the Chinese mainland is concerned, has been partly responsible for their plans. Mr. Goette thinks that this fact will be important after the war. He says :
" When the Occidental powers have defeated Japan, they will onh then begin to reap the harvest which the Japanese are sowing in Greater East Asia. We may send them back to their own islands, but we never will be able to obliterate the furrows which they ploughed over such a great stretch of Asia. If the Atlantic Charter is to be applicable to its sister ocean, then we Occidentals must be prepared to take gracefully the medicine so plainly marked ' Made in Japan.'" For good or ill much will depend upon China's attitude and policy. Mr. Rosinger's book is not intended to throw a searchlight into the future, but his careful survey of China's wartime politics has that effect nevertheless. " At the present moment," he says, " the Chinese political situation remains unresolved, and while the possibilities of improvement are brighter than at any time in many years, the necessary government decisions are apparently azill to be reached." He contrasts the unity which China achieved when the Nationalist armies were marching north from Canton with the unity which Jap- anese aggression produced, finding the latter much stronger than the former. Even so, however, the outlook, as the sentence quoted above shows, is a doubtful one. It is difficult to satisfy oneself as to the relative importance of constitutional and economic issues and it is a weakness of this book that it devotes so little space to the latter.
A manifesto issued by the Kuangsi Constitutional Government Advancement Association early in 1940 said of the proposed Con- stitution that " instead of the principle of the people's livelihood being clarified, confusion might easily be produced." One has onh to read its economic clauses to concur. E. M. GULL.
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