The Japanese at Amoy The Japanese have taken advantage of
the situation in Europe to put Anglo-American policy in the Far East to a severe test. Last week Japanese troops landed at the treaty port of Amoy, on the coast of Fukien, and occupied the international settlement at Kulangsu. The settlement itself is not of great importance ; it has declined with the decline of the port of Amoy, and has a foreign population of 250. But its legal status as an International Concession, fixed by an agreement in 1903, to which japan is a party, is the same as that of the great International Settlement at Shang- hai; opinion in China is agreed that if the Japanese occu- pation of Kulangsu is successful it will probably be followed by similar action at Shanghai and other treaty ports. Fortunately the occupation has been firmly opposed. A joint protest to the Japanese Consul-General has been made by the French, British and American consuls at Kulangsu ; a protest in Tokyo by the British Ambassador has not been answered ; but the Commander-in-Chiefs of the British and American China stations have both hurried by warship to Amoy. Small British, American and French detachments have been landed, and as a result most of the Japanese have withdrawn. japan was evidently "testing the domocracies."
* *
Previous page
