The Break-up of China Though there appears to have been
a last-moment hitch regarding the declaration of an autonomons Northern China under obvious Japanese hegemony,. there is no reason to question the determination of military Japan, if not of diplomatic Japan, to dis-annex five provinces from China. Three of them, Hopei, Shansi and Shantung, are south of the Great Wall, and included therefore among the eighteen provinces of China proper. Shantung was claimed by Japan at the Peace Conference in 1919, returned to China at the Washington Conference in 1022, and is now being resumed by Japan by her characteristic process of bloodless aggression. The Japanese penetra- tion of the mainland began with Korea in 1910, and has been carried methodically forward ever since. Since the .seizure of Manchuria in 1931 the process has been substan- tially accelerated, thanks partly to the failure of the • League to afford protection to China and partly to the preoccupation of League..Powers with Italy .now. The Nanking Government is • in no position to make effective resistance at present, but it is not to be assumed that a clash between Southern China and Japan can be indefi- nitely postponed, and this country and the United States may before long find their economic interests in China seriously affected.
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