Japan's Foreign Policy The ambiguous relations between Japan's Cabinet and
her General Staff make it unsafe to regard the declara- tions of Mr. Hirota to the Diet on Tuesday as a decisive exposition of Japan's intentions in foreign policy. The Foreign Minister's speech, indeed, has a certain unreality in its blandness, and is vague enough to require further -definition at -many points. In China, said Mr. Hirota, Japan desires the cessation of unfriendly actions, a final adjustment of relations between China, Man- chukuo and Japan, and the supression of Communism : her historic friendship with the great naval powers will decide her naval policy : what. causes her concern is the " excessive armaments " of the U.S.S.R. in East Siberia. This is not a convincing. account either of Japan's actions or her intentions ; • but there is -more reality in Mr. Hirota's statement that the maintenance if Japanese stability depends on free access to sources of raw materials and to markets for finished goods. A similar statement was made by Dr. Goebbels on Saturday, when he announced that to Germany, as to Japan, a solution of the colonial problem is a pressing necessity. The two speeches, by the spokesmen of two militant nations, merely emphasise once again the connexion between the economic problem and aggressive nationalism.
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