JAPAN AND THE FUTURE OF EUROPE
By GREGORY BIENSTOCK
TODAY the noise of conflict is so overwhelming, the throb of the telegraph wires is so shrill, that it is difficult for the ear to catch the rhythm of history. Fifty years ago it was much easier. Two Anglo-Saxon statesmen of great distinction had then realised very clearly the sig- nificance of Asiatic politics for the future course of history.
He who understands China," said John Hay in 1890, "holds the key to international politics for the next five hundred years." And about the same time George Curzon, then a young Member of Parliament, said to his countrymen : "The fall of Great Britain will not be decided in Europe, but on the continent from which our forebears once came and to which their descendants returned as conquerors." Today Europeans have to be forcibly convinced that the events in Eastern Asia are at least of equal significance with the Spanish Civil War or the development of German foreign policy.
What is happening in Eastern Asia today is in fact of immense importance, and will probably decide the course of history in coming centuries. There means are being found to overthrow the balance of world power. If Japan succeeds in obtaining supremacy in Eastern Asia, and therewith in the western Pacific, Britain's mastery of the seas is destroyed. We shall then have to face a new and extremely "dynamic " ' situation. In the last two centuries the so-called balance of world power, in other words its more or less peaceful and continuous development, has depended on the silently recognised dual mastery of the sea by the two Anglo-Saxon Powers. Now this Anglo-Saxon control of the sea is called in question in Eastern Asia. That is the historic significance of the siege of Peking and the bombardment of Shanghai.
After the Russo-Japanese War it seemed for a period as if the northern half of the Chinese Empire would be par- titioned between Russia and Japan, while the Yangtse Valley and Southern China would fall under British influence. In that period, and later, little was needed for a genuine Russo- Japanese alliance to come into being. It has already been forgotten that Russia and Japan in the last thirty years have on five successive occasions made agreements concerning spheres of influence in China, in 1907, 1950, 1911, 1916, and last of all in 1925. The Sazonoff-Motono agreement of July 3rd, 1916, was directed not so much against Germany as against the United States ; twice in that year Germany had made offers of a separate peace with Japan and with Russia.
The destruction of the balance of power in 1914, the collapse of China and of Tsarist Russia, removed all limits to Japan's political ambitions. In this period for the first time Japanese propaganda put forward clearly the principle of Japan's messianic role in Asia and in the world. As early as 1915 the programme of Japan's protectorate over China was publicly announced in the famous 21 demands. Only Anglo-Saxon co-operation, from about 1917 to 1920, prevented the complete subjection of China to Japanese control and the seizure of eastern Siberia, from Vladivostok to Lake Baikal, from Russia. Once again, as in 1894-5, Tokyo saw herself deprived of the fruits of victory.
But Japan allowed herself to be restrained only for a short time. From September, 1931, when Manchuria was torn from China and occupied by Japanese troops, stretches an unbroken chain of military and political advances, all directed to one goal ; the inclusion of all North China in Japan's empire. Japan's policy has been silently tolerated by London and Washington and, in the last resort, by Moscow. The problem of supremacy in Eastern Asia appears once again to have become a Sino-Japanese concern.
Yet the China of today looks very different from that China which over forty years ago was defeated by Japan. In the Yangtse valley and in South China a Government has grown up in Nanking which is dangerous to Japan's dreams of power. For that very reason the tempo of Japanese aggression in North China has had to be increased year by year. The Japanese have no time to lose. Tokyo cannot tolerate in China, a centre to which sooner or later all the provinces of the old Chinese Empire can attach themselves. A strong Government in Nanking might thwart all Japan's plans in North China. At all costs it must be anticipated.
Japan's- methods in foreign politics are not co-ordinated. There are different tendencies which conflict with each other. But it would be false to see a fundamental contradiction of ends in the discrepancy between the methods of the Ki.vantung army and those of Gaimusho (the Tokyo Foreign Office). The goal of Japanese foreign policy in China is fixed ; on that there is fundamentally no discussion. Or rather there are two goals, which are nevertheless inseparable. The provinces of Northern China, which stand in more or less loose connexion with Central China and which are in a condition of complete collapse, are to be finally included in Japan's sphere of domination ; perhaps these provinces, with Inner Mongolia and Manchuria, are to be unified in a great Chinese-Mongolian-Manchurian empire under the present Manchu emperor Kang-teh, and, of course, under Japanese control. In addition an important subsidiary goal would be achieved, the complete severance of all direct communication between the Soviet Union and Central China.
The second goal of Tokyo's policy consists in paralysing and finally disposing of the Government of Marshal Chiang Kai-shek. For so long as the Government of Nanking exists as a national rallying-point, Japan's supremacy in North China cannot be regarded as secure. Tokyo aims simul- taneously at these two objectives. The over-running and assimilation of the Northern Provinces is a formidable blow to the prestige of the Central Government in Nanking. Direct military action in the Yangtse valley, and the bom- bardment of Shanghai, paralyses the military action of Chiang's Government in North China.
Japan's campaign in China today is not an improvisation. It is Hirota's old plan of creating in North China a powerful strategic and military-economic base, from which the rest of China, in one form or another, can be brought under Japanese influence. If this plan succeeds—and at the moment one can see no forces capable of preventing its success—Tokyo has for the first time in her history the decisive trump card in her hand, both against her most dangerous continental rival, Russia, and against her two maritime rivals, the British Empire and the U.S.A. For with North China Japan acquires a rich hinterland containing all the raw materials she lacks.
In these last weeks Japan is climbing the last steps of the ladder which leads to world power. Eighty years ago Japan appeared a defenceless object of European and American colonisation ; today she claims to be among the first to decide the future course of world history. The further development of her policy can take different paths. As at the beginning of this century, the problem of her relations with Russia must first be solved ; War or Alliance ? Thirty-five years ago Marshal Yamagata, against the will of that other great statesman, Marquis Ito Hirobumi, the friend of Russia, brought into being the alliance with Britain - against the Tsarist Empire. What will be her decision today ? Equally, if not more, important is the problem of Japan's relations with the two Anglo-Saxon sea powers. If the passivity of London and Washington continues, japan will soon force her will upon them.
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