Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-01-02
is JAPAN TRYING TO
MONOPOllZE EASTERN ASIA?
She Seems TO BE Taking What She
Wants While the Rest Of the World
lie [ nnLinn The Other Man

TT NEED surprise no one that Japan is
now said to be mistress Of eastern
Siberia from Vladivostok to Lake Baikal.
Some power must control that vast
territory. The Russians themselves are
not able to control it because they are
not able to decide which faction shall
have the power. The Bolshevists and
the opponents Of bolshevsm have been
| fighting for the possession of the region.
Neither has been victorious. Admiral
| Kolchak might have maintained his posi-
tion if he had been supported by the
Allies. That he should be recognized
was recommended by Ambassador Nor
! ris after having visited kolchak on
orders from Washington. But the United
States has taken no action and the other
; allied powers have been unwilling to act
without the United States.
| 1t may be argued in extenuation that
the illness of the President has nre-
vented this country from acting. But
! events in Siberia cannot wait on the
recovery of any man.
1 Japan is the power nearest to Siberia
and the power most directly interested
| in that country. She has continually pro-
| fessed adherence to the policy of the
! open door in the East There is a jap
anese party, however, not in sympathy
with this policy. The militarists. COM
posed of men trained in the German
school of thought, have dreamed of Jap
anese domination of eastern Asia. japan
is ovorpopulated and the birth rate is
greater than the death rate so that the
| population is continually increasing. A
! place to which the surplus population
can migrate is desired by this militarist
party, and. like the Germans, this party
has wished that this place should be
under the control of Japan. They secured
Korea after the Russo-Japanese war
and their domination in Manchuria, nomi-
nally Chinese, has been gradually grow
ing stronger ever since that war. Opin-
ions differ as to the success of their adj
ministration of these acquisitions. In
Manchuria they have been charged with
discriminating against all traders save
those from Japan, but this charge has
been denied.
The commercial party, which does not
sympathize with the territorial aims of
the militarists, recognizes the need of the
extension of japanese trade with the
mainland of the continent. Japan must
have the raw materials of China and
Siberia and she must have the markets
of Siberia and China in which to sell
the finished product. And the CONNER
/ cialists do not object to japanese migra-
tion to the mainland.
1t is the military party which now
! controls eastern Siberia through the
/ japanese army. There is not the slight
! est doubt that this party would like to
! make the control permanent and annex
! the country to Japan as Korea has been
| annexed. Whether the people of Japan
! wish this or not there is no means of
| knowing. Parties are divided on the
subject and they will fight it out among
themselves. Yet both the military and
commercial parties are agreed on the
! importance of closer trade relations with
all eastern Asia.
| The United States has recognized that
! Japan has special interests in China,
particularly in the part to which her
possessions are contiguous" These are
the words in which Secretary Lansing
! explained the meaning of the Lansing
! Ishii agreement of 1917 and were re-
peated by Viscount Ishii in his reply to
the American secretary of states request
that he confirm the American under
! standing of the agreement.
/ In fairness to Japan it must be noted
that Vscount Ishii also said that the
territorial integrity of China was to re-
( main unimpaired and that Japan chad no
| desire to discriminate against the trade
| of other nations or to disregard the COM
, mercial rights heretofore granted by
! China in treaties with other powers"
| Yet all the evidence available indicates
that Japan has been exerting herself to
! the utmost to strengthen her commercial
position in China and eastern Siberia
while the attention of the rest of the
world was occupied with the great Euro
pean war. She has also been making
demands on China which that country
! has regarded as unreasonable and op-
pressive; demands that in effect gave to
| Japan control of vast Chinese interests
! to the exclusion of the Chinese them
| selves. And Japan has also demanded
| that the German rights in Shantung be
| transferred to her as part of the spoils
! of war; a demand agreed to by France
and Great Britain by treaty while the
war was in progress and consented to by
| President Wilson when the matter came
| up before the Peace Conference.
NOW, IL may De askeu VI WhdI concern
| is all this to the United States? To
bring it closer home, of what concern is
it to this city? The best answer to
these questions is that We are just as
deeply concerned in it as we were in
the German ambitions for place in the
sun, of which much was said for years
! before August, 1914. Japan finds her
self too big for the islands which con-
strict her She is bursting her bands
and expanding. If she has learned the
lesson of the last five years, then the
| world has little to fear from her. If she
has not learned it, then it behooves the
rest of the world to be on its guard lest
a new war of conquest break out in the
eastern hemisphere which will draw the
| other nations into it.
We once had a strong and consistent