Evening star., 1939-02-05

PAOTOU, Inner Mongolia.-To the
average American mention OF Inner
Mongolia is likely to bring up surreal-
istic vision of dinosaur eggs, Roy Chap
man Andrews and hard-riding horsemen
There is more to it than that.
Mongolia is collision ground for
Russian, Japanese and Chinese influences
"a possible theater for the next great
Far Eastern war-a chessboard of inter-
national politics, in which the simple,
decadent, disease -riddled Mongols are
the pawns.
I made a seven-day journey through
the Inner Mongolian corridor, that 300
mile wide ribbon of rolling plateau land
which undulates from the Manchukuoan
border for 700 miles westward along
China's northern frontier. Right through
the middle of this thinly populated zone
of grassland runs the Peiping-Suiyuan
Railway, which I followed here, to its
end in Chinas far northwest.
Japan's grab of Inner Mongolia was
envisioned in the notorious Tanaka Me-
mortal years ago. But it was not until
the incident at Marco Polo bridge in
the summer of 1887 gave them suitable
pretext that the Japanese militarists
were able to carry out their long-con-
ceived plan What I have seen along
this railway reveals strikingly how the
japanese are utilizing the Mongolian cor
ridor as barrier between China and
Russia; how they plan to utilize it as
a springboard for further expansion into
Central Asia and how they are preparing
to thrust dagger into the extended and
vulnerable southern flank of Russia when
the day of reckoning with that country
arrives.
Prepares for War With Russia.
Militarily, Inner Mongolia is the most
important of all Japan's territorial seiz-
ures since the occupation of Manchuria,
for it prepares the way for Japans SUI
preme continental adventure--war with
Russia. Everything which the japanese
are doing in Inner Mongolia is being
done with that major objective in view
japanese officials along the border talk
about the next Russo-Japanese war as
you and I would talk about next Satur-
days football game-an event which has
already been scheduled.
The japanese Armys immediate job in
Inner Mongolia is to consolidate its mill
tary position, exploit the enormous re-
serves of coal, iron and wool and, most
important, strengthen the puppet Mon
golian government into powerful mill
tary ally. The next move, all are agreed,
would be an attempt to annex Sovietized
Outer Mongolia to Japanized Inner Mon
golia-so that all the Mongolians may be
united under one banner, as they were
in the days Of the great Ghenghis Khan.
Thus are the japanese pandering to the
intense nationalism of the Mongolian
people.
Today the 100000 or more pastoral
folk who make up the Mongolian race
are divided unevenly between Outer
ongoHa. Inner Mongolia, Manchukuo
and Russia. Their most fervent desire
is to be reunited and independent, as of
old.
Unless something else intervenes to
set off the Russo-Japanese tinderboy
Japan's pan-Mongolian movement may
yet be the cause of war. Outer Mon
golia is twice the size of Inner Mongolia
and separates it from Siberia in the
north. A mutual defense pact binding
Outer Mongolia to Russia requires the
Soviet army to come to the assistance
of its Mongolian protectorate if it is
of& f&oo ic fo holioyyo
that Russia would Crawl on this agree
ment, for Outer Mongolia is a vital
cushion for Russia's Siberian defenses.
Outer Mongolia Is Goal.
The japanese will act against Outer
Mongolia when they are good and ready
not before. But there is not much
doubt that the eventual absorption of
Outer Mongolia is as much fixed fea-
ture of Japan's continental policy as
was the seizure of Manchuria and the
penetration of Inner Mongolia. If Rus
sia is drawn in the process, well, that
will be just too bad-for RuSsia-in the
view of the ever-cocky japanese army.
The Japanese Army believes its destiny
lies not only north but west. It was
easy for the Japanese to push along the
Peiping- -Suiyuan Railway to its western
terminus here. But there are still 1,500
miles to go to the beckoning and un-
plotted heights of Central Asia and the
westernmost boundaries of China.
Far-seeing Japanese envision the ex-
tension of the railway westward from
Paotou, through the fringe of the Cobb
Desert to Ninghsia Province, through
Ninghsia to Kansu and finally up the
panhandle of that elongated province
into Sinkiang-or Chinese Turkestan-
where Russian influence is strongly en-
trenched among the Tartars, Turks,
Mongols and Mohammedan Chinese,
who make up the bulk of the population.
An immensely ambitious project, which
might take years in the realization! But
already the first step is under way, with
the launching of an offensive toward
Wuyuan, 120 miles west of here, projected
new terminus of the Peiping- -Suiyuan
Railway.
OF all Japan's subject peoples, the
in mind the same extracts from two or
three afddavits which Representative
Dies drew to my attention in an open
letter given to the press on August 80,