Another War Cloud.

Another War Cloud.

A newspaper article published by The Times

Times Newspapers Limited

Gale Primary Sources: The Times Digital Archive
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Newspaper Article

Gale Primary Sources

May 7, 1915

Theo Gray

A potential war that is on the edge of starting between China and Japan.

Another War Cloud. F,While Europe and America are intent upon the developments of the conflict on whose issue hangs the future of their civilization, another war cloud has been slowly gathering in the Far Elast. It has not yet burst, and we trust that while there is still time China and Japan may spare mrankiind the added miseries which this fresh visitation would bring upon them. This hope is not encouraged by the latest messages from Tokyo and Peking. At the final conference between the Elder Statesmen and the Cabinet yesterday, the E.NPEitoit of JAPAN sanctioned an ultimatum to China. Neverthe!e s, there seems to linger a feeling in both capitals that matters may not go to extremities. This expect:ation, it wvill be scen, is no longer entirely ehared in Washin3ton, where the situation is being closely watched. The history of the controversy has been already told in our columns. Japan originally presented to China some twenty-one demands. By some curious inadvertence, she mentioned only a portion of them in the communications whlichl she addressed to England, France, ilussn, and the United States. China hastened to-supply the omissions. doubtless. in the hope of exciting suspicion against Japan. The discrepancy between the two accounts clearly called for explanation, and "conversations" followed between Japan and the Powers named. Meanwhile, Dn. Hio}i, the Japanese Minister at Peking, carried on protracted negotiations with the Chinese authorities. I-His task was exceptionally delicate, and perhaps it might have prospered better in mnore tactful and more patient hands. Eventually Japan modified several of her demands, and on April 26 she presented to China a new set of proposals, which she declared to be the minimum she would accept. Instead of assenting to them, China put forward counter-proposals, which Japan considers inadmissible. They included, amongst other things, demands for the complete restoration of hiaochau, and fcr undertakings that China should be represented in the peace negotiations between Germany and Japan. Japan not unnaturally regarded them as equivalent to a rejection of her minimum proposals.,Japan's victorious expulsion of the Germans from Chinese soil and from the Far East gave her opportunities which it was manifest that she would use. She was not unlikely to forgo this occasion of regaining control of the Shantung Peninsula, of obtaining an extension of her tenure at Port Arthur, of clearing up her many outstanding differences with her neiglhbour, and of impressing upon China, once for all, that she is a Great Power who is entitled to the same treatment and the same consideration as other Great Powers. This last is a matter on which Japanese feeling is particularly sensitive, and in the past China has sometimes shown a foolish and arrogant disregard of her sensibilities. Japan is conscious of the debt wvhich she has owed to Chinese culture, but she resents the supercilious indifference of China to her new claims as a progressive and modern State. She seized the seasonable moment and put forward her claims. To some of them no reasonable objection could be made by the other Powers interested in the Far East. Some of them, however, seemed to require elucidation. This was particularly the case in regard to the provision which forbade China to alienate her coasts or ports, and in regard to provisions which miglht appear to affect certain subsisting British interests in the Yangtsze Valley and in South-East China.Even the absorp. tion of the Powers in the European struggle did not wholly divert their attention from matters so nearly concerning them in the greatest futuro market of the wvorld. An exchange of views took place, it is understood, between Washington and Tokyo on the first point, with results which were believed to bo satisfactory. In regard to the second, it wras hardly necessary for us to remind our Allies that we expected bur rights and interests to bo fully respected. All matters affecting these arc, or will be, the subject of negotiations.,Whatever may have been Japan's original demands, sho has shown a ce,rtain readiness to modify tlheni in the later course of tho negotiations. AIore mature consideration, and possibly the accession of strengthi which the recent elections have brought to the OkuAa Cabinet, would seem to havoQ led to,this result. A- strong Governient can often afford a degreo of moderation in foreign questionis from which a Ministry shrinks vhlicll is appLraling for popular support. WVe believe that Japan wvould be hard!y less ill-advised than China were she to permit matters, even nowv, to proceed to eNtremities. The denial by the State Department at W'ashillgton ithat anything has been initiated towards actual mcdiation lhas a significance in the present stato of American feeling wlhieh can scarecly be missed in Tokyo. The high reputation for sagacity and for moderation which Japanese statesmen have acquired all over tlhe world has gre,atly contributed to the prestige and the influenec of their country. It wvould undoubtedly bo impaired wero she to be short-sighted enough niow to take a course which would be likely to arouse thle jealousy and the hostility of other Great Powers and nations after the European WI'ar. Tho war will not last for ever, and in the period of great commercial activity which may be expected to follow it in the Far East. as in some other parts of the world, the good will and the confidence of others w%ill be of importanco to her. Nothing could prejudice them more than a suspicion that while most of them wero involved in a life-anddeath struggle in Europe she had seized the occasion to press her private interests to their hurt. WVe hope that the statesmen of our Allies wvill be careful to avoid giving any reasonablo ground for a suspicion so injurious to the fame and to the future prospects of their country. We expect that even now, at the eleventh hour, they will exert their high abilities to avert a catastrophe, and to justify once again British confidenico in Japan and British sympathy vwith all legitimate development and expansion of her interests in the Fiar East.

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