It is not too early to attempt to appreciate the dangerous possibilities which are bound up in this question of the Chinese Eastern Railway—dangerous from the point of view of China's integrity and from the point of view of international' complications as well.
About the worst thing that could happen, from the Chinese point of view, though the least likely, would be an amicable agreement between the Soviet and Japan, to which they would append a clause providing for a division of southern and northern "spheres" in Manchuria, or a clause in which Japan would agree not to oppose a Red cupation of the Chinese Eastern zone on condition that Japanese established interests in jthe north be given special protection and that future enterprises be granted special privileges. This would amount to the alienation and division of Manchuria. It is easy to imagine what the attitude of the Occidental Powers and of opinion abroad would be to such an attitude.
Next to such a development, in a calamitous degree, would be a conflict on Manchurian soil between the Reds and the Japanese. From the point of view of China's territorial' integrity and of her sover-eighty in Manchuria, a victory on either part in such a confli¢t would be a defeat for*China. This the Chinese might not immediately realize, but Occidental diplomacy would not be blind to this fact and ought not to be blind to-it now.
hina is used to being the bone of contention and her foreign policy, if it may be called such, has for many decades consisted' solely in the business of playing the more immediate menace against the more remote menace. The Chinese, convinced that Soviet Russia is as imperialistic as was Tsarist Russia, are slowly coming to regard Soviet Russia. as the more immediate menace, and Japan as the more remote. If the Reds seized the Chinese Eastern Railway this growing feeling would promptly become a fixed conviction and, true to form. Chinese diplomacy: would busy it self with playing the Japanese against the Reds. Chang Tso-lin would, of course, welcome Japanese support and it would be readily given. The Red. invasion would afford the Japanese militarists all the excuse they would need to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.