To give this impression is to issue Japan a clear invitation to oconsolidate her position in Manchuria with a mandate to do so from the whole Occident. The Soviet leaders labour under the impression that Japan and America will some day go to war because of Japanese gression in Manchuria, but if Russia threatens Manchuria with invasion and the Chinese Government with violence, it affords Japan an excuse to push into Northern Manchuria and to strengthen her already strong position in the South, which the American Government could scarcely challenge and which most Oveidental Governments would probably support as a good excuse. An act of violence against the Chinese Government or even a consistently menacing attitude, will range China herself, Japan, America and all the rest of the world against Russia a. allies. This is a situation which the Bolsheviks, from their own point of view, cannot afford to create in. the Orient. Joffe knows this, Moscow knows it and the Chinese themselves know it. Whenever the Chinese Government demonstrates that it knows this and tells Joffe and his Government that it knows he is bluffing, he will be recalled. The last thing that Moscow wants is a hostile China with all the world supporting her. The Chinese Government has therefore only to intimate to Moscow that Joffe's attitude is. abusive and insulting and that he is unwelcome here, to be rid
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.