The Washington report that Japan desires to have established a buffer state between herself and the Reds in Eastern Siberia coincides in @ curious way with the view the Chinese take of Japan's policy in that particular quarter. However much Japanese statesmen may doubt. the sincerity of amiable Bolshevik declarations, no matter how gravely they may fear a spread of the doctrine to Japan, they are unable, against public opinion in their own country, to exert any great military force to put_a definite stop to Red expansion. The temper of the country is against it. It may probably be a habit of the Chinese to look' for sinister motives in everything Japan now does, and they certainly are not likely to be unbiassed but as, under the Military Agreement, Chinese troops are already in defensive positions against the Bolsheviks, their views have a certain importance. They hold that as Japan is unable for the reasons mentioned above to take up the quarrel with the Bolsheviks herself, and yet fears their onward march, she is trying to embroil China with them. hoping thereby to keep the Red hands so full that they: will leave Japan alone. We have no information to. show how far this view is correct, but it is significant, as showing Japan's apprehension, that the Japanese papers are paying attention more and more to the increasing socialist tendencies among the working men. The "Japan Advertiser" anticipates that the social and industrial upheaval observed in the West will be duo in Japan within the year. and the eastern trend' of Bolshevism, it. says, may have a considerable influence in the remoulding of the country that will inevitably follow.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.