The Ambassador considered it as improbable that Japan would make a declaration of war on China. The relations now existing between China and Japan, said Hsu Shih-ying, reminded him of two chess players who did not formally declare themselves opponents but for all that went on playing.
The Peiping Government, in the opinion of the Ambassador, could not last a single day without the. support of the Japanese army of occupation. Every attempt to set up a pro-Japanese Government had furnished further proof of the unity of the Chinese people. No prominent Chinese had placed his service at the disposal of this provisional government, The present officials of the Peiping Government were completely known men peaking, of the anti-Comintern rad, the Ambassador drew attention io the fact that the signature of the treaty had met with. the. sharpest rejection by the Japanese press, was unpopular, generally and had led to the resignation of Mr. Arita.
The Ambassador declared " the Russo-Japanese, tension, to Be politically unimportant. Both countries were merely armed for defence against an attack of the other. Japan naturally wished no interference; by the Soviet Union because the war in China already s all Japanese powers.
The Ambassador closed with. the observation that Japan feared that the Soviet Union, if provoked further, might enter' the—conflict.—Trans-Ocean
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.