War And Diplomacy In Eastern Asia

I . a t B e o c o c eo OB WAR AND DIPLOMACY IN EASTERN ASIA av an m By CLAUDE A. BUSS Professor of International Relations, The University of Southern California Fanner American Foreign Service Officer and Executive Assistant to the High Connnissioner of the Philippine Islands NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1941 PREFACE This book is an analysis of the contemporary political situa tion in Eastern Asia. It emphasizes the diplomatic and eco nomic struggles for gold and glory during the past century, and shows how the clash of irresistible forces and immovable obstacles gave rise to the confusion and chaos of the present scene. While China strove to adapt its gigantic hulk to the swiftly moving events of the modern world, Japan worked feverishly to guarantee forever the position of dominance which it had achieved in its own immediate geographic area. The two nations locked in combat China was weak in terms of present strength, but strong in the promise of future greatness Japan was mighty in the language of militarism, but uncertain with regard to continued grandeur. War seemed the only method by which Japan could retain political leadership in Eastern Asia, and destroy the Chinese challenge which loomed up beyond the horizon of the Yellow Sea. The United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany, and the Soviet Union those nations which too are called great in the vocabulary of politics were obliged to look to their imperial positions. They recoiled gradually before the counter-attacks of the Chinese against their unequal privileges. They endeavored to conciliate or appease 77 Japan. Then, in desperation, they were forced to choose between headlong flight and actual war. They meant topreserve the strategic, territorial, and economic interests which they had accumulated through the years, and their major preoccupa tion was to discover and assert the adequate means. PREFACE The politics of national interests usually imply a meanness of outlook and a narrowness of vision. But the nation which rides roughshod over the rights of others, or gives no con sideration to counterclaims of opponents, is digging its own political grave. Its friends are of the sunny weather variety, and its enemies are most bitter when crises approach. The interest of good will is as vital to governments as it is to business men. The chaos which obtains in. Eastern Asia the rivalry, cal umny, hatred and quasi-warderives precisely from states mens neglect to cultivate affairs of the spirit while blindly pursuing the chimera of power, prestige, and profit. The only hope of peace, with mutual prosperity, lies in the wholesale abandonment of past misdeeds, and in the substitution of a sense of international obligation for false concepts of national honor. When nations think of obligations as well as rights, when they recognize the puny advantages of selfish interests as compared with a fundamental system of international law, only then will the jumbled mess in Eastern Asia resolve itself into a well defined, well ordered picture of peace and coopera tion. No nation is completely guiltless, none is wholly at fault. When praise and blame are allocated for contemporary con ditions, a sizable share of both parks indiscriminately on everybodys national doorstep. The writer has spent many years and covered many miles in the preparation of the material which follows. It was his good fortune to be introducedto the affairs of the Orient by Mr. Roland S. Morris, of Philadelphia, a former American ambassador to Japan. After five years of thumbing the dusty documents in the Library of the University of Pennsylvania, and after another year of browsing through Orientalia in France and Germany, he entered the Foreign Service of the American Government. One long enjoyable appointment to Peking provided the unrivalled opportunity of studying the language, the ways and the customs of the Chinese at home...