y bare the web of a most
amazing state of affairs. For in order to understand what occurred, on
the 13th August, 1916, it is necessary to turn far away from
Chengchiatun and see what lies behind it all.

At the back of the brain of the Japanese Military Party, which by no
means represents the Japanese nation or the Japanese Government although
it exercises a powerful influence on both, is the fixed idea that South
Manchuria and Inner Mongolia must be turned into a strongly held and
fortified Japanese _enclave_, if the balance of power in Eastern Asia is
to be maintained. Pursuant to this idea, Japanese diplomacy was induced
many months ago to concentrate its efforts on winning--if not
wringing--from Russia the strategically important strip of railway south
of the Sungari River, because (and this should be carefully noted) with
the Sungari as the undisputed dividing-line between the Russian and
Japanese spheres in Manchuria, and with Japanese shallow-draft gun-boats
navigating that waterway and entering the Nonni river, it would be easily
possible for Japan to complete a "Continental quadrilateral" which would
include Korea, South Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, the extreme western
barrier of which would be the new system of Inner Mongolian railways
centring round Taonanfu and terminating at Jehol, for which Japan already
holds the building rights[23]. Policing rights--in the outer zone of this
_enclave_,--with a total exclusion of all Chinese garrisons, is the
preliminary goal towards which the Japanese Military Party has been long
plainly marching; and long before anybody had heard of Chengchiatun, a
scheme of reconnoitring detachments had been put in force to spy out the
land and form working alliances with the Mongol bands in order to harass
and drive away all the representatives of Chinese authority. What
occurred, then, at Chengchiatun might have taken place at any one of
half-a-dozen other places in this vast and little-known region whither
Japanese detachments have silently gone; and if Chinese diplomacy in the
month of August, 1916, was faced with a rude surprise, it was only what
political students had long been expecting. For though Japan should be
the real defender of Chinese liberties, it is a fact that in Chinese
affairs Japanese diplomacy has been too long dictated to by the Military
Party in Tokio and attempts nothing save when violence allows it to tear
from China some fresh portion of her independence.