ator of the
Eastern World. Statements which were incautiously allowed to appear in
the Japanese Press a few days prior to the Chinese Note of the 9th
February disclose what Japan really thought on the subject of China
identifying herself with the Allies. For instance, the following, which
bears the hall-mark of official inspiration, reads very curiously in the
light of after-events:

... "Dispatches from Peking say that England and France have already
started a flanking movement to induce China to join the anti-German
coalition. The intention of the Chinese Government has not yet been
learned. But it is possible that China will agree, if conditions are
favourable, thus gaining the right to voice her views at the coming
peace conference. Should the Entente Powers give China a firm
guarantee, it is feared here that China would not hesitate to act.

"The policy of the Japanese Government toward this question cannot
yet be learned. It appears, however, that the Japanese Government is
not opposed to applying the resolutions of the Paris Economic
Conference, in so far as they concern purely economic questions,
since Japan desires that German influence in the commerce and
finance of the Orient should be altogether uprooted. But should the
Entente Powers of Europe try to induce China to join them, Japan may
object on the ground that it will create more disturbances in China
and lead to a general disturbance of peace in the Orient."

Now there is not the slightest doubt in the writer's mind--and he can
claim to speak as a student of twenty years' standing--that this
definition of Japanese aims and objects is a very true one; and that the
subsequent invitation to China to join the Allies which came from Tokio
after a meeting between the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs and the
Allied Ambassadors was simply made when a new orientation of policy had
been forced by stress of circumstances. Japan has certainly always
wished German influence in the Far East to be uprooted if she can take
the place of Germany; but if she cannot take that place absolutely and
entirely she would vastly prefer the influence to remain, since it is in
the nature of counterweight to that of other European Powers and of
America--foreign influence in China, as Mr. Hioki blandly told the late
President Yuan Shih-kai in his famous interview of the 18th January,
1915, being a source of constant