The preamble is quite
English; it is so English that one is almost lulled into believing
that one's previous reasoning has been at fault and that Japan is
only demanding what she is entitled to. Yet study Group II closely
and subtleties gradually emerge. By boldly and categorically
placing Eastern Inner Mongolia on precisely the same footing as
Southern Manchuria--though they have nothing in common--the
assumption is made that the collapse in 1908 of the great Anglo-
American scheme to run a neutral railway up the flank of Southern
Manchuria to Northern Manchuria (the once celebrated Chinchow-
Aigun scheme), coupled with general agreement with Russia which
was then arrived at, now impose upon China the necessity of
publicly resigning herself to a Japanese overlordship of that
region. In other words, the preamble of Group II lays down that
Eastern Inner Mongolia has become part and parcel of the
Manchurian Question because Japan has found a parallel for what
she is doing in the acts of European Powers.
These things, however, need not detain us. Not that Manchuria or
the adjoining Mongolian plain is not important; not that the
threads of destiny are not woven thickly there. For it is certain
that the vast region immediately beyond the Great Wall of China is
the Flanders of the Far East--and that the next inevitable war
which will destroy China or make her something of a nation must be
fought on that soil just as two other wars have been fought there
during the past twenty years.
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