] 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.
And here we reach the crux of the matter. One of the little known
peculiarities of the day lies in the fact that Japan is the land
of political inaction because there is no tradition of action save
that which has been built up by the military and naval chiefs
since the Chinese war of 1894-95.
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