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The Changing Balance of Forces in the PacificAuthor(s): Hu ShihSource: Foreign Affairs, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Jan., 1937), pp. 254-259Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20028763 .

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THE CHANGING BALANCE OF FORCES IN THE PACIFIC

By Hu Shih

(ROADLY speaking, there are only two views of the Far Eastern situation. There is the view of those who regard it as completely beyond any peaceful remedy. They are

the defeatists. But there are still a few optimists who hold the view that recent changes in the balance of power in the Pacific

may yet provide far-sighted and constructive statesmanship with an opportunity of devising some kind of peaceful adjustment. I shall try to state in the following pages the reasons for my being one of these optimistic few.

Many believe that there is no longer any balance of power in the Far East, that there is only the supremacy of one nation ?

Japan. They believe that the semblance of international equi librium and order which obtained during the period of the Wash

ington Treaties (1921-31) was ruthlessly and irrevocably de

stroyed by the acts of Japan beginning in September 1931. They believe that where one Power is in a position of such absolute

preponderance, and where that Power happens to be intoxicated with the successes it has met with in carrying through an ap parently irresistible program of militaristic expansion, there can not be any remedy or modification of the situation without an international war.

From such a major premise only defeatist conclusions can be

drawn : either the Powers of Europe and America must acknowledge

their helplessness in this situation, and each of them plan to with draw the commercial and financial interests of its nationals from the Far East in order to avoid a possible conflict; or they must

appease the predominant Power by sacrificing all principles of international justice and the sanctity of treaty obligations in order to retain a minimum share in the spoils; or each must go on with its military and naval preparations in anticipation of an inevitable clash in the not-too-distant future.

Such seemed to be the state of mind prevailing at the round table discussions of the Institute of Pacific Relations in which I

participated last summer. Shortly after that meeting, a liberal

journal of opinion in the United States advocated editorially that all American merchants and firms trading in China should



CHANGING FORCES IN THE PACIFIC 255

be withdrawn from that country and that the American Govern ment should undertake to compensate their losses out of the

money saved from scrapping the American navy. I need not mention the other organs of opinion which advocate creating a big navy and a big air force as the only sort of language which

Japan can understand. I do not propose to comment on such

views. I only wish to point out that there is this defeatist attitude toward the international situation in the Pacific. To build a big navy without backing it with a constructive policy is defeatism. To advocate the abandonment of the principle of

non-recogni tion ? the only surviving reminder of the sanctity of a set of

great and idealistic treaties ?

is defeatism. And the mere pious wish to avoid a clash by scrapping the American navy and aban

doning a continent of commerce and investment is no less defeatism.

I venture to suggest that this defeatism in all its forms is based

upon an erroneous understanding of the present situation in the Pacific area. It is erroneous today to think of that situation as one of Japanese supremacy unmitigated by any changes in the balance of forces. Such changes have been taking place since 1931.

The plain historical truth is this: "Japan's supremacy in the Far East" was a fact in the period of seventeen years from IQ14 to 1931; but since IQ31 it no longer has been a fact.

It is unnecessary to recount how at the outbreak of the World War in 1914 the semblance of a balance of power which had pre vailed since the close of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 com

pletely broke down. Great Britain, Russia and France were en

gaged in a life and death struggle in Europe. The Far East was left in the hands of Britain's ally, Japan, who proceeded to wipe

out all German possessions and influence on the Chinese coast

and in the Pacific Ocean. For seven years, from 1914 to 1921,

Japan ruled the Western Pacific almost without a rival. This

supremacy was evidenced by Japan's "Twenty-one Demands" on

China in 1915. It was still more clearly evidenced at the Peace Conference in 1919 when the victorious Allies, against the nation

wide protests of the Chinese people and against a world-wide sentiment for the Wilsonian principle of self-determination, con ceded to Japan the right of free disposition of the former Ger

man concessions in Shantung.

The Washington Conference was called to readjust the prob lems of naval disarmament and the Pacific problems left un



256 FOREIGN AFFAIRS

solved by the Paris Peace Conference. It had a direct bearing on the Pacific situation in four ways. First, the question of Shan

tung was amicably settled between China and Japan. Secondly, the eight signatory Powers (other than China) of the Nine-Power

Treaty pledged themselves "to respect the sovereignty, the in

dependence, and the territorial and administrative integrity of

China; to provide the fullest and most unembarrassed oppor tunity to China to develop and maintain for herself an effective and stable government;

. . . [and] to refrain from taking ad

vantage of conditions in China in order to seek special rights or

privileges which would abridge the rights of subjects or citizens of friendly States, and from countenancing action inimical to the

security of such States." Thirdly, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was not renewed and its place was taken by the Four-Power

Treaty. Fourthly, the ratio 5-5-3 was adopted for the naval

strengths of Great Britain, the United States and Japan, re

spectively. While it is true that the Washington Treaties aimed at the

establishment of a set of new checks and balances on Japan's preponderate power in the Far East, it is no less true that the

supremacy of Japan was never in fact curtailed by the actions taken at Washington. On the contrary, Japanese power in the

Pacific was never greater than during those first ten years after the Washington Treaties (1921-1931). The real result of the Con ference was to rectify some of the most pressing troubles between China and Japan, remove much of the tension between Japan and the other naval Powers, and thereby

secure Japan's prepon

derate position in the Western Pacific by practically legalizing it. There is such a thing as power becoming greatest when it is

made innocuous. The best example is the supremacy of the United.States in the Western Hemisphere. Japan's position in the

family of nations was the highest when she abided by the results of the Washington Conference and remained one of the Big Four in the League of Nations. Since she began to abuse that power in 1931, and particularly since she withdrew from the League in

1933, she has not again attained her former heights of power and

prestige. Thus we may say that "the supremacy of Japan in the Far

East" was not only true of the period of the World War and the

years immediately following its conclusion, but also true of the ten years after the Washington Conference. While the League




Covenant and the Washington Treaties and the Pact of Paris

prevailed there was no balance of power in the Pacific. There was

only a New World Order, or at least the semblance of it, within which Japan was tacitly acknowledged by all as the undisputed leader in the Far East and in the Western Pacific.

But since September 18, 1931, that is to say, since Japan's militarists started their aggressive campaigns in Manchuria, in Shanghai, and in North China ?

what a tremendous change has taken place! By those acts of aggression, Japan threw into the discard the whole postwar machinery of peace. Japanese power ran wild. It upset not merely the East, but the entire world. It destroyed that semblance of international order which alone had legalized and tacitly protected Japan's supremacy.

What are the new factors brought forth since 1931 as a result, at least in part, of Japan's violent action ?

In the first place, Soviet Russia has come back to the Pacific as a first-rate military Power. At the time of the Washington Conference, she had not yet been recognized by the other Powers. She was neither a participant in the Conference nor a signatory to the Washington Treaties. But since 1931 the Soviet Union has brought to the Far East a huge armed force estimated to include between 300,000 and 500,000 finely trained and well

equipped men. She is developing one of the greatest air forces in the world. Since 1931, her submarine and destroyer fleet in the

Pacific is reported to have quintupled and the coast guard fleet to have increased elevenfold. In these years she has constructed about 7,000 miles of new railways along the Mongolian and Si berian borders, and 3,000 miles have been double-tracked. And behind all these there has taken place the most remarkable prog ress in industrialization, not only in European Russia but also in the Soviet Far East.

In other words, Russia has now definitely returned to the Pacific area as a

fully armed Power. She comes, too, possessed of new

and vast industrial resources. Japan must now reckon with her more than ever as a factor in the Pacific scene.

The second new factor is the rapid rearmament of all the non Asiatic nations bordering the Pacific or having possessions there. A continuous ring extends from the Aleutian Islands to

Singapore and the Dutch Last Indies. We read the other day that for the

month of July 1936, the Dutch Indies were the heaviest buyers of American ammunition. The construction of the British naval



258 FOREIGN AFFAIRS

base at Singapore, after being suspended for a time, was vigor ously resumed after the fighting at Shanghai early in 1932. This

most gigantic

naval base in the world is now practically

com

pleted. New Zealand and Australia, the two paradises of the Southern Pacific Ocean which had never dreamed of the neces

sity of arming, are now seriously working out their own schemes of coastal defense. Each is recruiting

an enlarged militia, manu

facturing its own planes, and laboriously extracting gasoline from coal and shale. Recently when I was in Winnipeg I read in the Free Press that Canada, too, is going to have a new navy.

And the United States is constructing new armaments and fortifi cations from the Philippines to Alaska, and undertaking a heavy naval building program.

This ring of nations newly armed or rearmed must be con sidered a new factor produced since 1931 by Japan's actions.

Last but not least we must note the rapid rise of the national state of China. The unification of China under the National Gov ernment at Nanking is the outcome of Japan's aggression. In the dark shadows of national humiliation, a unified Chinese state is taking form.

During the first two years following Japan's aggression in

Manchuria, Japanese spokesmen everywhere declared that China was not an

organized modern state and should not be accorded

the full rights and privileges which such states enjoy. In the last three years such pleadings

have ceased. In their place we con

stantly hear statements from Japanese militarists to the effect

that the Empire of Japan cannot co-exist with Chiang Kai-shek's

government. "Shall the Empire surrender to him? Or shall it crush him?" Such were the alternatives stated recently by

General Tada. Long before the outside world became aware of it, the shrewd eyes of the Japanese military had begun to see the

growth of a nationalistic China and perceived that it would have an increasing power of resistance to external aggression.

This new factor in the Pacific scene may indeed turn out to be the most important of the three which I have enumerated. For, as John Hay knew, an independent and strong China is neces

sary not only for the maintenance of the Open Door but also for the stability and peace of the Far East. For over thirty years China failed to live up to Hay's expectations. Now she is ear

nestly endeavoring to qualify herself as one of the stabilizing forces in Asia.




Such are the new factors which now are entering into the bal ance of forces in the Pacific and changing that balance so that

Japan, though she still plays a mighty r?le, is no longer supreme. Evidently if these new factors are not properly organized

they may lead towards a terrible international conflagration. It might begin with a war forced on China by Japan's continued

aggression, and gradually it might involve Soviet Russia, Great Britain and ultimately the United States. In the modern world war is as truly "indivisible" as peace. No nation bordering on the

Pacific, or interested in its fate, can hope to escape being involved in any major Pacific conflict.

But wise statesmen may also discern in this changing balance of power new possibilities for a peaceful adjustment of the Pacific

world. They may now discover a way to create a regional peace

machinery which has as participants the United States, the Soviet Union and the British Empire (with all its Pacific mem

bers), as well, of course, as Japan and China. What is certain is that the alternative to such a

peaceful collective arrangement will be another world conflagration the magnitude and the horror of which will be beyond anything we now envisage in the boldest stretch of our

imagination.

