The fact of matter was that by the end of the century there had grown up in China an extremely complicated and delicate set of relationships between the Chinese and the governments and nationals of other powers. page 42
Manchuria was not, historically speaking, a part of Old China page 42
the attainment of this position in northern manchuria naturally gave the Russians new facilities for projecting their influence in to the southern part of Manchuria as well as Korea and northern China. ......The only practical alternative to Russia power on the Gulf of Pechili was at that time Japanese power, not Chinese. The British recognized this. This was one of the basic factors in the circumstances that lay behind the conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese alliance in 1902. the result of that war, as you will recall, was that the Japanese replaced the Russians as the dominant power in South Manchuria and Korea but did not interfere with nominal Chinese sovereignty in the area, any more that the Russian had interfered with in the North. page 42
Theodore Roosevelt recognized as desirable, as early as 1905, that a balance should be preserved Russia and Japan in that are "so that each may have moderating action on the other, " page 43
In accordance with these views our government found little difficulty in reconciling itself to the establishment of Japanese predominance in Korea. page 44
So far as I can judge from such evidence as I have seen, it was assumed by American statesmen that whatever was uttered or urged in the name of moral or legal principle bore with it no specific responsibility on the part of him who urged it, even though the principle might be questionable applicability to the situation at hand and the practical effects of adherence to it drastic and far-reaching. page 47
It was in this spirit that we hacked away , year after year, decade after decade, at the positions of the other powers on the mainland of Asian and above all the Japanese, in the unshakable belief that , if our principles were commendable , their consequences could not be other than happy and acceptable. But rarely could we be lured into a discussion of the real quantities in involved: of such problems as Japan's expanding population, or the weakness of government in China , or the ways in which the ambitions of other powers could be practicably countered Remember that this struck a particularly sensitive nerve in the case of countries whose interests on the Asiatic mainland were far more important to them than our interests there were to us. No one likes to receive suggestions for alterations of his behavior from someone who obviously has far less to lose than he has from the consequences of such an alteration. page 48
It made little difference if our desiderata touched Japanese feeling in peculiarly sensitive spots. It made little difference that the Japanese soul already bore the wounds of having been deprived of the fruits of victory by outside force after the war with China in 1894. We would not let that worry us when we allowed ourselves to appear again at the conclusion of the war with Russia in 1905 as the frustrators of Japanese victory. ...We would not let it interfere with our rushing in again, in the wake of World War Ⅰ---this time as the real leaders of a determined movement to deprive Japan of what she conceived to be the fruits, in terms of betterment of her position on the mainland , of her participation in the war against Germany.
And none of this would be improved by the fact that throughout this long and unhappy story we would repeatedly irritate and offend the sensitive Japanese by our immigration policies and the treatment of people of Japanese lineage, and of oriental lineage in general, in specific localities in this country. ....the country as a whole remained unwilling to recognize that the actions and attitudes of state and local authorities might constitute an important element in the creation of foreign policy. least of all were we willing to agree that the troubles arising over these matters gave us cause to be more moderate in our other demands on Japan. page 49
One of our best informed professional diplomats, Mr. John V.A. Mac Murray, ....wrote in 1935....pointing to the likelihood of a war with Japan if we continue in the course we were following....
"
"
The defeat of Japan would not mean her elimination from the problem of the Far East.....It would merely create a new set of stresses , and substitute for Japan the U.S.S.R. as the successor to Imperial Russia----as a contestant...for the mastery of the East. Nobody except perhaps Russia would gain from our victory in such a war...[the Chinese} would thank us for nothing and give us no credit fro unselfish intentions, but set themselves to formulating resistance to us in the exercise of responsibilities we would have assumed.
page 52
If ...instead of making ourselves slaves of the concepts of international law and morality, we would confine these concepts to the unobtrusive, almost feminine, function of the gentle civilizer of national self-interest in which they find their true value----then I think , posterity might look back upon our efforts with fewer and less troubled questions. page 54:
Kissinger and Kennan both emphasize the national interest and balance of power as against the ideal policy which had little applicability to actual situations.
Kissinger's Roosevelt saw Japan's involvement in the war with the U.S. essential as the part of his grand-strategy 'Roosevelt's vision of the new world order consisting of the policemen, the U.S. Russia, Britain, and China might be a reason for it.)
But Kennan seems to think it was unnecessary.
(Of course all of this does not mean Japan was forced to enter the war with U.S.; there was much stupid dynamic on the part of Japanese military to go to the war with U.S.)
No comments:
Post a Comment