Soviet Treaty

Negotiations (for Japanese recognition of Soviet Russia) between the Japanese Government and the Russian A. A. Joffe, reached an impasse, with the refusal of Joffe to admit Russian responsibility for the Nikolaievsk massacre or to concede special rights to the Japanese in North Sakhalin.

Both parties are obviously toying with Western public opinion and playing for time, because the paramount issue has no relation to the ostensible points of variance. For both countries the condition of China, now approaching "a geographical expression," is the paramount interest. When the trifling disputes directly treated are out of the way, Japanese and Russian influence can be made predominant in Northern and Eastern China, a condition pointing directly to a forward policy by the two Powers against European Far Eastern possessions. Singapore, a base which the British are now rapidly developing to guard the right flank of the Indian Empire, would thus come to have increased significance. China would be the glacis for the next great strategic move in the Far East. On Great Britain's ability to hold Singapore and to dominate the coasts of South China ultimately depends the fate of Hongkong and the Treaty Ports, French Indo-China, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippine Islands and the British possessions in the Pacific, including Australia and New Zealand.