Foreign News: Frankness

To the vast astonishment of the Tokyo press corps last week, that usually suave diplomat, Foreign Minister Koki Hirota, took the gloves off and bluntly explained that the real purpose of Japan's expeditionary force is not to conquer China, but to kick out Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek. In words chosen with far less tact than his sovereign was about to use to explain the Sino-Japanese War, Mr. Hirota observed: "We are fighting anti-Japanese movements in China. These exist largely in the Chinese Army, and General Chiang Kai-shek is their spearhead. The leaders of present-day China have long fostered anti-Japanism as a tool for political purposes . . . and they have, through collusion with the communists, openly and energetically prepared for war with Japan."

Another piece of frankness unfamiliar to Oriental diplomacy bobbed up last week when word reached Shanghai from Tokyo that the Chinese Ambassador, old Hsu Shih-ying, had padded up to Japanese Foreign Minister Hirota's office, expressed a desire on behalf of China to arrange a non-aggression pact with Japan. T. V. Soong, former finance minister of China, now one of Chiang Kai-shek's advisers, when informed of the proposal repudiated his Government's representative in about the time it takes to say chicken chow mein. He snorted: "Our Ambassador in Japan is an innocuous old gentleman talking on general principles when thousands of Chinese lives are being lost every day at the hands of ruthless invaders."