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 South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia, and preferential rights regarding the appointment of advisers in South Manchuria. At the Washington Conference, 1921–22, however, Japan relinquished her rights regarding the loans and the advisers.

These treaties and other agreements gave to Japan an important and unusual position in Manchuria. She governed the leased territory with practically full rights of sovereignty. Through the South Manchuria Railway, she administered the railway areas, including several towns and large sections of such populous cities as Mukden and Changchun; and in these areas she controlled the police, taxation, education and public utilities. She maintained armed forces in many parts of the country: the Kwantung Army in the Leased Territory. Railway Guards in the railway areas, and Consular Police throughout the various districts.

This summary of the long list of Japan's rights in Manchuria shows clearly the exceptional character of the political, economic and legal relations created between that country and China in Manchuria. There is probably nowhere in the world an exact parallel to this situation, no example of a country enjoying in the territory of a neighbouring State such extensive economic and administrative privileges. A situation of this kind could possibly be maintained without leading to incessant complications and disputes if it were freely desired or accepted on both sides, and if it were the sign and embodiment of a well-considered policy of close collaboration in the economic and in the political sphere. But, in the absence of those conditions, it could only lead to friction and conflict.

The Chinese people regard Manchuria as an integral part of China and deeply resent any attempt to separate it from the rest of their country. Hitherto, these Three Eastern Provinces have always been considered both by China and by foreign Powers as a part of China, and the de jure authority of the Chinese Government there has been unquestioned. This is evidenced in many Sino-Japanese treaties and agreements, as wall as in other international conventions, and has been reiterated in numerous statements issued ofﬁcially by Foreign Offices, including that of Japan.

The Chinese regard Manchuria as their "first line of defence". As Chinese territory, it is looked upon as a sort of buffer against the adjoining territories of Japan and Russia, a region which constitutes an outpost against the penetration of Japanese and Russian inﬂuences from those regions into the other parts of China. The facility with which China, south of the Great Wall, including the city of Peiping, can be invaded from Manchuria has been demonstrated to the Chinese from historical experience. This fear of foreign invasion from the north-east has been increased in recent years by the development of railway communication, and has 'been intensified during the events of the, past year.

Manchuria is also regarded by the Chinese as important to them for economic reasons. For decades they have called it the "granary of China", and more recently have regarded it as a region which furnishes seasonal employment to Chinese farmers and labourers from neighbouring Chinese provinces.

Whether China as a whole can be said to be over-populated may be open to question, but that certain regions and provinces—as, for example, Shantung—are now peopled in such numbers as to require emigration is generally accepted by the most competent authorities on this subject. The Chinese, therefore, regard Manchuria as a frontier region, capable