Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/161

 cure at all costs that Russia should take no such action, her recent intrigues with General Horvath, the Tsarist agent who is still in control of the Chinese Eastern railway, being dictated with the same aim and object, namely, to prevent at all costs her "sister-nation", China, being repossessed of her sovereign rights. In the remaining articles of the supplementary treaty Japan annexes everything of value she can think of in Southern Manchuria, her policy being ruthless commercial and industrial exploitation where Russia was content merely to dominate. Friction between China and Japan has been ceaseless in Manchuria ever since, the smaller country never hesitating to use threats and pressure on the slightest provocation.

It was probably because of this trouble, and of the difficulty which she experienced in annexing Korea, that Japan determined in 1915 to settle the results of her present belligerency with Germany in a new way. In the matter of Korea, in spite of her successful war against Russia, she had been forced to enter into four successive conventions with the Seoul Government before the deed was completed; and during all this time the press and peoples of the Far East were in a state of uproar. There was first an agreement on 17th November, 1905,