Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/91

 well that in 1916 they wrote a reinsurance of their China policy with Russia

But the Russian Revolution totally destroyed the value of this undertaking, whilst almost at the same time China, invited by America to do so, in a most surprising and unexpected way broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, and was on the eve of a formal declaration of war. Seeing the prize once more slipping through their fingers, the Terauchi Ministry developed in the late spring of 1917 a new policy.

Deliberately they associated themselves with the Peiyang military party, promising every kind of financial support if this party would fight under their banner. Nominally acquiescent, the Peiyang party, in spite of the odium cast on them by their Southern adversaries, were still first and last Chinese, i.e. men who knew perfectly well what Japan's plans really were, and who only pretended that they were in entire accord with them. Thus once more there was a play within the play, the number of factors involved being so immense that most people soon lost sight of the main issue—which was that Japan was for the time being