Abstract

Japan's Absorption of Siberia

The meaning of the vague and fragmentary news cablegrams from Siberia scattered through the back pages of the newspapers this last summer is simply this: The conquest by Japan of the great empire of Eastern Siberia is being rapidly forwarded; forwarded, indirectly but materially, by the Western Powers; forwarded most by America, which simultaneously is making of that process one of the issues through which we may drift toward conflict with Japan. Nor was it just a humanitarian impulse that prompted the Japanese to offer Semionov asylum for so many months last year and this year, at a time when he had been defeated by the Siberian army and his capture was imminent -the asylum from which he emerged suddenly when the coup was effected at Vladivostok, which is a seaport in Siberia.