THE CHINA MAIL, SEPTEMBER 16, 1941.
CHINA MAIL
WINDSOR HOUSE
JAPAN'S INTEREST
IN SIBERIA
Anonymous "authoritative cir- cles" in London continue to, be interested in Japanese troops movements. in Korea and, Man- churin. The suspicion is again expressed: that-Hitler wants Japan to make trouble for Stalin, in eastern Siberia, presumably to prevent "the shifting of any great part of the Far Eastern Red Army to the western battlefront.
It must be admitted that this is a likelier possibility now than it was a few weeks ago. When Hitler launched his attack on the Soviet Union he was much too confident of a swift and over- whelming victory to care how the Red forces in remotest Siberia were kept busy.
Now some units of Russia's Far Eastern force are already on their way to Europe, and the German drive into Russia is far behind schedule; so it is possible that i Hitler might welcome Japanese manoeuvring in Manchuria that would prevent a wholesale Russian withdrawal westward. We still doubt, however, that Hitler would care to see Japan so deeply and perhaps meffectually involved with an alliance of Chinese, Mon- gols and Russians that all ven- tures elsewhere would have to be abandoned and most of the United States fleet could be moved into the Atlantic.
When one is trying to figure out what Japan is up to, inoreover, the most exact knowledge of what
STEPPES
盟企
PLAINS