JAPAN AND THE "IRREPRESSIBLE EXPANSION" DOCTRINE
about 200,000 Japanese have emigrated to Manchuria. About 120,000 remained there in 1920. The tide is ebbing.
Siberia is farther north and generally is colder than Manchuria. It is thinly populated as a whole, something like Alaska. The total population of Siberia in 1914 was 10,377,900; of whom less than 2,000,000 live in Eastern Siberia. The population of all Siberia per square mile is 2; but a large part of Siberia is a wilderness and much of it is but partly explored.
At this point I will quote from my own previous writings on this subject; from Chapter XIV, page 255, of "Our Eastern Question," published in 1916:
"The idea of Korea and Manchuria providing a satisfactory field for Japan's excess population no longer is widely entertained in Japan, and no longer, if it ever did, has a place in Japan's genuine as distinguished from her pretended foreign policy. Some wrong assumptions about this question are widely accepted. It is incorrect to say that Japan is overpopulated in a territorial sense, for a large area of Japan proper is sparsely populated, and more than one-third of the arable land in Japan is uncultivated. Therefore it is not lack of land that impels Japanese to emigrate; it is a desire for economic betterment. … Manchuria long has been a part of China, and large sections of China are more densely populated than any parts of Japan. Yet Chinese have not occupied Manchuria in large numbers for various reasons, among which were lack of communications and security. Those conditions are improving, and China now would like to use Manchuria for her own surplus population; but she is blocked by Japan. This being so, one cannot accept an assumption of a right of Japan to annex Manchuria on those grounds. If it is a question of rights and justice, then China's right should supercede Japan's, for China's need of her own undeveloped territory is greater. …
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