Bait Bitten

A cynic once defined a gift as a gesture made against better judgment in lively expectation of better treatment. Last week Japan offered foreign nations, especially the U. S., a gift of which she was pretty proud. There was a lively look in her eye as she gave.

Japan's Foreign Minister Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura broke the news first to U. S. Ambassador Joseph C. Grew, later to diplomats of other nations: Japan would reopen the Yangtze River to foreign trade.

This looked like a whopping gift. It was the first sign that Japan's New Order in China might mean anything besides exclusive Japanese monopoly. It was the first indication that something might be done about U. S. grievances before the China war ends. Most significant, it was the first concrete example in many months of ascendancy of Cabinet over General Staff. On the surface it looked like a sincere gesture of appeasement. But beneath the surface it looked like bait.

The gift had a tangle of strings attached. The river would be opened only as far as Nanking--a still dead city 193 miles upriver from Shanghai, only one-third of the stretch held by Japan. It would be opened "at the proper time"--not immediately. Navigation would be subject to "certain restrictions necessary for the maintenance of order and military operations."

It turned out that export concessions to this area of the Yangtze basin are intrenched in the hands of Japanese firms; and competing U. S. firms would be subjected to handicaps of inspection and permit. It turned out that exports from the area are practically negligible.

Finally the Japanese Foreign Office spokesman frankly explained the gesture. It was intended to jog the U. S. into renewing her trade treaty with Japan. The present agreement, the Treaty of 1911, was denounced on July 26, and lapses on Jan. 26. By last week nothing had been done about renewal, and Japan was beginning to get panicky about the threat of embargo. The Cabinet might fall unless the U. S. reacted favorably to the Yangtze promise. "We anticipate American action," said Spokesman Yakichiro Suma, "with absorbing interest"--and before Christmas, he added.

Two days before Christmas, at 5:30 in the afternoon, Ambassador Grew's tall, easy-moving figure appeared at the gai-musho (Foreign Office). For an hour the Ambassador and Foreign Minister were closeted. Shortly after the interview ended, a happy communique was issued indicating "progress." Spokesman Summa summed up the talk with a confident double negative: "There will not be a non-treaty situation between Japan and the U. S." But it appeared that Japan would have to offer more than the Yangtze promise.

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