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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Volume 31, Number 21. September 10, 1968

China not great military threat

China not great military threat

"Militarily China is not so great a 'threaf' as some people tend to think."

This was said by Professor T. Kosaka, of Kyoto University in Japan, at a lecture sponsored by the Royal Society on Monday last week.

With overcrowding a problam in tha library, some people art causing annoyance by leaving their books on the tables for hours on end. There has been a suggestion that they take them to the caf when they go.

With overcrowding a problam in tha library, some people art causing annoyance by leaving their books on the tables for hours on end. There has been a suggestion that they take them to the caf when they go.

N.Z.R.U. being dishonest

The New Zealand Rugby Union was playing a dangerous and dishon est game in condoning racial discrimination abroad, Mr R. H. T. Thompson, Reader in Sociology, Canterbury Universify, said at the Race Relations Seminar held at the University of Waikato.

Mr Thompson said that race discrimination was no longer a purely domestic issue. and race discrimination in sport was an issue that caused interest throughout the world.

Sports tours with South Africa and Rhodesia involved New Zealand with race discrimination in those countries, he said, and New Zealand had accommodated itself to their demands.

"For the New Zealand Rugby Union to show its characteristic lack of frankness with racial issues at home and condone race discrimination abroad is to play a dangerous as well as a thoroughly dishonest game." said Mr Thompson.

The Rugby Union had encouraged the belief that Maoris were eligible for the 1970 tour of South Africa. but it was clear that the South Africans had not committed themselves to acceping Maoris who might he selected in that team, he said.

"Mr Morrison has now conceded that the NZRFU has had no assurance about Maoris being welcome in South Africa, He has pointed to the fact that the South African invitation is directed to a national team, but South African teams are recognised as fully representative and national teams and they are exclusively white."

Explaining the foreign policy of Japan he said that though China had a huge ground force, its manoeuvrability, especially the capacity of invading overseas countries, was very small.

"Her armoured divisions are only four, airborne troops are not more than one division, the navy is in a terrible condition. Nobody would claim that Chinese nuclear weapons are an offensive deterrent".

Tho "revolutionary diplomacy" of China had been astonishingly unsuccessful. She had failed in Indonesia, in Africa, and in Burma. Economically speaking, Japan stood in a far belter position than China.

It was clearly wrong to see a "threat" in China, Professor Kosaka said.

Professor T. Kosaka

"But Japanese policy is not without difficulties. First. the amount of military forces which should be stationed in the Far East. As China may undertake an adventurous policy because of hr revolutionary zeal, American military presence in the Far East is necessary to a certain extent.

"But the Japanese tend to have different opinions from the Americans, because of their traditional sympathy with China. Japan on the whole has shown friendly attitudes to the West, but there are also feelings of affinity towards Asia and. particularly towards China."

For the Japanese, China remains a living force as the spring from which civilisation has come and many Japanese were critical of American Asian policy.

But in spite of ability to build and maintain a unique civilisation, China had shown a remarkable lack of flexibility.

"Her present ideology, communism, adds much to her traditional inflexibility. Perhaps a long time is necessary before China enters the family of nations.

"It is very difficult to help the development of Asian countries, basically because of their lack of administrative ability "