324 J.-A. PEMBERTON
and Japan.’^298 Members further discussed the adjustments that Western
nations might make in order to ‘satisfy future legitimate Japanese needs’
through, for example, responding to Japanese demands for essential
raw materials and trade outlets and removing or modifying ‘discrimi-
natory migration restrictions and other legal disabilities on Japanese in
other Pacific countries.’^299 Against the background of these suggestions,
members urged the view that Japan should examine the ‘possibilities of
conscious control of population growth.’^300 Members also discussed the
adjustments that Western nations might make in order to satisfy China’s
legitimate needs. Among the suggestions made in this regard were the
following: the abolition or modification of systems of foreign concessions
and extra-territorial rights in China and political and economic prepara-
tions to that end; further Western investment and provision of technical
assistance to China ‘without impairing Chinese administrative independ-
ence’; and the ‘removal or modification of migration and other legal dis-
abilities of Chinese abroad.’^301
The members also considered what international adjustments might
be made in order to promote conditions of security and orderly processes
in the Far East. Among the suggestions made in this regard were the
following: regional machinery for the exchange of information and tech-
nical assistance in the fields of communications, health, aviation, agricul-
ture, colonial administration, education and cultural matters; the creation
of a Far Eastern economic conference and council; and the establishment
of an international development program for the region. That said, the
members could not and did not pretend that behind Japan’s predatory
actions in the region lay merely a set of economic and demographic
pressures: they well understood that a will to aggrandisement ani-
mated the war-party in Japan and considered that it was this that largely
explained the overthrow of international order in East Asia. The mem-
bers thus recognised that adjustments of an essentially political nature
were demanded: new international treaties and machinery for consulta-
tion to replace the Washington treaties in the form of treaties of mutual
(^298) ‘Appendix 4: Round Table Discussion Syllabus,’ ibid., 283.
(^299) Ibid.
(^300) Ibid.
(^301) Ibid.