I N FEBRUARY I937, Sir John Pratt, British Foreign Office's expert on China, described Sir Frederick Leith-Ross as the acknowledged authority now on and agent of new policy. Pratt characterised this policy as a forward movement into China and added, with a touch of sarcasm, that Government was letting it be known that it would protect British trade against all enemies, be they Japanese, American or Chinese.1 In early years of century, successive British Governments had been forced to make defensive diplomatic arrangements covering Far East. Some major departures in British diplomacy, introduced after careful deliberation in face of a changing balance of forces in Europe as well as in face of rise of militant nationalism in Asia, included Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902-I921, Washington Treaties of 1921-1922 and December Memorandum of I926 on Chinese nationalism. These measures have been characterised as signalling a retreat from China, adopted by Britain either because her leaders felt themselves buffeted by Asian forces beyond their control or prevented by strong currents of liberalsocialist opinion in England from making any bargain with dissatisfied or aggressive powers such as Japan and Germany, or because Britain had long outgrown that stage of capitalist imperialism.2 The evidence now