JAPAN'S DILEMMA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 133, 25 July 1941, Page 4

JAPAN'S DILEMMA

URGED on by Nazi Germany to hasten the attack on the Soviet, torn by her own internal difficulties and the impossibility of concluding with honour the China incident, the; Japanese Empire is now at the cross-roads. Whichever road she takes she will suffer, for the position has drifted well beyond the wiles of Prince Konoye, Shigamitsu and Matsuoka. News commentaries on the position are just as vague as the thoughts of the average individual. Japan in spite of her unfinished war with China, must move. The call of Germany is imperative, yet if she becomes the active partner -of the Nazis, she must be prepared for immediate war •with Britain, and ultimately with the U.S.A. If on the other hand, in sheer desperation her armies are diverted towards French Indo-China in order to find a new set of bases for renewing the attack on Chiang Kai Chek, she threatens both Thyland and British Malay States, not to mention the Phillipine Islands. Her position is unenviable, but, it is of her own creation, for her self-appointed task of bringing about a new order in Asia has put her neighbours well on guard. Wherever she moves there are armies to receive her, even though the weakness of Vichy makes it easy for her to obtain initial footing on the mainland. The southward drive however, will not be at Hitler's bidding. If he had his way lie would have his colleague State eating its way into Communistic Russia by way of Asiatic ports. But no,, Nipponese eyes are fastened on the productive lands of the IndoChina, states, where rice, where rubber and where minerals in abundance will afford welcome relief to her own shortened supply. Japan appeares to be watching her own interests in the move south. The new War Cabinet is taking a gamble., desperate though it may be, of staking everything on a bold aggressive campaign on the Hitler pattern, hoping that their 'grab' on the Asiatic mainland will meet with success and that their navy will be powerful enough to ward off any interference by the British or the as yet, nonbelligerent American fleets. Never beaten in their history and in the habit of bullying and browbeating the inoffensive Chinese populations within their own protectorates, the Japanese are to-day faced Avith bitter alternatives, either of whidh may easily bring about the unbelievable—the defeat and overthrow of their Empire. The next few days may well tell a story of swift and far-reaching events.