JAPAN MILITANT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 171, 22 October 1941, Page 4

JAPAN MILITANT

WITH the old sabre-rattlers of 1932, again in office, it la mete to expect that Japan will, be itching to show off her military prestige and thus mitigate to some extent the sorry proceedings of the war in China,. Loud talk and bluster, borrowed from Hitler-Goebbels text book, have charcterised the Nipponese methods of intimidation for some time past and it is therefore not necessary to look for a pretext whereby a declaration of war may be made against the sorely pressed Soviet Union. It is obvious that Japan will take the line of least resistance—should she enter the war over night and the road lies definitely through Manchuria and via Vladivostok. Here are the possibilities of swift and easy victories by the Mussolini method of stabbing an unsuspecting neighbour in the back. It is far to b& preferred, than the difficulties of a southern expansionist movement which would bring about an active collision with the highly trained and waiting British and Dutch Forces in. Burma,, Borneo, Singapore a,nd the Indies. No, it would appear that a swift well-executed thrust against the Soviet before the Democracies could marshall their forces and arrive at a common basis of action, would be fax more to the liking of the Japanese militarists. Thus would they bo enabled to relieve Hitler's armies on the west by their diversion, and thus too would they be enabled to participate in the plums' when the expected new order was introduced. Japan's new cabinet—pro-axis, anti-British, arrogant, proud and impatient makes it all too evident that the fateful die is cast and that even now the strategists are preparing for active participation on the: side of Nazi Germany. Pre-occupied as she is with the mounting difficulties of the China war, we can feel fairly certain that the Japanese drive will be directed against Siberia, but we must not dismiss the possibilities of far-reaching activities by the powerful Japanese fleet,, which might easily work havoc in the Pacific before the American Congress had finished the debate on whether that country should go to war or not. The diversion of part of the navy however depends entirely upon the nature and dimensions of the military expedition sent north to work in concert with the probable campaign on the Mancfhurian border.