DUTCH EAST INDIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 May 1940, Page 9

DUTCH EAST INDIES

SECRET BERLIN=TOKIO PACT?

JAPAN’S FEARS OF UNITED STATES.

POSITION IN THE PACIFIC. Last year, before the outbreak of the present war, I was in the Netherlands Indies and the British-protected Malay States on my way back from Australia, writes Lord Strabolgi in the “Christian Science Monitor.” In many conversations with prominent Netherlands, British and Chinese residents. I found the general opinion that, but for the strenuous resistance of the Chinese to the Japanese invasion, a direct threat to the Netherlands Indies and Malaya could be expected as soon as Britain and France became involved in a major war in Europe. It was recognised that the long drawn-out campaign on the mainland of Asia had put a check for the time being on any such Japanese designs. The argument by those who knew the Japanese and their methods was that, | providing their hands were free in

China, the Japanese would try to establish themselves in the Netherlands Indies in order to forestall a Nazi conquest of the Netherlands and results that would flow from it. Now that Reichfuehrer Hitler and his confederates are threatening all their smaller neighbours, including the Netherlands, Japan is looking anxiously to the future. SEEK WORLD RULE. The Hitler Government is not the only dictatorship aiming at world domination. Militarists who control the Government in Tokio are also candidates. Using modern jargon, .the Japanese would describe the Netherlands Indies, with their 60,000,000 inhabitants and rich natural resources, as their lebensraum. Not that there would be “room” for Japanese settlers. These large islands are already thickly populated by industrious peasantry: but they are valuable markets and produce petroleum, rubber, and tropical products in profusion. If the Japanese could establish themselves there they would turn the flank of the British defences at Singapore by using the, Timor Sea as a way into the Indian Ocean.

Japan entrenched in the Netherlands Indies would threaten both India and Australia.

These Netherands colonies are well administered and prosperous. The Netherlands provides officials and governors, trade • and commerce are largely in the hands of the Chinese — who make excellent citizens —while the natives are hard-working and peaceful cultivators. NAZI-JAPANESE PARLEY. During the honeymoon of the Japanese-German entente, before the Nazis made nonsense of the antiComintern pact by their agreement with Russia, private negotiations took place between Berlin and Tokio as to the future of the Netherlands Indies in case of certain eventualities. One of the main attractions for Germany is a successful aggression against the Netherlands would be that in v the. final peace settlement the Germans might hope that their claim .for colonies would be satisfied at the expense of the Netherlands. That plan did not suit Tokio. It is widely believed in Asia and Australia that one result of the negotiations was a secret agreement between Germany and Japan under which, in a general carve up, the Germans would take the great island of Sumatra and the Federated Malaj' States, now under British protection, and includnig Singapore. For their share, the Japanese would have Java, Borneo and the lesser islands.

Australians, naturally, would expect the London Government to prevent any incursion into the Netherlands Indies .

Before their eyes the Japanese now have precedent of the Danish Faroe Islands occupied by the British; and the Danish dependencies of Iceland and Greenland now under British and Canadian protection. AMERICAN PROTECTORATE. What the Japanese fear most is the declaration of an American protectorate over the Netherlands Indies in the event of a German conquest of the Netherlands. The Netherlands Government in the Pacific has a considerable degree oi independence from The Hague. If the military situation in the Netherlands looked bad, the island Government undoubtedly would declare the Netherlands Indies an independent dominion. They also would hope for an American protectorate. This could be established without the movement of a single American warship, aeroplane, or marine. The Japanese would prefer to have the British in control of the Netherlands Indies in the hopes that the European war would end in a stalemate and that Japan could get some pickings at the peace settlement.

The British and French Navies are strong enough now to carry on the war in the North Sea against Germany, maintain a sufficient fleet to watch Italy in the Mediterranean, and also detach a considerable squadron for the Netherlands Indies. This Singapore fleet need not be as powerful as the Japanese navy in the Pacific, so long as it remained “in being” it would be a serious obstacle.

By next fall the British building programme of new ships will enable a stronger squadron to be established in the Pacific provided there have not been unexpected heavy losses in the North Sea. Netherlands forces in the Pacific are well organised, especially the air force. Reinforcements of soldiers and aeroplanes could be sent from Australia and New Zealand.