Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 1941. JAPANESE UNCERTAINTY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 July 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 1941. JAPANESE UNCERTAINTY.

TT is something to the good that the rulers ol Japan appear 1 to be rather less inclined than they were recently to engage in further aggression in the Pacific. At the same time it would be turning a°blind eye on facts, and on possible dangers, to credit the men now directing Japanese policy with genuinely peaceful aims. Even the smoothly-worded statement in which the Japanese Premier, Prince Konoye, has expressed his hope that “the Russian-German war will not aggravate JapaneseAmerican relations’’ has its definitely sinister suggestion. It is certainly as well known to Prince Konoye as it is to most, other people that nothing else than Japanese aggression has impaired or could impair Japanese-American relations and that nothing but a determination to resist aggression would induce the Government and people of the United Stales Io take a single step in the direction of war.

Prince Konoye of course is as well aware that in describing the Japan-Axis Pact as a defensive measure, he is talking fantastic nonsense. The Japan-Axis Pad is a league lor purposes of predatory aggression, but happily -Japan, though she lias perhaps gained some advantage thus far, by the standards of her present rulers, from her alliance with the Axis, has excellent reasons for doubting whether the Tripartite Pact will continue to yield her such dividends as these rulers desire.

On some grounds those Japanese militarists to whom Russia lias long been a bugbear may be well pleased to see Germany at war with Russia. As may be seen from Japanese Press comments cited in one of yesterday’s cablegrams, however, the prospects raised are not by any means wholly pleasing even in the eyes of these militarists. One Tokio newspaper, the “Yomiuri Shimlnin,” discussed the possibility of a RussoBritish thinking movement in the Near East —recognised more or less frankly, that is to say, that Russia may constitute a formidable addition to the forces arrayed against the Axis.

Still more interesting- are the observations of the -Japanese Army organ, the “Kokumin Shimbiiii,” which says that “Japan will be faced with grave problems if the Axis hegemony extends across the Urals into Asiatic Russia.” The “.Kokumin Shimbun’s” idea of a satisfactory adjustment in these circumstances is that the Axis and Japan should parcel out the world between, them, Japan taking as her share an extension of her “influence” over “India, Australia, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Russian territory east of the Urals.”

The naive impudence of this suggestion is perhaps surpassed by the credulous and childish folly it betrays. It might have been thought that no citizen of Japan was simple enough to believe that Germany, if she reduced Russia to subjection, would hand over any part of her booty to Japan. On the contrary, if matters went so far—fortunately there is little enough fear of their .doing so—Japan herself undoubtedly would be reduced to the status of an enslaved puppet of the Axis.

It is rather obvious that as she is now guided, or misguided, Japan is pursuing a dangerous policy, with little enough hope of ultimate advantage. In the course of aggression she has extended from China to French ludo-China and has attempted, unsuccessfully, to extend to the Dutch East Indies, Japan is antagonising increasingly the English-speaking and other democracies. On the other hand, in the happily unlikely event of the Axis gaining the upper hand in world affairs, nothing is more certain than that Japan would become in due course the victim of her chosen associates.