JAPANESE POLICY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 July 1941, Page 5

JAPANESE POLICY

SPECULATION IN BRITAIN POSSIBILITY OF DEMANDS ON RUSSIA. OR ATTEMPTS TO BARGAIN WITH AMERICA. (By Telegraph—-Press Association—Copyright I LONDON, July 10. Speculation on the Japanese attitude to the Russo-German hostilities has been carried a stage further by Mr Charles Sutton, foreign editor of the “Daily Express,’’ who says that the Japanese leaders have agreed on an offensive and defensive strategy which is dictated as much by fear of losing Japan’s hard-won gains as by anxiety to win a race for materials and outposts of Empire. Mr Sutton says that the Japanese decision falls into three parts. First, if Russia is weakened by the German blows, the Japanese Foreign Minister. Mr Matsuoka, will call on the Soviet Foreign Commissar. M. Molotov, to withdraw Russia’s 500,000 men from the Manchukuo frontier and close Vladivostok to the importation of American arms and ammunition. Second, Japan will do her utmost to exploit the resultant chaos of a decisive victory by Hitler, and will demand that Siberia and Russia’s Far Eastern maritime provinces shall become independent, and also that another independent State be created, covering the eastern half of Asiatic Russia, with an Orientalised Russian prince on the throne. Third, if Hitler meets with a deadlock, Japan will seek a high price for keeping the peace in the Pacific. She will bargain shrewdly with America because she is convinced of America's intention to enter the war when she is ready, and, accordingly, Mr Matsuoka will undertake to denounce the Axis Pact if Japan is given certain concessions, the most important of which will be American acquiescence in Japanese penetration of the Dutch East Indies. CHINESE TROOPS SENT TO BURMA & MALAYA. ACCORDING TO JAPANESE AGENCY. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright i (Received This Day, 10.25 a.m.) TOKIO, July 11. The Domei News Agency said today that the Chungking Government has sent 60,000 troops to Burma and Malaya, under an agreement with Britain and the United States, to take part in the joint defence of the peninsula. Another Domei Agency report, from Bangkok, said that 35,000 Chungking troops had already arrived in Burma and Malaya and declared that this was a move to draw Japanese forces southwards. A Domei Agency broadcast .from Tokio said the Japanese Cabinet today adopted a basic totalitarian financial and economic policy as a part of the national defence plan. This is described as supplementary to the plan for a new economic structure adopted on December 7, 1940. The Domei Agency also broadcast that Mr Matsuoka was ill and was unable to attend today’s Cabinet meeting. FRENCH HOSTILITY REPORTED BY TOKIO PAPER. (Received This Day, 10.30 a.m.) TOKIO, July 11. The “Asahi Shimbun,” in a despatch from Hanoi, said that anti-Japanese feeling persists among French officials in Indo-China. The “Asahi Shimbun” ascribed this to a desire to assist the United States and the British to maintain the status quo in the Far East.