ROADWAY TO EAST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 October 1941, Page 6

ROADWAY TO EAST

ROUTE THROUGH BURMA KEY POSITION. WAR SUPPLIES FOR CHINA. Burma in the past has never been regarded as occupying a strategic position in the Far East. Unlike Singapore, she was felt to be tucked away in a rather obscure corner of the Empire, and it was not till 1937 that Burma, racially and culturally IndoChinese, ceased to be just a province of British India, writes Mating H. Phaw in the Amidon “Daily Telegraph.” Hitherto Burma has been an asset to Britain mainly in that she had valuable economic resources, such as petroleum, tungsten, wolfram, copper, lead, rubber, and silver, together with an annual output of 3,000,000 tons of surplus rice. Events in the last four years have radically changed the importance of Burma’s geographical position. Today she holds a key position vital not only to the British, but also to the Chinese fighting desperately for their independence. With the outbreak of the SinoJapanese “incident,” and the eventual occupation of the China seaboard by Japanese armed forces coupled with the ceaseless patrol maintained by the Japanese Navy, it was to Burma and Indo-China in her rear that China’s Kuomintang Government had to look for a gateway on the sea, through which they could receive military aid from the Western democracies and from the United States.

In 1938 Chiang Kai-shek decided to convert the caravan track between Yunnan and Burma into a highway suitable for heavy lorry traffic, and he achieved, it with the aid of 200,000 conscripted labourers and 200 Chinese engineers in 10 months. The beginning of 1939 saw the departure of the first convoy of lorries loaded with war materials and aeroplane parts brought by the British freighter Slanhall, which had been bound for Canton but was diverted to Rangoon when Canton fell to the invading Japanese.

Since' then, except for the three months last summer when the road was closed, a steady stream of lorries has brought into China the loads she needs from the Burmese railhead of Lashio. Explosives, moreover, are sent 700 miles up the river Irrawaddy to Bhamo. which is also linked with the main road by a feeder road.

“BACK DOOR” TO CHINA. Now, with Indo-China occupied by Japanese forces and Soviet Russia engaged in a life and death struggle with the German Reich, Burma is the only remaining “back door” by which China' can receive the material help promised by President Roosevelt under the Lease-Lend Act and maintain export trade- to safeguard her fast dwindling currency. American loans granted to China are secured on her exports of tungsten, tin, and tung oil. Despite the precarious nature of the Burma road, transit trade into China between April 1 and August 31, 1940, was valued at nearly 20,000,000 dollars (U.S.), on which the Burmese Treasury received 1 per cent. The total revenue the Burmese Government received between December, 1938, and December, 1940, was estimated at 1,500,000 dollars (U.S.) Now the construction of a railway to link Rangoon with Chungking is well under way. The Burma section linking up with the Chinese system will be over 100 miles long. It will cost 10,000,000 dollars (U.S.), which the British Government has agreed to provide, with the Burmese Government having the option to purchase later. When the railway is completed in about two years’ time a good proportion of Western China trade ought to be diverted to Burma’s seaport and capital, Rangoon, which handles some 80 per cent of Burma's own sea-borne trade.

Burma has another asset—the natural highway of the Irrawaddy, navigable for more than 700 miles right up to the fringes of the China frontier. One can thus appreciate what Burma means in China’s struggle with Japan. For this precise reason the Chinese Government, which in the past was very little interested in Burma and the Burmese, is anxious to gain their sympathy and goodwill now.

To counteract Japanese propaganda among the Burmese, Chiang Kai-shek recently invited prominent Burmese leaders and journalists to visit his capital, Chungking. In a sense, Rangoon has fast been becoming another Shanghai, with Chinese banks established there, offices of the South China Transport Company, and also, a regular air service between Rangoon and Chungking operated by the Chinese National Aviation Corporation, a Sino-Ameri-can concern using up-to-date Douglas airliners. ROUTE FOR AIRCRAFT.

China has been receiving not only ordinary war material through Burma but modern military aircraft from California. The War aeroplanes are assembled at an airfield near the village of Lwewaing, some 40 miles inside Chinese territory. It has a workshop serviced by American airmen and engineers, while at Lashio there are similar facilities. By now Chiang Kai-shek may very well be receiving Boeing Flying Fortresses as promised by President Roosevelt. Japan has been frequently bombing the Burma road. She has had some success, but has never entirely put the highway out of service. General Chiang Kai-shek, without any modern equipment, used his reserves of manpower to build this 726-mile stretch of highway in record time, and now he is keeping it open.

With the Japanese in Indo-China the road may be even more seriously menaced from the air, particularly if Germany is able to reinforce the Japanese air arm. Besides, Burma herself, with valuable supplies and the world’s largest “rice granary,” is threatened. Burma has a common frontier with Japan’s new “protectorate,” and her oilfields, the richest in the Empire —producing over 1,000,000 tons of oil yearly, which could be increased threefold, representing over 1 per cent of the total world’s output—is only 600 miles bombing distance from Japan’s new air bases. While Burma would not need to fear direct assault across her IndoChinese frontier, it is clear that were Japan to control Thailand, the “Belgium of the East,” an attack on Singapore down the Malayan Peninsula and also northwards in the direction of Southern Burma would become a distinct possibility. The British Military Command in the Far East have constructed a vast chain of aerodromes stretching from

the China border in the region of the Burma road down to Singapore at the very tip of the Malayan Peninsula.. The recent visits of a Chinese Military Mission to Rangoon, to India’s capital, New Delhi,- and the naval stronghold of Singapore, are not without importance.

Meanwhile the Burmese Public Works Department are continuously at work on the country’s aerodromes, preparing to receive Dominion air units. Large quantities of war material continue to arrive at Rangoon from the factories of British India, and from time to time black-out and other air raid precautions exercises have been undertaken.

In Rangoon’s airport of Mingaladone a centre was established after the outbreak of war for the training of young Burmese as pilots, and air cadets are also being sent from Burma to India for training. In 1914-1918 the nearest the world war got to Burmese shores was when the German raider Emden Was prowling in the Bay of Bengal after having shelled Madras. Today Burma finds herself wedged between two wars, which, in view of the Japanese adherence to the Axis, threaten to merge into one great Conflagration. Whether they do or hot, Burma has a part to play as a vital link in American, British, and Chinese military co-operation in the Far East.