DEVIOUS TACTICS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 October 1941, Page 6

DEVIOUS TACTICS

PURSUED BY JAPAN GENERAL TOJO’S SUPPOSED PLANS. GAINING TIME FOR MILITARY DISPOSITIONS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.25 p.m.) LONDON, October 21. Japan will ask America for a definite yes or no to minimum Japanese propositions before any further attempts are made to resume the Washington talks, says the “Daily Mail’s’’ Tokio correspondent. It is believed that preliminary talks will be resumed within a week to decide whether further discussions are likely to result in a satisfactory agreement. Well-informed circles in London believe that General Tojo is playing for time until Japan has completed troop movements and naval dispositions and has braced the domestic political machine for an attack on the “encircling” Powers. The sudden suspension of Japan’s sabre-rattling, they believe, merely indicates that General Tojo, pressed by Nazi Fifth Columnists in Japan to produce a crisis and divert the United States, found that the crisis was running away with itself. General Tojo wishes to maintain the initiative by keeping the United States guessing. The “Evening Standard” says General Tojo is a near-dictator —an important fact in a country where internal squabbles at the last moment have often impeded action of a decisive character. The great demand of the hour is that Tokio should not be left in doubt of American action if the Japanese Army makes an aggressive move. The “Japan Times-Advertiser” declares that plotters are attempting to wreck Thailand’s friendly relations with Japan. If they succeeded, it is added, Japanese forces in Indo-China would be faced by a hostile frontier. In the circumstances, Japanese assistance to the friendly Bangkok State would be a helpful move, without any purpose of threatening surrounding countries.