Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1943. JAPAN AND THE GERMANS
gOME rather involved and far-fetched theories were advanced in an article in the London “Observer” headed “Can Japan Save the Germans,” extracts from which were cabled yesterday. While accepting an opinion held very widely and apparently on adequate grounds that “Japan’s policy will He not to do anything which might go against her own interests” and that she will not embark on any venture merely to satisfy the demands of her allies, the article went on to argue that, on the other hand,.
Japanese interests dictate very definitely that the two naval Powers and the one land Power which can challenge her hegemony in Asia shall not be triumphant in Europe. To that extent, therefore, she is vitally interested in German victory, and she will go to' great lengths to prevent German defeat.
On the whole, this is unconvincing and nowhere more so than in the assumption that Japan would like to see Nazi Germany established in a position of world.domination. On the evidence in sight it cannot for a moment be believed that Japan would like to see anything of the kind. It has to be remembered that a status not merely of Asiatic overlordship, bubof world domination is aspired to by the Japanese themselves, or at all events by the corrupt and corrupted sections which exercise at present an absolute control over their nation and its human and material resources.
It is reasonably certain that Japan entered into the Axis alliance primarily and principally in the hope that Russia would either be defeated decisively by Germany or so weakened that, the maritime provinces of Siberia would be at the mercy of Japanese invading forces. What was to follow upon the realisation of that hope the Japanese militarists who negotiated the Axis pact no doubt were content to leave to the future to determine. One of the things that almost certainly would have followed, sooner or later, would have been a contest for supremacy between Japan and Germany, in Siberia and elsewhere.
With the hope of a fatal weakening of Russia gone or going to the winds, it may be believed confidently that there is nothing to which the Japanese war lords are less inclined than any effort to help or save Germany.' To them Germany can be nothing else than a partner of the moment —a partner in international crime—who has let them down badly and to whom they recognise no obligation whatever.
It must at once be added that in the present phase of the war this is of slight practical importance, because it is impossible to doubt that for their own sake, and not at all for the sake of Germany, the Japanese war lords will do everything in their power to defeat the United Nations, or, failing that, to hang on to as much as they can of the immense booty on which they have meantime laid thir hands under a policy of treacherous attack and international brigandage.
There is no need to engage in fanciful and unrealistic theorising about Japanese motives and possible courses of action to emphasise the necessity of doing everything that is possible, as speedily as possible, to subject Japan to complete and overwhelming defeat. As she is at present organised, with her armed forces and general population in an extraordinary degree subservient to gangsters as ruthless as any to be found in Nazi Germany, Japan is a deadly scourge and menace to all nations desiring’ to live at peace—above all, of course, to those nations which face her in the Pacific.
irrespective' of the plight of Germany or of any other consideration it must be taken for granted that Japan will extend her aggression at every opportunity, wherever her war lords see prospects of advantage in that policy. There is a measure of encouragement to be drawn from the.fact that lor months past Japan has been able to attempt comparatively little in the way of new aggression, and that heavy and disproportionate losses have been inflicted upon her sea, land and air forces in the Pacific outposts she has occupied. It is a matter for serious consideration, however, whether the limits meantime imposed on Allied action against her are enabling her to develop new strength, in her home and occupied territories, which may make her more formidable at a later stagT',
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 January 1943, Page 2
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731Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 1943. JAPAN AND THE GERMANS Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 January 1943, Page 2
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