The Pacific War

ON THE WORLD TODAY

THE decisions reached at Moscow are as important. for the Pacific as they are for Europe. First of all, they set a tone of optimism which is the most effective of all political weapons. They assure that the framework for peace rests not upon the narrow basis of an Anglo-American alliance or the European alignment of Anglo-American-Soviet power, but on the four-power basis that includes our Chinese ally. The inclusion of China as a party to these decisions is a tribute not only to China’s tenacious struggle, but also to the high statesmanship which took into account the political realities of the Pacific war.

By these decisions China pledged herself, with the United States and Great Britain, to fight Japan until the militarists of Tokyo surrender unconditionally. She joined her allies in the commitment to post-war organization for the maintenance of peace. In this way all hopes that Japan may have had for securing a negotiated peace have been blasted. Nor can Japan afford to ignore the clauses relating to the punishment of war criminals.

Of instant significance in the Far East is the demonstration of solidarity between the Soviet Union and China. If the Moscow Conference cleared the air in Europe, it also cleared the air in Asia. China will be particularly interested in the clause “that after the termination of hostilities, they will not employ their military forces within the territories of other states, except for the purposes envisaged in this declaration and after joint consultation.” It is no secret that many Chinese leaders were alarmed at the enormous might of the Soviet Union and anxious about that country’s intentions.

The Moscow Conference does not remove the problems between the Soviet Union and China, but it does show that they can be solved by joint action. China now has a very real opportunity to take her proper place in the world. Should she fail, she can blame no one but herself.

The withdrawal some months ago of Russian troops from the province of Sinkiang is a case in point. The Russians undoubtedly had their own motives in withdrawing. Perhaps they no longer feared the expansion of Japanese power into that area. Certainly they had no desire to make Sinkiang a bone of contention with the Chinese government, which clearly wished to resume complete control. But when the Russians withdrew they took with them everything that could be moved, thus putting back the economic development of that area many years.

This action placed upon the Chinese government the heavy responsibility of competing with the Russian development on the other side of the border — of showing, in other words, that Chinese rule is as progressive and effective as the Russian. Here indeed lies the kernel of the problem for China’s rule.

Bad news for Honorable Emperor

The Moscow Conference set the seal on the political isolation of Japan. Two years of fighting and preparation have guaranteed the military isolation of Japan. This becomes clear if we examine not our own, but the Japanese, view of the war. A Japanese Navy spokesman correctly defined the tasks before his country when he insisted that Japan must win the war of attrition, the war of supply lines, and the battle of production. The whole Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere depends on ships for its very existence, he pointed out, and victory cannot be achieved without them.

What is the score? The battle of attrition goes well for us in the Pacific. We are not killing Japanese so fast as they are trained and replaced, with the exception, perhaps, of pilots, but we are forcing a consumption of air power at a rate which at times seems almost unbelievable. The battles in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea may yet be as serious for Japan as was the defeat at El Alamein for Germany.

In the meantime, Japanese supply lines have undergone a blockade by our submarines and long-range bombers. Even the Straits of Tsushima are not safe.

The third battle, that of production, obviously swings in our favor, especially in capacity to build warships, but it is a good idea to remember that because of geographical factors we have to outproduce Japan many times over before reaching relative parity. There is no question, assuming that things go well in Europe and there is no lessening in the will to produce at home, that we can outproduce Japan relatively as well as absolutely, and the Japanese know it.

Japan forgets Pearl Harbor

The Japanese have decided not to celebrate December 7 this year, on the ground that all meetings which are not absolutely essential to the war effort should be rigorously avoided. The size of the American and Allied fleets now plowing the Pacific may also account for the failure of the Japanese, when talking of Pearl Harbor, to stress it as a decisive naval victory.

Japan is undoubtedly preparing to take hard blows and in some ways is very well prepared to receive them. On the anniversary of Pearl Harbor we can justly congratulate ourselves on the improvement in our own position, especially from the naval point of view, but Japan’s situation has changed too. And if we have helped ourselves, we have not been able to give corresponding help to our ally, China, for whom each passing year means greater tribulation and lessening strength. Our greatest asset, which will undoubtedly be contested, is the initiative.

Japan’s Fortress

How is Japan preparing to parry our blows? Her general strategy is clearly to build up the inner zone of defense, and all evidence points to continuing efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in food and raw materials. At the same time, she is making considerable progress in the mobilization of local resources for local resistance, because the inner zone strategy is merely for final emergencies. It is unlikely that large territories will soon be changing hands.

In Japan itself the process of evacuating large cities goes on and emergency building construction is given high priority. One aspect of recent administrative changes is undoubtedly the decentralization of government to a degree once contemplated in England when the threat of invasion seemed imminent. The detail is sometimes more vivid than the plan — witness the announcement that men are being trained in flag signaling so that communication between Japan’s many islands can continue if powerhouses are hit and telephones cease to work.

The Japanese at home are getting a more realistic picture of the future than ever before, but we must always allow for the domestic purposes of Japanese statesmen when they adopt a gloomy tone. The Japanese militarists have consistently made capital of the international situation during the last ten years in terms of the dangers threatening Japan. In the past, officially inspired gloom has preceded aggression and victory. Now, however, it corresponds a little more closely with the facts.

Stepsons of Heaven

Japan’s military clique combines with this policy of frightening civilians into cooperation an attempt to persuade the army that it has a divine mission to perform. We shall do well not to forget this aspect of Japanese militarism. The crusading spirit has been instilled into an army which really believes that it is not fighting for territory or riches, but rather to destroy that “enemy,” so curiously anonymous, which stands in the way of the fulfillment of the divine mission of the Imperial Army.

Can this crusading spirit be extended to the people of Asia? Those professional warriors, present descendants of the Samurai, have imposed their military code, in a coarse and simplified form, upon the mass of ignorant peasants and handicraftsmen who form the modern army, and they have succeeded in constructing a mighty offensive weapon. They cannot proselytize Asia with the doctrine that the Japanese are a ruling race, a chosen people, and expect willing coöperation, but they can take one aspect of that theory and blow it up into a powerful weapon indeed. They can share, if they are astute, their hatred of the white races with those peoples of Asia whom they are pleased to call their kinfolk. In so doing they violate all the findings of anthropology and ignore the facts of history, which reveal as little political unity in Asia as in Europe. But in the race war they have a weapon which we must consider.

Japan is appealing to subject peoples more and more in terms of common hatred of the white man. The ultimate defeat of Germany is already discounted: when Germany finally goes down, the present enmity against Britain and America will be formally extended to the whole white “race.”

In this context the Japanese “independence” policy is sound politics. As the blows of the United Nations strike nearer and nearer to Japan’s empire, every effort is made to make the issue of “independence” from Britain and America more significant than “independence” from Japan. If the situation is skillfully handled, Japan can make it appear that we are invading the territory of “independent” countries in order to re-establish the nineteenth-century system of empires. What started as a war of aggression becomes a war of “defense” in which all Asiatic peoples must stand together. The crusade upon which the Japanese Army has been engaged for the last two decades takes on its highest form and purpose.

How is Co-prosperity coming?

On the face of it Japan seems to be achieving some success in arousing Asia against us. The United States is now at war, not only with the Japanese Empire, but also with the eleven-year-old kingdom of “Manchukuo”; the three-year-old republic of China (Wang Ching-wei’s puppet regime); the ancient kingdom of Thailand; the new republic of Burma; and the provisional government of Free India (Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian Independence Army).

What can we put against this array of Asiatic foes? First, of course, the true government of China, which can also claim the allegiance of the bulk of Chinese in Occupied China and most of the overseas Chinese. In spite of unavoidable deaths and suffering, Chinese in Hong Kong, according to travelers, openly cheer our planes when they come to bomb. The Chinese people are still our first line of defense against Japan’s propaganda line of Asia for the Asiatics.

But what of the Philippines? Jose Laurel is president of the “Philippine Republic.” His government is composed of many men well known in America and to Americans. The speeches of Filipino leaders are apparently all that Japan could desire. And while the grant of independence was not accompanied by a declaration of war on us, such an action may yet be forced upon the Filipinos.

The Filipinos still carry on a vigorous guerrilla warfare against the Japanese, but the struggle is long and help is far away. Those Filipinos who are serving in the new government are undoubtedly acting under duress, biding their time, but they have a difficult furrow to plow, for they have no way of communicating their private faith in us to the people. Our record, at least on the political side, is good, and that is our chief weapon. Its power is shown by the vigorous Japanese reactions to statements about the Philippines by American leaders.

One of the first tests of the Japanese Asiatic bloc may well be in Burma. We must not draw too many conclusions from the friendly reception given the Wingate Expedition which traversed Northern Burma. Conditions in Southern Burma, a much more difficult proposition for us, must be very much worse than at any other time in modern history. Yet the Japanese seem strangely confident. They are hoping to get some resistance, however small, on the part of the Burmese against the invading armies of the United Nations.

If the Japanese can keep the Chinese out of the picture, as they tried to do by pushing across the Salween River, they can bring in their troops and a few of Bose’s men to present a United Asiatic front to the British and Americans. If the “race war” can be started in Burma, it will be easier to fan it into flame over the rest of Asia.

America’s role

What role can America play in the reconquest of Asia? Our troops will be fighting with every possible combination of allies. In China our air forces are already coordinated with the Chinese Army. In Burma we shall fight alongside Chinese, British, and Indian troops; in the Southwest Pacific we are now fighting together with Australians and New Zealanders and can expect considerable assistance from British air and naval power.

Shall we approach Asia as an Anglo-American combination, as some would have us do, thus making distinctions between our allies? This would commit us to a British Far Eastern policy, which has not as yet shown many signs of developing beyond the stage of the restoration of colonies to their former rulers. Or shall we, in the light of the Moscow Conference, insist upon a Chinese-British-American approach?

Such a policy would require a political leadership in China strong enough to bridge the gap between East and West and to help us to harness active good will among subject peoples. If metropolitan Japan can be smashed before we reconquer the colonies — the simpler course politically — Japan will not have the opportunity to develop her propaganda of “Asia for the Asiatics” and we shall avoid a good deal of misery. The observant American will watch with great interest for our political role in relation to colonial peoples of Asia.

The broad framework of Chinese unity cannot be broken. Whatever the shortcomings of this or that official, however strong the suspicion which many Chinese harbor against British “imperialism” and American policies, whatever the friction with the Communists, the backbone of the Chinese Revolution cannot be broken. That backbone is the fight for national independence. China has made many mistakes, but on this point she has not wavered.