WAR IN PACIFIC

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 65, Issue 193, 29 May 1945, Page 3

WAR IN PACIFIC

PARTICIPATION BY FRANCE. NEGOTIATIONS GOING WELL. ; | OPERATIONS SHOULD BE COMBINED. I (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright.) (Rec. 12.50 p.m.) LONDON, May 28. Reports from Washington to the effect that negotiations for French participation in the war in the Pacific are going well are some compensation for the news that the French force in IncloChina has lost its principal means of communication with the Allied forces in Burma, and is being compelled by the new Japanese offensive to fall back on China, which naturally is distressing to the French, states the Paris correspondent of “The Times.” Conversations in Washington on the question of French co-operation in tlio Far East began three months before the fighting broke out in Indo-China. The combined Chiefs of Staff expressed the view—which apparently was maintained after the fighting in IndoChina had begun—that French participation had been planned in Europe, but not the Far East, Military reasons were given, but to the French it seemed that the real reasons were political, and were tied up with the whole question of trusteeship and the future status of the Southern Pacific area. If no French participated in the liberation of Indo-China, how much easier it would be to impose conditions for the return of those possessions to France. A change has come during the San Francisco Conference, and is largely due to the presence of M. Bidault and General Join in America. The combined Chiefs of Staff recently accepted the French proposal to dispatch further French forces, amounting to more than a division drawn mostly from French Forces of the Interior recruits. Messages from Washington speak of j four divisions, and declare that the ■ figure is exaggerated, but they plainly i imply that things are going well. The i French say that the war in Asia, like i the war in Europe, should be a joint j war, at least as regards those countries j which have interests and possessions , in that region,., and it is for a joint ) wav and not a private . war in Indo- j China that they desire their forces to | be used. The French consider that Japanese j forces in Southern Asia are likely to fight on even after they have been cut off from their home base. French participation will then be useful to the Allies, as it will be necessary to have French and European prestige in those parts.