CONTROL OF JAPAN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 69, 2 January 1946, Page 3

CONTROL OF JAPAN

BIG THREE’S PLAN

GENERAL MACARTHUR MAY LOSE FACE (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright,) (Rec. 9.30 a.m.) TOKIO, Dec. 31. Sources close to General MacArthur reported that the BigThree control plan for Japan had already caused confusion among the Japanese and may cause General MacArthur to lose face in a country where face is all-impor-tant. The control plan may result in a slackening of Japanese efforts to’ put into effect the directives already issued and accepted slowly and grudgingly.

The removal of national enslavement meant freedom, hut imposed on individuals the duty to think and act on their own initiative, said General MacAuthur in a New Year message to the people of Japan. It was necessary for the masses to awaken to the fact that they had the power to govern. He hoped the New Year would be the beginning for the Japanese of the way ot truth and light. The institution of machinery enabling Russia to play a full part in the reconstruction of the Far East must be reckoned among the most valuable achievements of the Moscow Confeience, says “The Times” in a leading article. , _ . “The Moscow decision marks annul recognition by the two principal Allie& that Russia’s: structure of international security in the East as in the West would be incomplete without Russia s active co-operation. Russia’s long land frontiers in the East give her a stake in the orderly development of her neighbours, greater if anything than of the Western Democracies. “The Russians: have been asking how it is: possible to create a peaceable Japanese nation by perpetuating a social structure shaped wholly to the end of the war. Such doubts could be resolved only through a general participation of the Allies framing a policy to he pursued in Japan by the American authorities. “There was also general agreement at the Mosctiw Conference on. the situation in China. Russia’s: association with Great Britain and America will reassure the Chinese fears that President Truman’s advice presaged American interference ifi. China’s domestic affairs. The Moscow agreement encourages a tendency to- a satisfactoiy agreement between- the Kuomintang and other parties. Russia directed hei influence to -strengthen the forces making the unity in China and caiefully refrained from assisting Yenan against Cfiungkong. “Through the whole range of the Far Eastern discussions in . Moscow new conceptions of international security are manifest. If problems elsewhere in the world can he tackled in the same spirit of accommodation and compromise, the outlook for the world in 1946 will indeed be brighter.