DEMOCRATIC POWERS ISOLATING JAPAN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 238, 8 October 1941, Page 7

DEMOCRATIC POWERS ISOLATING JAPAN

PRESS OPINIONS

Tokyo Sees Encirclement Dangers United Press Association.—Copyright. Rec. 2 p.m. NEW YORK, Oct. 7. An increasing belief that United States and British diplomacy is driving a wedge between Japan and Thailand is reflected in the Japanese Press, says the Tokyo correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain.

The newspaper Yomiuri publishes a dispatch from Bangkok which says the conferences at Singapore formulated the following demands: (1) That Thailand give a specific assurance of neutrality; (2) that Britain be given priority for vital raw materials; (3) that pro-Axis tendencies in Thailand be eradicated.

The Kokumin describes the conferences at Singapore and Hongkong as a threat to the establishment of a co-prosperity sphere and warned Japan not to remain indifferent.

The Asahi, quoting a Manila correspondent, said the discussions concerned joint aerial action and the strengthening of the anti-Japan encircling front. British and U.S. Confer Defence problems covering the whole of the Pacific area were discussed at a week-end conference at Manila between the British and American services chiefs, particular attention being paid to a united defence strategy by Britain and the United States regarding Hongkong, Malaya, Borneo, Burma, the Netherlands Indies, Australia and New Zealand. The problem of getting British and American supplies to China over the Burma Road was also fully discussed. The chief participants in the talks were the British Commander-in-Chief in the Far East, Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, General MacArthur, U.S. Commander-in-Chief in the Philippines, and BrigadierGeneral John Magruder, head of the U.S. Mission to the Far East.

Complaining that Japan is choking from the effect of suspension of trade with the United States and Britain, the Japanese Press has adopted an increasingly critical attitude toward the Japanese-American diplomatic negotiations, says the Tokyo correspondent of the United Press of America.

He adds that Mr. K. Wakasugi, counsellor to the Japanese Embassy in Washington, is on his way back to the United States capital bearing special instructions to the Japanese Ambassador, Admiral Nomura. Informed circles say, however, that there is no immediate prospect of an understanding between the two countries.

A Chungking military spokesman has announced that the Chinese armies have launched a counteroffensive and entered Ichang, where fighting is occurring in the streets. Huge fires raging at Ichang might indicate that the Japanese are abandoning the city.