Now Workshop Of East

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30830, 16 August 1965, Page 7

Now Workshop Of East

Reuter correspondents In South-east Asian countries describe below Japan’s tremendous impact on the area during the war and now, 20 years after VJDay.

SINGAPORE Japan’s economic “invaders” have succeeded in Singapore where their army failed 20 years ago. Large neon signs advertising Japanese goods flash across the city. Japanese-built taxis carry tourists, many of them Japanese, through the city. The Japanese language is being taught to increasing numbers of businessmen. There are Japanese industries, radio programmes, films, restaurants and shops. But elder members of the population still remember the war-time occupation with bitterness. More than 50,000 civilians were reported to have been killed by the Japanese occupiers in Singapore. The Japanese occupation, however, left behind an embryonic form of nationalism, which later brought Singapore into the independent Malaysian Federation and which later still was to bring independence to the former British colony. SABAH

Japan’s flag flies above her newly-opened consulate in the business centre of Jesselton, the capital of Sabah, formerly North Borneo.

The country lay in ruins at the end of World War 11, but most people of Sabah welcome Japanese businessmen with open arms. The memories of three years and a half of occupation are a thing of the past and little anti-Japan-ese feeling is apparent. INDONESIA Parts of Indonesia had been a Dutch colony for 350 years before the Japanese troops stormed ashore in 1942. Two days after Japan surrendered in 1945, Indonesian nationalists, led by the now-President Sukarno, declared their country a republic

After four years of fighting, Indonesia gained independence from the Netherlands. In recent years, the republic has seen the rise of an authoritarian rule under the name of “guided democracy.”

A senior Indonesian official who personally watched the Japanese conquest of the country says: “The thought came to me then that if the Japanese—like us an Asian nation—could beat the Dutch, we too could beat the Dutch if they came back.” Many of the present Government leaders were trained during the occupation by the Japanese, who had an insufficient number of officers to administer the country. Since the war, hundreds of Indonesian students have studied in Japan and Japanese businessmen have made major investments in Indonesia. Several Japanese officers of the occupation are back in Djakarta as welcome guests.

SOUTH KOREA Korea, which was freed from 36 years of Japanese •colonial rule on VJ-Day, is now turning to Japan for economic help. In spite of strong antiJapanese sentiments in the country, the Government restored normal ties with Japan in June. The agreement will open the door for an estimated £29om from Japan into South Korea in the next decade. Japan has also promised a large amount of technical assistance.

HONG KONG This Crown colony fell to Japan on Christmas Day, 1941, after 100 years of British rule, but it was back in business just 53 days after the 1945 liberation.

The free port died under Japanese occupation. Trade stopped and the normally thriving harbour was deserted. It remained in Japanese hands until August 30, 1945, when units of the British Pacific Fleet under Rear-Ad-miral C. H. J. Harcourt sailed

back to set up a military government.

During the previous fortnight the Japanese held nominal power while the British civil servants, who came swarming out of prison camps, tried to establish a provisional regime.

By January, 1946, imports were running above the prewar level. In March of that year the pre-war record for exports was surpassed. THAILAND Thailand, whose present leaders played only subordinate roles in the country’s affairs during World War 11, is today thriving on Japanese capital. Having emerged from the war with probably less economic damage than any other Japanese-occupied country of Asia, Thailand has benefited from a special yen account given her in compensation for the Thai currency appropriated by the Japanese during the war. This has made it possible to build up the merchant navy, modernise the railways with Japanese rolling stock, and buy Japanese household and consumer goods. Today, Japanese cars are beginning to oust cars of Western manufacture from the roads.

The Japanese have also given technical assistance and training for mechanised farming and construction of modem roads. BURMA

Burma is one of the very few countries occupied by Japan in World War II which has cold-shouldered Japanese businessmen. All that Burma’s Left-wing Government has accepted from Japan is £llom worth of reparations in the form of capital and consumer goods. Relations between Rangoon and Tokyo are correct, but far from enthusiastic. There have been few exchanges of high-level visits. Once the reparations payments are exhausted, Burma is likely to turn to other countries for these goods.