AS JAPAN REPORTED IT

Evening Star, Issue 25564, 17 August 1945, Page 8

AS JAPAN REPORTED IT

• -«►— VAGARIES OF TOKIO WIRELESS THE LIE THAT IS NOT A LIE MENTALITY FORMED BY LONG SECLUSION Not the least interesting record of the war. and certainly the most amusing, would be one that might be written up from Japanese communiques and the vagaries of the Tokio wireless. Japan made the most of her first treacherous success when, two days after Pearl Harbour, she claimed the mastery of the Pacific with destruction of 70 per cent, of the United States Pacific Fleet. Thereafter, her official reports consistently cried up successes to the limit, and reverses that followed, when they could not be ignored, were proclaimed systematically as further victories. In March, 1942 when the outlook was bleak for South Pacific dominions, we had to warn our readers against listening in to the Japanese wireless. " Obviously the safest rule," we wrote, " is to lend ear to Tokio—■ if at all—only in a spirit of amused curiosity as to the ' fate ' which awaits ua if we do not give joyful welcome to the missioners of co-prosperity and to believe nothing that is heard unless it is confirmed from an Allied source. . . . Has Japan ever admitted in full, or even in partial detail, the losses her forces suffered in the Macassar Strait battle or in the Marshall Islands raid? Will she tell the truth about what is happening to her invasion fleet off the coast of New Guinea? No. For some time yet she may be able to avoid a recital of her setbacks, though the day is surely near when her professional propagandists will he hard put to it to explain away the;retribution that is coming." As a prophecy, that warning.was defective. The Japanese have never been hard put to it to explain any reverses or to convert them into embarrassments, at least, for their enemies. One explanation of the naive pronouncements which moved universal laughter when their complete variance with the facts was self-evident, is that no Japanese general or admiral could possibly admit defeat.. To do that would he to shatter the Japanese code, which makes the Nipponese superior to all races on earth—hence defeat for them would be unimaginable. At one stage it was solemnly announced that peace would be made by a victorious Japan in Washington. When the Japanese in Ne,w Guinea ran out of ammunition they'were adjured to "bite" • their enemies to death. A-leading authority on Far Eastern affair's. Sir John Pratt, has explained some peculiarities oif the Japanese mind by which the westerner is amazed and puzzled as follows: — EFFECTS OF ISOLATION.

"Isolation has caused a certain naivete in Japanese thinking, and nowhere is this more apparent than in their political ideas. The isolation due to their geographical situation was greatly intensified by the policy of seclusion enforced for over two centuries. It was under these conditions that Japan developed into a unified and prosperous nation-state; and when they suddenly emerged from their seclusion in the middle of the nineteenth century into a community composed of sovereign States, the Japanese were completely lacking in knowledge or experience of international life. Japan now found that she was one of the units of this international community, but no Japanese knew anything about the conduct otf sovereign States, how they normally behaved towards each other, and how they reacted to the happenings—normal and abnormal —of - international intercourse.

"This lack of experience has developed or intensified certain characteristics of Japanese mentality. They often feel uncertain as to the correct action to be taken in any given international situation, and they require a long time for consideration before making up-their minds. They are both sensitive and suspicious. Some of the most ordinary incidents ; of . international life, such as > f° r instance, the imposition of a tariff, will be resented as something peculiarly anti-Japanese, and they attach what, to our minds, seems quite inordinate importance- to matters of pure sentiment which cause them no material injury. Australia has managed to exclude Japanese immigrants w'ithout offending Japanese sentiment, but the Immigration Law enacted by the American Congress in 1924 aroused very bitter feelings, and the rejection by' the League in 1919 of the Japanese (Resolution on racial equality as still reserited. "The obverse of this picture is that the Japanese find it difficult to understand how any action of theirs can give offence to others. During the period of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance they had the warmest regard for Great Britain, and they expected these feelings to be reciprocated in spite bf the fact that they were doing their best to sabotage British interests in China. For the Japanese, imbued as they are with totalitarian ideas, ,it is sufficient justification for any act that it is in the interests of Japan, and when others, whose interests may be adversely affected, take a different view, they seem to be genuinely surprised. "It is difficult sometimes to know what meaning Japanese attach .to worcls, or whether they really expect their words to be taken at face value. Throughout the proceedings at Geneva in the course of the Sino-Japanese dispute over Manchuria, the Japanese delegates declared that Japan was the champion of the open door, that Japan would strictly observe the Nine-Power Treaty, and all other treaties to which she was a party, and that foreign trade and enterprise in Manchuria would bo protected and encouraged. This was not the same as the Hitler technique of lulling the victim with fair words until he was ready to strike, for at the very moment that the Japanese delegates were giving these assurances, the Japanese authorities on _ the spot were openly flouting the Nine-Power Treaty and avowedly setting up a regime incompatible with the open door and equal'opportunity. A phrase that the Japanese delegates were fond of using was that Japan had no territorial ambitions. This again was not uttered with the deliberate perfidy with which Hitler gave similar assurances in Europe, for the Japanese appeared to believe that their phrase was fully justified by the camouflage used to disguise the fact that Manchuria was in effect being turned into a Japanese dependency. " The Japanese technique is disconcerting to statesmen trained in the