Greymouth Evening Star. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1947. The Future Of Japan

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 September 1947, Page 4

Greymouth Evening Star. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1947. The Future Of Japan

’J’HE important talks on the Japanese peace treaty, now being held in Canberra, emphasise that Britain and the Dominions do not intend to permit a unilateral American approach to the major problems of the Pacific. There has been increasing talk of a United States loan up to 1,000,000,000 dollars to help the Japanese over their economic crisis.' Certainly, self-interest and humanity both demand aid by the victor nations to restore trade and industry in the East, but the protests by Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand over America’s authorisation of a Japanese whaling expedition show how unilateral action aimed, at satisfying the minimum needs of the vanquished may injure the interests of other Allied nations.

A question that has often been asked in connection with the industrial rehabilitation of Germany is: Who deserves first consideration, a defeated aggressor or an emancipated victim? There is increasing need to face up to this question in Asia. There is danger, however, in placing overemphasis on .Japan’s desperate economic plight without a corresponding recognition of the total. Asian problem. The question was raised in a speech by Mr Paul V. McNutt, recent United States Ambassador to the Philippines, urging that the rehabilitation of Japan be postponed to permit other Oriental countries to get back on their feet economically. Mr McNutt said: “If we withdraw from Japan, leaving it economically strong in the centre of teaming millions who are economically. weak, we will have set the stage for another phrase of war.” Mr McNutt expresses a fear that is commonly held in Asia. There is no easy answer to it. General MacArthur has pointed out the impossibility of hoping for real democratic .reform in an economically strangled Japan. Yet Japanese economic recovery carries with it the risk of renewed aggression in the future, if the lessons of democracy have been imperfectly learned. There is no ignoring the superior industrial and commercial capabilities of the Japanese among the nations of the Orient. Only a vast increase in the purchasing power of Asia’s millions, and a, corresponding industrial development of other countries, can serve to.neutralise the demonstrated dangers of this superiority.-

There is no argument, for a. foolishly •punitive attitude towards Japan, which could precipitate more immediate dangers than an unwise coddling might ultimately bring. Before the war she had reached a stage of economic progress far ahead of that of any other Asian nation. Through war the clock has been put back, but it would be unrealistic to anticipate that a people so well-disciplined and. accustomed to better things will not again in the years to come recover through their own efforts at least a. large proportion of their former industrial activity. A vanquished nation cannot be kept under iron control for ever. It is not in the nature of things. The Japanese problem must be seen against the background of Asia’s needs. There was a. sound idea behind Tokio’s war-time cry for a “greater East Asia coprosperity sphere,” but not when it was used to cloak the worst kind of 18thcentury imperialism complete with modern totalitarian methods. A Marshall Plan for Asia, aimed at real prosperity and the advancement of ' democracy is needed. Without some such development, the outlook for lasting security in the Pacific is far from promising.