COMMUNIST DOOR TO EAST ASIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 June 1948, Page 5

COMMUNIST DOOR TO EAST ASIA

By JACK PERCIVAL Sydney Morning Herald Correspondent now in Siam.

Fever, mosquito, and fly-infested Bangkok, capital of Siam, is the focal point of Communist penetration in South-east Asia. Observers I talked with in Bangkok j divided the subversive .interests operating in this sweltering city, set in the middle of an immence rice-pro-ducing plain, into two groups. Of prime importance, they said, is the Soviet influence. From Bangkok go Soviet funds to agents in Malaya, j the Dutch East Indies, Burma, and' French Indo-China. | Some of these observers, who have ( lived in Bangkok since the end of the i war, said there is a regular interchange of Soviet agents between Siam, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, and. French Indo-China. I Large funds, it is said, have recently been received in Siam from Moscow for starting a series of Communist, native language newspapers throughout South-east Asia. The impending publication of one such paper has already been announced in Malaya. i Air Link With Java British and American observers also told me that Soviet-chartered aircraft. have been flying via Bangkok to Central Java and other trouble spots in South East Asia. Of secondary but nevertheless alaiming importance among subversive interests operating from Bangkok are the strong remnants of pre-war and wartime pro-Japanese cliques, which have | been using every available opportunity • to further the propaganda begun by the Japanese during their occupation of South-East Asian countries. .

These activities, I was informed, have spread into Burma, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies. In Bangkok the political situation is tranquil on the surface, but one senses a turmoil beneath. Meanwhile the city is becoming one of the busiest centres of civil aviation on- South-Eeast Asia. It is geographically a natural air centre, and, during the war years, the Japanese occupiers built strips capable of withstanding loads of heavy modern four-engmed aircraft. Aviation Traffic Today Bangkok is handling more civil aviation traffic—regular inter-Con-tinental airlines and non-scheduled flights—than Singapore, where the facilities for civil aviation traffic are P °Many thousands of air travellers are passing through Bangkok, en route to the China Coast, French Indo-China, Manila, Tokio, Yokohama, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, Australia, and New Zealand.