JAP. AMBITION

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20490, 26 February 1941, Page 7

JAP. AMBITION

OCEANIA CLAIMS ASIATIC RACES PROFESSED EXCLUSION AUSTRALIA AND DOMINION DOUBTS IN AMERICA (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Feb. 26, 9 a.m.) WASHINGTON, Feb. 24. ; Messages from Tokio to-day quote the Japanese Foreign Minister, Mr. Yosuke Matsuoka, as stating that the Oceania which he said yesterday should be ceded by the white race to the Asiatics did not include New Zealand, Australia or the Philippines. Yesterday Mr. Matsuoka was reported to have said in the Japanese Diet: “While it is difficult to conduct political affairs according to advocated ideals, I believe that the white race must cede Oceania to the Asiatics. My theory is that Oceania, which measures 1200 miles from north to south and 1000 miles from east to west, must be made a place to which the Asiatic peoples can migrate. This region has sufficient natural resources to support between 600,000,000 and 800,000,000 people. We believe that we have a natural right to migrate there.” Geographical experts in Washington yesterday evaluated Mr. Matsuoka’s cldim to Oceania for the Asiatics as including Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, Samoa and Tahiti. Well-known definitions of Oceania include Melanesia and Polynesia, and sometimes include Malaya. It was suggested in Washington that from the context of Mr. Matsqoka’s speech his pretentious aspirations apparently extended over the entire range of the Pacific from Hawaii to Australia. Interests of United- States Mr. Magnuson, a member of the Naval Committee of the House of Representatives, referring to Mr. Matsuoka’s Oceania suggestion, said that Japanese moves there might jeopardise the interests of the- United States. He proposed that the United States should give the fullest support to any nations for resisting Japanese expansion in tfie Pacific in view of the fact that Japan, being aligned with the Axis, Would introduce totalitarianism throughout the Pacific. A further report from Tokio quotes Mr. Matsuoka as stating that he was at present without a definite programme relative to the establishment of the Greater East Asia eo-prosperity sphere. He hoped to obtain Oceania as a migration region for Asiatics through -understanding with the European and American peoples.

In this connection Mr. Matsuoka recalled his individual efforts with The Hague Government relative to New Guinea after Japan’s withdrawal from the League of Nations and also in his discussions relative to Oceania as a whole with President Wilson after America’s entrance to the last Great War. Mr. Matsuoka also informed Japanese Parliamentarians that he was even now taking every opportunity to stress his viewpoint to European j and American intelligentsia and statesmen.