Are Japan and Axis at Parting of Ways ?
Alleged Nazi Dealings With Soviet TOKIO OPENLY VOICING SUSPICIONS United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, May 12. American sources in. Tokio indicate that a cleavage of opinion has occurred between the Japanese Army and the Tokio Government, not only on the subject of the war iu China, but also regarding Japanese relations with tho Axis. Bewildering attacks on the Axis are being made u y the Kokumin Whimbuu, official organ of the Japanese Army. In a front-page editorial to-day, the Hokumin declared that Japan could uot look on with folded hands in the event of a German-Soviet agreement granting Russia a free hand >u Asia in return for larger Soviet supplies to Germany. The paper issued a warning that Japan must guard against ‘ ‘ unilateral opportunistic territorial transfers of hegemony by any Power before the fundamental conditions of the new world order are realised."
The Kokumin on Saturday, in attacking Nazi interference in countries outside Germany, said that National Socialism was as dangerous to Japan as Communism or democracy. The widely-read Japanese commentator Retsu Kiyosawa said that a United States declaration of war against Germany would not necessarily require Japanese retaliatory action against America. It would be dangerous, he added, to assume that a German victory against the United States would bring peace to the Pacific. In Rome, Count Ciano’s newspaper Telegrafo adviseß America to worry rather about Jax>an than Europe, and says that tho recent Japanese-Dutch accord secured oil, tin and rubber from Borneo and Sumatra, making Japan absolutely blockade-proof.
At Chungking, Marshal Chiang Kaishek, in addressing a farewell dinner to tlfe American Ambassador, Mr. Johnson, who is going to Australia, predicted a Japanese attempt to grab American possessions in the Pacific and to separate Australia and India from the Empire and Siberia from Russia. “China’s victory or defeat will be an Anglo-American victory or defeat," he declared.
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Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 113, 14 May 1941, Page 7
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316Are Japan and Axis at Parting of Ways ? Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 113, 14 May 1941, Page 7
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