FRENCH INDO-CHINA YIELDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23769, 24 September 1940, Page 6

FRENCH INDO-CHINA YIELDS

Capitulating at the first show of force, the authorities in French IndoChina have signed an agreement granting the Japanese demands. These all relate to Tongking, the province fronting South China, and appear to have as their first object the prosecution of Japan's war against the Chungking National Government. Japan has been granted the right of entry into Tongking for 6000 troops, and she is also to have the use of three airports and certain railway facilities. In view of the hold that Japan can now take in the colony, it is pathetic that the GovernorGeneral, Admiral Decaux, while talking of a "realistic policy, should think it worth while to proclaim Japan's agreement to recognise Indo-China's integrity and French sovereignty. With the signing of the agreement, both have been reduced to a shadow. The French cannot have failed to note how quickly Russia's military occupation of the Baltic States was followed by their final absorption into the Soviet Union. Of wider interest is the fact that Japan has made her move in Indo-China in face of the warning by the American Secretaiy of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, that the United States would take a serious view of any change in the status quo in the Far East. Washington has been confronted by Tokio with a very material change and American reactions will be with interest. A hint that they will not extend to military intervention has already been given by the Vichy Government, which pleaded the lack of "real support" from America in extenuation of its yielding attitude toward Tokio. "There are many methods short of war," however, and some of them, if applied, may prove crippling to a nation as economically dependent on America as Japan is.