RICHES OF INDO-CHINA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23839, 14 December 1940, Page 5 (Supplement)

RICHES OF INDO-CHINA

THE courage of the Chinese Government and the feehlej ness of the Vichy Government have Wrought, an important FarEastern possession of France, IndoChina, into the news. There is no doubt at all that Japan wants this southward extension of China, with i its rich and undeveloped resources ! and its strategic, value in controlling j the sea route from Singapore to j Hongkong, and that she wants it for | keeps. But there are three Powers who are | affected as deeply by Japanese atubiI tions in this direction as the French : colonists themselves. These three are i America, concerned in the future, of the ■ Philippines which lie across the South i China Sea and midway between Indo- ! China and the Pacific Islands mandated i to Japan; the Dutch East Indies, which ! lie to the south of the Philippines and i have preserved their freedom, though j their Motherland has been overrun; , and the British Empire, represented by i the Malay States, British Borneo, and Australia beyond, to say nothing of j Burma, which with Si run forms Indo1J China's western boundary. Prosperous Country With an area of 286.000 square miles, three times the size of France, but with only half France's population, Indo-China has been the only big French overseas possession which has made a trading profit and has paid for itself. This trading profit amounts to about £10,000,000 a year. So rich is this country that it has J achieved this result in spite of the indolent nature of the Annamese who form five-sixths of the native population and, it must be confessed, in spite of the indolence and lack of enterprise on the part of the, 40,000 Europeans who j lire there. Most of the hard work, in fact, seems to he done by immigrant Chinese and Japanese. It is the Japanese who have cut the new roads across the mountains separating the country from China, and they are confident that they could do far better than the French with the magnificent ports, such as Camranh, with a deep harbour capable of sheltering an armada, and Hai-Phong, the seagate of Hanoi, the capital. From these and other ports IndoChina exports a million tons of rice a year, much sugar, maize, and tea. Anthracite coal (of which the annual production is over two million tons), zinc (five thousand tons), tin, and wolfram are the chief minerals; while the fishing industry is very flourishing. Famous Names It is as Indo-China that this valuable French possession now comes into the news, hut it. is the more picturesque names of the component colonies that will awake most memories in older readers —Cambodia, with its ancient monuments such as the ruins of Angkor; Annam. which won its independence from China a dozen years after Agincourt; Tonking, through which

runs the Bed Itiver, fed by the Black River and the Clear River;'and CochinChina, whose name is perpetuated in a very famous breed of domestic fowls. It is claimed even by European visitors to this Far Eastern land that its Buddhists would prefer the pushing, vigorous Japanese to the French as overlords in the future. The French, as always, have done much for education and other branches of civilised existence, but they have failed to make

What the Japanese U^ant

the most of their opportunities in a country which is so situated that it could become a very important factor iu the trade of the Far East. The Japanese realise these facts and believe that the moment has come to realise a long-standing ambition of their imperialists. The question is—are they making their claims with a view to the general good of the Western Pacific, or for military glory and national pride in possession?