THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1941 FAR EASTERN BUFFER STATE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24138, 3 December 1941, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1941 FAR EASTERN BUFFER STATE

Thailand is seldom absent from a news of the daily developments in j the Far East. Japanese reinforce- ' ments entering Indo-China are apt to find themselves posted to Thai- , land's eastern frontiers, while Imperial forces in Burma and Malaya ) keep a sharp watch on Thailand's > western and southern borders. China • at one remove has affirmed her interest in Thai integrity and so has Mr. Cordell Hull, speaking for the United States. Thailand begins to • find this surveillance and solicitude i. embarrassing. A year ago she entered the game of power politics '■ under japan's wing with a light and zestful heart. She was enabled to regain from stricken France some of the territory lost to Indo-China in the previous seventy years. But what had seemed easy game suddenly turned stern and serious. Thaij land found that her association with 1 Japan had earned the displeasure of America and called for explanations to Britain, her largest and indispensable customer. At the same time she began to receive formidable accounts for services rendered from Tokio, and found herself entertaining an inordinate number of Japanese tourists. Out of her small re--3 sources she had to grant the Yokohama Specie Bank a large credit. Bangkok felt nostalgic for the old ! Siamese backwaters. She wanted to 5 be let alone, she protested her innoi cence and her equal love of all ; nations, she discovered the pacific virtues of the policy of neutrality. In fact, Thailand woke up from 1 expansionist dreams to find that, with the Japanese occupation of the r south as well as the north of Indo- ! China, she had become a buffer State. That uneasy discovery and ! the new emphasis on neutrality j caused one of her spokesmen to call Thailand the Belgium of the Far 1 East. The comparison was not far ' off the mark in the political and strategic senses. Thailand is a weak State lying in the path of the aggressor's southward drive—a stage on the road to larger objectives, such as the Burma Road, Burma oil, Malayan tin, iron ore and rubber, ' Singapore, and Sumatran oil. If the aggressor moves, Thailand promises to become the cockpit of the Far East. So, and most naturally, she ' plaintively pleads neutrality. There the Belgian comparison ends. Thailand will not be as easily crossed as Belgium. For one thing she is twenty ) times the area, for another much of the land is mountainous and heavily forested, and for a third the thickly roaded and railed plain of Belgium has no counterpart in Thailand. Roads are few and the length of railways is half that of the New Zealand system and has to serve twice the area. Should Japan succeed in occupying Thailand, she would find herself facing Burma along 700 miles of mountainous frontier, she would obtain a long frontage on the Bay of Bengal at the entrance to the Strait of Malacca, and would overlook the Malay States from the border not far north of Penang. Thailand therefore holds a key to several doors in the East Indies, explaining the international interest in her disposition. She herself holds out few immediate rewards to a conqueror, her considerable and varied mineral wealth being still in process , of development. The exception is the large export surplus of rice which, now that the Indo-Chinese crop has been cornered by Japan, is of particular interest to Hongkong and Singapore. But the principal importance of Thailand is as a stage to larger objectives. Whiles she now seeks to take refuge from this uncomfortable role by espousing neutrality, Thailand under General Songgram had since 1932 until the present year pursued more questionable courses. She drew on herself the notice that now disquiets her. Her leader fomented racialism, national consciousness, and irridentism, working closely with Japan and Italy. General Songgram was an admirer and imitator of Mussolini, although events since June 10, 1940, may have cooled his enthusiasm. In any case he could not ignore the tight corner in which his country was placed by Japan's move into Indo-China and by Tokio's attempt to dictate Thai policy and exploit her resources and strategic situation. Thailand did not relish acting as the vanguard to the Japanese inarch southward. From June onward, therefore, Bangkok has sought to correct her past orientation toward Tokio by improving relations with London and Washington and her gestures of rapprochement have been reciprocated. Even so, Tokio is deeply entrenched in Thailand, as was proved on two recent occasions. General Songgram has a lot of past history to live down in trying to establish his country's status as a neutral.