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JAPANESE INFLUENCE SPREADS SOUTH
By Gareth Jones,
Java, Dutch East Indies.
April 1935
Even here in the luxuriant Dutch East Indies, overflowing
with oil and rubber, sugar and spices, coffee and tea, and inhabited by
over 60 millions of natives the name “JAPAN” arouses fear among the
Dutch rulers.
The sound, which woke me when I arrived
in Java, was the whirr of aeroplanes, as the boat steamed into Soerabaya
harbour. I looked out of the portholes. Two bombing aeroplanes! A
symbol of Holland’s fear of Japan, because the Dutch are buying more and
more aeroplanes in order to defend their priceless colonial possessions.
I landed amid a host of Malays in their turbans and their
brilliantly coloured skirts (called ‘sarongs’), which all the men wear,
went to see a leading American merchant. The first word he mentioned
was: “Japan! The Dutch here are scared of Japan. They se that we
Americans are leaving the Philippines and they ask themselves: ‘What if
the Japanese come to Manila? Will they not want to descend on the oil
wells of Borneo?’ The Japanese have no oil and no Empire can flourish
until it has its source of oil, for oil rules the world. Just as the
British scoured the world for oil and tried to control the oil of Persia
and of Iraq, so will Japan cast her eyes round the world in search for
oil. She will see rich Borneo just beyond the Philippines and the Dutch
fear that she will covet it.” So spoke the influential American
merchant and I then understood why Holland is building up the
fortifications of Balikpapan and Tarakan, the two oil ports in Borneo.
Leaving the American I travelled in a
streetcar towards a hotel. Next to me sat a Dutchman who suddenly
addressed me. In a few minutes there came the word “JAPAN”.
“The Japanese mean war.” he declared. “We are afraid for our oil will
lie at their mercy.”
A real scare of Japan has caused a panic in the Dutch
East Indies; a panic, which to the visitor like myself, seemed
hysterical and perhaps unjustified. I decided to ask the leading
authorities in Java what they thought of the so-called “Japanese
menace”, and a few days later in Batavia I entered the dignified library
of one of the most distinguished Dutchmen in Java. After one of his
many swarthy turbaned Malay servants had bowed low and left the room I
turned to the Dutch authority and said: “Why do I hear on all sides this
panic-stricken fear of Japan? It appears to me to be exaggerated.”
He replied, “I have just returned from an important conference. Do you
know the question we discussed? It was Japanese aggression. We know
that Japan has plans to attack us here as soon as war breaks out in
Europe. “I recalled that the Japanese had marched into Manchuria when
Europe was in financial chaos in September 1931. The Dutchman
continued:
“The Japanese can do anything if Europe
is in disorder: they could conquer the Philippines and the Dutch East
Indies, because they are the Mistress of the Pacific. Theirs is the
power in the Far East.”
He paused and I put before him the
pro-Japanese point of view. “Surely the Japanese interest is peace in
the Pacific. Only if there is peace can the Japanese sell their goods.
They are conquering Asia by trade only. Would they risk their valuable
markets by war?”
The Dutchman stroked his beard, stood up
went to his desk and, without saying a word showed me a map. I noticed
that vast areas of the world were painted pink, among which were the
Dutch East Indies and Australia that in a table of colours pink was
described as “colonies of Japan.”
After I had studied the map, the
Dutchman spoke: “That is from the book of the Japanese Nationalist
shipping man and trader. It is the future Japanese Empire.”
“There are many reasonable men in
Japan,” I argued, “who believe such plans are fantastic and who are
vigorously opposed to mad schemes of expansion. Would they not combat
such a scheme?”
The Dutch citizen dismissed my argument
with scorn. “I have lived along time in Japan,” he declared, “and I
have many Japanese friends, but there is not one of them I would trust
if any motive of patriotism came in. There is not one who would not
poison me if his country were at stake. What is more, they would poison
their family for sake of patriotism. They have a proverb: “Duty knows
no family.” A wife whose husband is killed in a war is happy and is
congratulated. The Japanese would risk all for the Emperor. That means
they have the idea of Empire and that common sense disappears when
‘country ‘is mentioned. That is why I think that when there is trouble
in Europe the Japanese will try to seize Borneo and perhaps the other
islands of the East Indies.”
What did the Government officials
think? I went to one of the great departments where the Dutch and the
Eurasians (who are mixed Dutch and native) rule over their vast Empire.
A keen Eurasian in a high position – it is difficult to distinguish the
Malay blood in him, except for the dark eyes – took me to the window and
bade me look down at the street below. Hundreds of Malays in brilliant
dress were streaming languidly past, for the Malay is no lover of
speed. “JAPAN”, said the official, “aims at playing an ever greater
part in the lives of those natives whom you see below. She wishes to
set herself up – just as the Bolsheviks do – as the defender of the
masses of the world. Let me read to you from the War Office pamphlet
published in Tokyo this year.” He read aloud in his guttural Dutch
accent: “The white powers are trying to make the colonial masses buy
their own expensive goods, but in this connection the Japanese Empire is
one interest with the masses of the world and it is not doubtful as to
whom the final victory will come.”
“Final victory!” The Dutch ponder over
this phrase and ask: “Does this ‘final victory’ mean the Japanese
victory over the white powers? Can we throughout this century guard our
rich colonies?”
Some, it is true, do not fear Japan, but
they are very few. They believe that Japan wants trade only and that
the distances and difficulties of conquest are too great. They say that
Japan has chosen land expansion rather than sea expansion and that she
will be for decades preoccupied by China and Manchuria.
The vast majority are in dread, however,
and they ask themselves: “How can we keep our colonies?” They have
found one answer and that is a warm friendship with Great Britain, which
a British merchant described as: “The Dutch are at last thanking God for
the British Empire.”
Moreover the British want the
friendliest relations with the Dutch. They have millions invested in
the Royal Dutch (Shell) oilfields of Borneo. They have vast interests
in rubber plantations in Java. The vital routes of the British Empire
lie in Dutch waters, for the Dutch control the path from Asia to India
and from Australia to India. The Imperial Airways route from London to
Australia will fly for nearly three thousand miles over or near Dutch
territory. (Did you know the length of the Dutch East Indies was almost
as great as from New York to Los Angeles?) Thus the British regard the
East Indies, from the defense point of view, as a vital part of the
British Empire.)
Just opposite the coast of Sumatra lies
the fortress island of Singapore, where the British are building a great
new naval and air base. So close is the friendship between Holland and
Britain in the Far East that the Dutch regard Singapore as the defense
base for Batavia, the capitol of Java, and have placed their chief naval
and air base in Soerabaya, on the other end of the island.
To guard themselves against aggression
the Dutch are thus placing themselves in the hands of the British.
There is another kind of aggression, however the British can do little
to help the Dutch and that is trade aggression. Japanese imports are
increasing by leaps and bounds and now the Japanese control about 95%of
the imports of textiles. Japanese pottery is ousting out Dutch pottery
everywhere. The Japanese are selling bicycles at fantastically low
prices. Their bankers, importers and forwarders are growing rapidly in
importance. Everywhere one sees Japanese photographers. (Why is it
that almost every town on the coastlines of Asia has a Japanese
photographer?) and barbers. Japanese shipping is fighting a vigorous
battle against Dutch shipping. In the toy trade the Japanese share of
imports jumped from40% to 75% in 1932. In electrical goods Japanese
sales are increasing in leaps and bounds. Japanese stores are being
opened in he most remote towns and the Chinese, who are the storekeepers
of Java, are cursing the new invader.
This trade conquest is indeed a problem
for the Dutch, for Japanese goods are of great advantages to a colony.
Listen to what a planter told me; “Thank God for Japanese goods. I
sell them on my plantation and because they are so cheap I can reduce
the natives’ wages. Without Japanese goods we could not sell our rubber
in the world market for our cost of production would be too high. The
natives cannot afford to buy European goods and if they could not buy
Japanese goods, many of them would go naked.”
The Dutch are in a dilemma as the gird
their loins for a trade and shipping war. If they shut out Japanese
goods they increase the poverty in their natives and raise their costs
of production and perhaps cause riots. If there is chaos in Europe they
dread a Japanese naval attack. It is no wonder that the word “JAPAN”
arose fear and anxiety among the rulers of the Dutch East Indies.
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