Evening star., 1941-08-10
'EncircIement'- '-New StyIe

The present totalitarian leaders of
Japan, like their Axis colleagues in
Europe, have evolved a new theory of
world politics. 1t is best summar-
lied by the word "encirclement. The
spokesman of the Toxic Foreign
Office puts it trenchantly when he
asserts that Japan is being encircled
economically, politically, militarily,
and even alphabetically" by coali-
ton of hostile powers determined to
strangle her. The alphabetical as
pect of the process is sarcastic
reference to what Japanese call the
ABCD bloc, consisting of America,
Britain, China and the Dutch Indies.
This "encirclement" process is a
far-reaching one. When Britain al
lows the transport of supplies to Free
China over the Burma road, far in
the hinterland of Asia, that is en-
circling Japan. The same is true of
British and American attempts to
halt japanese expansion into French
Indo-China and Thailand though
these countries are some 1000 miles
from Japan proper. Equally heinouS
is Anglo-American protection of the
Netherlands Indies from Japanese
pressure. In japanese eyes such un-
ethical procedure calls for drastic
countermeasures. A Japanese naval
officer writing in a leading Toxic
paper, says that getting what Japan
wants from the Dutch Indies and
Malaga may be "a bit difficult, but it
should be a cinch if we tackle the
problem after the German fashion"
The German fashion is, of course, to
grab everything wanted by force of
arms.
The kernel of this new political
philosophy is that strong, poor and
vigorous" nations need adequate
living space. They plot out on the
map what the living space should be.
Thenceforth, this is their rightful
sphere, and any attempt by out
siders to interfere with the process of
forcibly validating the claims staked
out is aggressive encirclement. The
countermeasures taken by the EN-
circled' nation thus become legiti-
mate self-defense
Secretary of State Hull effectively
punctured this fallacy when he de-
clared at recent press conference
that if the japanese believe them
selves to be encircled, they have no
one to blame but themselves. This
is pre-eminently true of Japan. No
nation or combination of nations has
threatened Japan since the Great
War generation ago left her the
strongest military and naval power
in the Far East. Had Japan not en-
barked on career of aggressive ex-
pansion, first in China and later in
Southeastern Asia, she would be
enjoying today booming prosperity
as the one great industrial nation
not involved in the giant death
grapple which is tearing Europe to
tatters. She has no one to blame
but herself that the attempt to con-
quer China has drained her re-
sources, decimated her best man
power and brought her to practical
isolation among suspicious or openly
hostile neighbOrS
Such are the first fruits of Japa-
nese aggression. The closer Japan
comes to the deadline drawn by the
ABCD bloc, the more perilous her
situation becomes. If Japan takes
the final plunge and stakes her fu-
ture on aggressive war with this
formidable coalition, plus the likeli-
hood of hostile Soviet Russia, her
"encirclement" indeed will become
grim reality. But it will be a
nemesis which she herself has
created