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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. IV No. 26, 29 June 1940, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
On June 25 hostilities came to an end in France. But even more significant news that day was the “casual,” unexplained announcement that units of the main U.S. fleet had begun to leave Hawaii, heading apparently for the Panama Canal and the Atlantic.
Almost as though they had been waiting for the “full speed ahead” which sent the U.S. battle wagons returning eastward, the Japanese imperialists on the other side of the Pacific began the same day to put the real heat on the French and British.
Part of the South China fleet of the Japanese Navy was ordered to Haiphong in French Indo-China. Around Hongkong Japanese troops began a new drive deliberately designed to cut the rich British colony off entirely from the Chinese hinterland. Aggressive demands on Britain to stop the traffic to China through Burma were handed to the British ambassador.
In other words, although U.S. diplomatic policy vis-à-vis Japan remains formally unchanged, in practice the complete reversal of U.S. war strategy has already begun to take place. Hitler’s victory in Europe – his imminent victory over Britain and the uncertainty as to the fate of the British fleet – forces the U.S. to put its full weight in the Atlantic. As far as Washington is concerned, the Western Pacific now is Japan’s, to do with what it will or what it can.
Congress has put through bills authorizing the building of 1,250,000 more tons of naval shipping to form a two-ocean fleet at the astronomic cost of $4,000,000,000. But it will take years to build and in those years events will not stand still.
Thus the process of formation of three great continental imperialist blocs begins to gain speed. Hitler has completed the crushing of France and stands poised for his assault on Britain. No serious observer has been willing to give British resistance more than twelve weeks. After Britain probably comes Stalin’s turn.
On the other side of the world Japan is already in motion to pick up the spoils left free for grabbing by the development of the European war in Europe. From the defeated French, Japan last week extracted an “agreement” which amounts to the virtual establishment of a Japanese protectorate over Indo-China. Japanese army, navy, and civil officials are henceforth to “supervise” the trade routes leading from Indo-China into that section of China ruled by the Kuomintang. The Japanese navy is moving in to “observe” the exercise of this control. In Shanghai the French have likewise given way to the Japanese. Demands for similar “supervision” over the Burma route have been filed with the British and will no doubt be enforced as soon as Britain is reduced, like France, to a defenseless state.
When these two Chinese lifelines are choked off, the Japanese will hope to force a peace in China which it could not impose in three years of relentless attack – three years, incidentally, which come to a close on July 7. At the same time the East Indies, Malaya, and in due course the Philippines, will await the plucking.
Between Japan and Germany lies the United States and between Germany and Japan lies the Soviet Union. The transformation of the general relationship of forces is compelling revision, therefore of both American and Soviet strategy. This brings over the more or less immediate horizon the possibility of “parallel” policies in Washington and Moscow. Of the Soviet shift in this direction there have already been multiplying indications. Of the American shift with respect to Moscow signs will not be long in forthcoming.
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Last updated on 2 February 2019