Pacific Peace Aims

PACIFIC PEACE AIMS DONALD COWIE ATthe end of 1943 President Roosevelt, NIr. ChurchiU, anci Generalissimo , Chiang Kai-shek met in Cairo and resolved: (1) that China should eventually have restored to her all her lost lands from Manchuria to Formosa and the' Pescadores; (2) that Korea should regain her ancient independence; and (3) that "Japan should be stripped of all the islands ~n the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first world war in 1914." Not only is it remarkable that such a clear statement of peace aims should have been made at such an early period in a war conducted by uneasily-partnered democracies (we still have not resolved openly upon our plans for Europe, though the military conflict there is nearly over). It was also without precedent that nations at one side of the world should defirie with such precision their political intentions towards vast territories in remote and largely-unknown regions at the other side. It is, for example, inconceivable that the Briton or American who lacks cOlisiderable personal experience of the Orient 'can fully appreciate the magnitude of those Cairo plans, or their strategical and political 'significance. Korea-what is that? Surely no more than a little, jutting peninsula somewhere off the coast of China. What are the Pacific island possessions of Japan 'but a splattering of insignificant atolls north of Australia? Some detailed elucidation may accordingly be valuable. No attempt shall be made to deal with Manchuria and other Japanese conquests on the Asiatic mainland proper, or with those te~ritories from Hong Kong to Burma and the Philippines to Sumatra which our enemy has won for himself during this war. They have been discussed frequently, enough, and their politico-strategic significance is, to a certain extent, understood. Consider, however, the mandated islands of the central Pacific, whose occupation by the enemy dates from the last war. They consist of four groups: the Carolines and Marshalls, the Palaus and Marianas (or Laarones), which comprise in all some fourteen hundred islands. Most conveniently for strategic purposes, they lie within a basin between Japan in the north, New Guinea in the south, the Philippines in the west, and various British and American groups in the east. The Japanese had to travel some 1)200 miles to reach them, the Australians 1,800 miles, the Philippinos 590 miles, and the Americans from Hawaii 2,000 miles. Such facts reveal the positive military value in this region of an archipelago which was originally explored and developed by the Spanish and British, sold to Germany last century, then placed in the care of Japan as mandated territories under the League of Nations after the Pacific enemy,had occupied them as our ally during the last war. 256 PACIFIC PEACE AIMS 257 The total land area of the islands is only 1,500 square miles, so that they cover little more than one square mile apiece, though the average is made up of many sti1l smaller dots and a few reallyflarge ones. With the exception of Ponape, a big island with thick vegetation and some remarkable prehistoric ruins, they comprise an uninteresting and often sterile archipelago . They produce some tropical crops) and phosphates are found 'at , Angaur in the Palaus, but 'nobody would fight to retain them on intrinsic, economic grounds. It took the Japanese to convince' the world that they had another value. First, demonstrated the Japanese, the tangled variety and 11urnber of the ,islands makes them peculiarly suitable' for secret air-naval bases. Second, 'the position of these groups, plumb in the centre of the 'Pacific basin, enables such bases to be used for the air-naval control of all the waters and skies from Japan to New Guinea and from the Philippines to the Gilberts. Thus' the enemy established his most important base within the atoll of Truk (a great coral reef enclosing a lagoon with small islands within) which is situated 'almost at. the dead centre of all the groups. Truk has developed anchorages and facilities for the accommodation of an ent~re navy if necessary, and it is believed that a large part of the' Japanese navy was based at...