The Burma Road
The opening of the Burma Road into China, announced by the Prime Minister on Tuesday, is in accordance both with general expectation and with general desire. The decision to close the road three months ago at the instance of Japan represented a concession to a quite unreasonable demand. It was as normal and proper for China to import munitions and any other commodities by that route as for us to import munitions and other commodities across the Atlantic. But in the middle of July, when the decision to close the road for an experimental three months was taken, our situation in Europe, after the fail of France, was gravely critical, and there was something to be said for avoiding a new crisis in Asia at that moment. Some hope, moreover, was cherished, or at any rate professed, that the interval of three months might give time for some kind of settlement between Japan and China. Actually there has been no sign of that, and our own concession only increased Japanese truculence. Now we revert to the normal practice in opening the road again for general traffic as from next week. What Japan's reactions will be remains to be disclosed, but it may be taken for granted that we are acting in full concert with the United States and in the assurance of American support against any overt act of hostility by Japan. What the Japanese expect to gain by involving themselves in war with Great Britain and America as well as China in a theatre in which they can expect no help from their Axis allies is not easily divined. The United States appears fully reconciled to a conflict which it has come to realise is inevitable.
Previous page
