Japanese in Java, Dec. 1940
Japanese in Java (Time Mag news report Dec. 30, 1940)
All the open spaces around the great naval airfield at Surabaya, Java are set with bamboo stakes, their tops whittled razor-sharp. A visiting journalist recently asked what they were for. The commander of hte base explained that they were designed as an unpleasant reception for parachutists and added: "When Holland first fell and we were very excited we put poison on the tips of all these stakes."
The sharp stakes at Surabaya were just one sign last week of the alertness of The Netherlands East Indies. The islands had new cause to be wary. Anothe Japanese negotiator was on his way--ostensibly to talk oil. But the Dutch knew that selling oil to Japan might be a very minor part of the conversations. They recalled what happened to French Indo-China.
Japanese-Dutch negotiations on the Indies were as different from japanese-french "negotiations on Indo-China in the face of French blustering. In the Netherlands Indies they got nowhere in the face of stubborn Dutch geniality.
First the Japanese proposed sending as negotiator General Kuniaki Koiso, who after a previous visit, had publicly made some abusive remarks about the Dutch. The Dutch said he would not be acceptable. The Japanse sent instead a Cabinet Minister, Ichizo Kobayashi of Commerce and Industyr. When the Japanese mission docked at Batavia, tiny Envoy Kobayashi and his aides were greeted by a guard of honor, who it happened were 1) the force assigned to rounding up all Japanese in case of hostilities; 2) the tallest men in the Indies. (On his return to Japan, Mr. Kobayashi told the press: "I was amazed at the tallness of the people. I do not even compare in height with a child.")
The governor general invited the Japanese to a reception. The Japanese accepted, planning to attend in uniform. The Dutch sent word that those who attend receptions of the governor general always go in formal European dress. Immediately, each tailor shop in town received orders for vie or six small tail coats. At the reception, Colonel Itsuo Ishimoto of the mission drank more Bols gin than was good for him, became attracted by the long curved creese (kris) of a Javanese prince. The creese is more than a sword to the Javanese; it is a sacred symbol and if it is drawn rashly and without preliminary invocations, Javanese believe that misfortune overtakes the rash drawer. Col. Ishimoto, without asking permission, drew out the creese and waved it about. A few days later, he collapsed with pernicious anemia, and died. Javanese natives were impressed.
It developed that Mr. Kobayashi spoke only one foreign language: German. The Dutch politely refused to speak a language of an enemy. The conference was carried on in English. Kobayashi, unable to understand a word, slept half the time, protested in japanese half the time.
The Dutch said: Have you an agenda? The Japanese had none.
The Dutch said: We never confer without agenda.
The Japanese said: Oil, we want 3,500,000 tons.
The Dutch said: We are a Government, not a firm of merchants.
So the japanese had to go to the offices of the oil companies like any other customer. Kobayashi went home to Tokyo..
Even the oil companies were difficult. The Japanese asked for some high-octane aviation fuel. The companies said: Our aviation fuel is all contracted for.
The Japanese wanted to pay in Yen. The companies demanded guilders or dollars.
Final sale: 1,040,000 tons of refined oi; 760,000 tons of crude; 0 tons of aviation gasoline. Said Japanese oil expert T. Mukai, as he signed: I will have a lot of explaining to do when I get back in Tokyo.
Apparently, Mr. Mukai's explanation did not satisfy the Army and Navy back home. The Japanese appointed a shrewd diplomat, Kenkichi Yoshizawa, who had learned how to deal with the strange men of the West. Last week, as he passed through Shanghai on his way to Java, the Japanese military spokesman there said that Japan would give the Dutch one last chance. The Dutch were not panicky; they put no poison on the stakes at Surabaya. But they were tense. They realized this time that polite high-handedness might not be enough.
|
