China and the West

Hemingway, Ernest. Japan must conquer China. In : PM ; June 13 (1941).
Rangoon.—The U.S.A. and Great Britain, if they are to protect their rubber, tungsten, tin, and other war essentials, must first decide at what point they will oppose Japan's southern move.
Already Japan has moved bodily into Indo-China and penetrated politically into Thailand on her way to Singapore. But there is no oil in those countries.
The first oil that Japan can reach by sea, without attacking the main British and Dutch defenses in Singapore, Sumatra and Java, is in Borneo. It is likely that she will try everything short of war to get this oil at Tarakan and Balikpapan from the Dutch. No one knows yet what she will offer. But when Japan goes south for oil is the moment the U.S.A. and Great Britain will have to oppose her if they are to avoid another Munich where Germany was given everything in Czechoslovakia she needed to overrun the Low Countries and France.
Japan without iron and oil—her only oil supply of her own is from Sakhalin Island which she shares with Russia—is as vulnerable, economically, as Italy. Deprived of oil she cannot fight longer than a year. But if she reaches oil in Borneo and controls the iron of the Philippines she will be reinforced to a much greater degree than Germany was by the gift of Czechoslovakia.
The longer the U.S.A. is allowed to rearm, to fortify Dutch Harbor in Alaska, to fortify Midway, Wake and Guam Islands to provide air bases for the great bombers that will then be able to fly the Clipper routes to objectives in the Pacific, the more does Japan’s southern move become increasingly perilous.
Last year it was perfectly possible for Japan to move to oil and to control of the world's rubber supply. Last year was when Japan had her great chance to become a world power by attacking Malaya before its defenses were organized. This year, with the Empire and Dutch defenses organized, it would be gravely dangerous for Japan to try to go south. In another two years when our own preparations are completed Japan can be absolutely destroyed if she tries it.
Japan could not move southward when it was easy, because out of the 52 divisions of her Army 37 were engaged in China, nine were in Manchuria and Korea, and only six available in Japan, Formosa, Hainan Island, and Hanoi in French Indo-China.
Japan had her opportunity to move south against the unprepared British and Dutch, but her good troops were tied up in her invasion of China and her very best troops were facing the Russians in Manchuria.
Now Japan has made a neutrality pact with Soviet Russia which presumably should free her divisions in Manchuria for a southern move. But does it?
It is to the interest of Russia to see Japan move south and get smacked. Soviet Russia knows, though, that the longer Japan puts off that move the more certain she is to get smacked. . . . It does not look as though she would send Japan south now in a hurry.
The only way for Japan to move south now is to conquer China, make a peace with China or have a true working agreement with Russia. Without one of these Japan must wait and prepare in order to be able to take advantage of the confused situation that might arise if Germany ever successfully invaded England.
Japan is making definite preparations for a southern move. Which of the things that are necessary for her to move south does she count on? Can she count on any of them?