ABSTRACT
Two factors affected British economic policy towards the Far East after the fall of Holland and of France in the summer of 1940. One was the need to ensure that supplies from the French and Dutch colonies did not reach Germany. The other was to try and prise Japan away from her conquests in China. Sometimes these purposes coincided, sometimes they clashed: because a prime condition of achieving the first aim was to ensure that Britain, while apparently on the verge of defeat in Europe, did not become involved in hostilities with Japan. This meant being able merely to irritate the Japanese without going far enough in inconvenience to produce a cause of war. 1 1940 saw many rapid changes. In May discussions began for an Anglo-Japanese trade agreement. Germany’s victories in Europe changed all that. The occupation of Holland and the fall of France made French Indo-China and the Netherlands East Indies vulnerable to pressures from Germany and Japan. Before Germany attacked Russia in June 1941, it was still possible for goods to be channelled to Germany from the Far East via Japan, Vladivostok and the Trans-Siberian Railway. The situation became acute after 17 September 1940 when Japan ceased to be an unfriendly neutral and allied herself with Germany and Italy in the Tripartite Pact.
