ABSTRACT
The Japanese government had joined with Nazi Germany in the AntiComintern Pact in November 1936 as a joint measure to counter Soviet communism; and the Pact led the Japanese into easy collaboration with Vichy France by sharing in their mutual aims. The outcome was that the Vichy government signed an agreement with Japan on 22 September 1940 giving access to local French aerodromes and accommodation for 6,000 operators. On 6 May 1941, a commercial agreement was signed with Japan dealing with commercial and customs duties and the granting of most-favourednation treatment to Japanese nationals. This was followed on 29 July 1941 by the Vichy signing a Protocol granting Japanese access to all of the territory of Indochina and the northern regions close to the Chinese frontier. Another agreement, of 30 August 1941, allowed Japanese military forces to move into Indochina, essentially to attack the Chinese (both Nationalist and Communist), against whom they had been fighting since the early 1930s. This document declared that ‘France had agreed to accord in French Indochina such facilities of a military nature as are required by the Japanese army and navy for executing their campaign for the settlement of the China
affair [meaning the invasion of China]’.1 America was then not at war with Germany, and the US diplomatically recognized the German-controlled Vichy by appointing an ambassador who was notified in confidence by the State Department of these agreements. However, US officialdom was becoming increasingly alarmed as Japan stretched its military tentacles into south Asia in a clear attempt to dominate the mainly colonial countries in the western Pacific region.
