740.00119 Pacific War/37

Memorandum by the Deputy Director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs ( Ballantine ) to the Secretary of State

Mr. Secretary:

Factors Affecting Formulation of Policy Toward Eastern Asia and Nearby Areas

There are good reasons why policies for all parts of the Far Eastern and the western Pacific areas should be weighed primarily in the light of their possible effect upon that area as a whole and only secondarily in the light of their effect upon European countries.

The United States was brought into the present war through events in the Pacific and as a result of action taken by an Asiatic power. Responsibility for future security and order in the Pacific will fall primarily upon the United States. That responsibility makes necessary a carefully integrated policy (economic, political, and military) for eastern Asia and the western Pacific area as a unit.

That unit should be conceived of as including Far Eastern Soviet Russia, China, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Indochina, Burma, Malaya, the Philippines, the Netherlands East Indies, and the islands of the Pacific (except those near the continents of the western hemisphere).

The principal geographic and political divisions of this area are located comparatively close to one another and are reached by relatively short “interior” lines of communication. They are remote from most of the western hemisphere and even more remote from Europe. It has in the aggregate enormous populations and vast natural resources. There has been evident for a number of years an increasing feeling of kinship in the sharing of a common destiny and common problems throughout this area. This feeling and a growing national and regional consciousness with strong racial and social aspects among Asiatics and native island peoples have been given strong impetus by events since 1941 and by Japanese propaganda. The people of eastern Asia and the western Pacific scrutinize carefully and react strongly to any important action, negative or positive, taken by another [Page 33] nation affecting any part of the area. It is thus impossible to disregard inevitable repercussions throughout the entire area of any policy toward, say, the Netherlands East Indies or Thailand.

Far Eastern or Pacific possessions or areas under the aegis of some European power should no longer be regarded as linked primarily to Europe and as only secondarily a part of the “Far East”. There are dynamic trends easily visible today which foreshadow the eventual dissolution of western political domination in parts of southeastern Asia and adjacent islands.

United States policies for this area would presumably seek two basic objectives: (1) to preserve security and stability and (2) to create conditions under which developing alignments of power in the Pacific (in which the Soviet Union and China will figure more and more prominently) may be favorable to our own political and economic interests.

It is not proposed that policy for the “Far East” be divorced from policy applied in Europe. It is proposed that Far Eastern policy should encompass the entire area as a unit. Logically and practically Far Eastern or Pacific dependencies of European nations fit primarily into a Pacific policy scheme and only secondarily into a European scheme. In both formulating and implementing policies toward any part of this area, say, Indochina, while due weight should be given to possible European repercussions, those policies should be evaluated in the light of their relationship to and effect upon (1) any other part of the area and (2) the achievement of our basic objectives in eastern Asia and the western Pacific.

J[oseph] W. B[allantine]