英独間の経済戦争と日本の対中封鎖作戦の相互の関係 : 1939年-1941年
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概要
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Anglo-German economic warfare entered a new phase when the Netherlands and France were defeated by the Germans in June 1940. British contraband control, previously the chief of weapon of the economic warfare became relatively unimportant and was replaced by a simple blockade so far as the naval situation allowed. In Asia and the Pacific, Anglo-German economic warfare brought a distorted relation between Britain and Japan. There were two background factors which brought such confrontation. The first one was related to the grave leakage from the British blockage against Germany. Japan tried to transfer some important products which were necessary for German war efforts and were contraband goods from the British point of view. Those goods were transported through the South Manchuria Railways and the Siberian Railways. Britain became very nervous of Japan's involvement in such leakage to Germany. On the other hand, Britain maintained supply-lines with France to support Chiang Kai-shek Government resisting Japan's military suppression through Burma and French Indochina. Japan being bogged down over the war against Chiang Kai-shek tried to close those routes putting pressures on Britain and French Indochina but the Allies did not comply with Japanese demand insisting such routes were principal trade traffic only left to Chinag Kai-shek. The other factor was a struggle between the allies and Japan for important raw materials produced in Asian countries which were colonies of Britain, France and the Netherlands. Japan tried to increase her purchase of raw materials from the South East Asia countries and to undermine the control of Western great powers over them. On the other hand, Britain tried to control important raw materials and agricultural products not to be exported to Japan or not to be reexported through Japan to Germany from Asian colonies of British Empire or of France and the Netherlands. The tension reached a peak when France and the Netherlands were defeated by Germany in June 1940 and Japan put pressure on French Indochina and Netherlands East Indies to increase the share of export of raw materials getting the chance of Germany's overwhelming victory in Europe. Although Britain was in a predicament, she could secure positive support from the USA when the US Government decided in July 1940 to apply export license system to all of goods to be directed to Asia. Therefore, two dimensions of the economic blockade, namely the British blockade against Germany on the one hand and the Japanese blockade against China on the other collided with each other in Asia while Japan could not deal with the Japanese-Sino War prolonged by Chinag Kai-shek' s resistance and tried to find a way out of the difficulties planning to build up her sphere of influence called the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. The collision of the two operations for economic blockade brought a phase of economic warfare of Britain and the USA against Japan in Asia and the Pacific earlier than the entry of Japan and the USA into the War.