Affair of the Mekong

The peasants of Thailand, comprising 80% of the country's population, are well-built, short-statured, brown-skinned, good-natured men, chewers of betel nut, waders in rice paddies, to whom the West has been exposed for little more than a decade and to whom western ways are still highly adventurous. Even in Thai cities, the old and new live in exuberant competition. Bangkok's harbor is busy with superb modern port construction; but workers and engineers engaged on it prostrate themselves before Buddha. Conductors of streetcars are likely suddenly to stop their cars and relieve themselves behind the nearest hedge. Little boys of the ultramodern, totalitarian youth movement, Yuvachon, are forced to wear shoes to drill, but on the way home happily carry them in their hands.

What seems most remarkable about Thailand is not that the twain never quite meet, but that the East has made so much progress in ways of the West. Thailand's roads are remarkable; her trains run on time. The curious paradox in Thailand's position is that being on Japan's little list for Greater East Asia, she is threatened by an eastern power which has developed western techniques of warfare. Last week Thailand was doing what she could to neutralize her paradox.

If Thailand were to be attacked soon by Japan, it would probably be from the north and west, via French Indo-China.Thailand's northwestern frontier with Indo-China follows a fairly good military barrier, the Mekong River--except for a stretch of about 270 miles, where Indo-China has title to a narrow strip of territory south and east of the river. The area once belonged to Thailand. About the time Japan moved into Indo-China, Thailand decided to demand this strip of land, to close the gap in the barrier. Because she went to work on Indo-China to do this, the outside world got the impression that Thailand was aiding Japan, was in fact already a mere tool of Japan. In the end, Bangkok might become a little Vichy but this time Thailand was trying to aid Thailand before it was too late.

By western standards, Thailand's eight-year-old military machine is not formidable. The Army, which runs the Government, boasts 100,000 men, with first-class equipment for about 50,000 others. Its materiel and arsenals are fine but its experience is nil; in the last war Thailanders were used only for labor. The Navy consists of a few Italian and Japanese torpedo boats and destroyers, and four submarines. Some think the submarines can submerge, some think they cannot. The Navy has never tried. It recently offered to take some newspapermen out to prove the submarines could submerge. The newspapermen demurred. The Navy called the experiment off. The Air Force consists of 300-500 U. S. planes, but its pilots are inexperienced in combat.

When Thailand pressed its claims against Indo-China, Vichy instructed Hanoi to resist. Border incidents broke out, and by last week they had become pretty intense. There were small bombings and counter-bombings. The fighting was by no means a war, but it was an episode which somehow epitomized the tragic complications of the year of grace 1940. A no-account strip of precipitous jungle on the Mekong River had become a matter of world politics involving not only Thailand and France, but the Axis and Britain--and even the U. S., which may some day have to defend the Philippines.

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