POSTWAR TRADE RELATIONS IN THE FAR EAST.

The article focuses on the postwar trade relations in the Far East. This is a difficult issue to discuss. The entire Far East, excepting the Soviet Far East, Free China, a part of Burma and New Guinea, is blanketed under enemy control. Far less information escapes through the blockade and censorship surrounding the Japanese-controlled Far East than leaks out Nazi Europe by one means or another. Moreover, in projecting the economic future of the Far East, economists are up against political imponderables that are difficult for a Westerner to evaluate. Problems of the Far East are linked with the general problems of world security and economic stability. In an expanding world economy, China may secure the foreign capital goods, which she will require; and Japan the overseas markets, which will be essential to her postwar recovery. The spirit and character of the initial measures of rehabilitation taken by the United Nations after the war, and the larger framework of reconstruction into which they develop will tend to set the mold within which will develop the future economic relations of the Far East.