Just before the outbreak of the first world war, the Japanese threat became a prominent issue in Dutch colonial policy. In 1912 a government committee was set up to re-evaluate the defence of the Netherlands East Indies (NEI) in the light of the changed situation in Asia. In its report of May 19131 the committee concluded that developments in Asia forecast a period of unrest rather than of calm. The loss of the Indies, according to the committee, would reduce the Netherlands in only a few years to one of the least important nations in Europe. Economically, the loss of the archipelago would be 'a national disaster'. The foremost challenger of Dutch sovereignty in Asia would be Japan and maybe, in the long run, China. Up until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor such concerns dominated military and political thinking with regard to the defence of the Indies. Another anxiety was that Japanese military expansion would be preceded by economic expansion, which would act as a cloak for espionage activities. Two months before the committee reported, the Minister of the Colonies had sent to Queen Wilhelmina a sixty-fourpage memorandum, written by a colonial civil servant during his European leave, in which attention had been drawn to this possibility.2 The civil servant, Charles Welter, who was to serve more than once as Minister of the Colonies during the first years of the second world war, warned that since the Netherlands was the weakest power in Asia the Dutch government had to be on its guard against all signs of 'a more than usual interest' by the Japanese in the Indies. He cited several cases of Japanese espionage in the archipelago since 1907. Even more threatening seemed to be the development in recent years of 'a certain affinity' with Japan among 'disaffected elements' in the colony.