The Press THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 1943. China’s Example

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23976, 17 June 1943, Page 4

The Press THURSDAY, JUNE 17, 1943. China’s Example

There is nothing accidental about the latest military successes of the Chinese. They are the outcome of a gradually developed system of defence, both military and economic, and of the increasing aid, still small in volume but invaluable in kind, supplied by China’s allies. Two great assets have helped China, though apparently ripe for conquest, to withstand shock after shock under invasion by a fully prepared enemy: manpower and territory. They have permitted China to employ tactics which Russia has since adopted—the absorption of enemy armies by retreat and defence in depth, while maintaining active guerrilla warfare behind the Japanese lines. Thus to-day, while Japan has occupied huge areas, though her control is effective only over part of them, the Chungking Government holds nine provinces free and, securely based on the mountainlocked interior of the north-east and south-west, is stronger than when the war began. The Chinese problem now is economic rather than military, even administrative and political rather than military, and the connexion between the economic difficulties and the political and administrative ones is probably close. Every report of administrative and political reform is in this sense a report, or an assurance, of military victory; for it means the strengthening of the will and the means of a resistance which has already cost Japan 2,000,000 casualties and ties down 750,000 Japanese soldiers. When first attacked, China lacked both munitions and the industries to produce them in sufficient quantity. In part the industries have been created; in part they were transferred from the coastal areas. This prodigious achievement is inadequately measured in the fact that, while only 280 of China’s 3850 pre-war factories were in the interior, Chungking now controls more than 1000, or in the fact that 120,000 tons of plant and materials and 100,000 skilled workers were moved west in the great withdrawal, The output of this industrial creation is supplemented, of course, by that of the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives, which not only supply consumer goods but arm and maintain the guerrillas. The basic industry, agriculture, has also been reorganised; and here, conspicuously, technical and political progress has been complementary. The handicaps of transport are still heavy. Having occupied the coast and closed the Yunnan-Indo-China railway and the Burma Road, Japan has limited China’s imports to the air-line from India and the land routes, long and difficult, from India and Russia. The connivance of corrupt Japanese officials, however, has permitted traffic from the occupied provinces and even from the ports to assume large proportions. But these three gaps in the blockade are together not wide enough to ease more than slightly the major shortage of petrol and oil. Though there is reason to believe that air transportfrom India has been increased, it must be assumed that all fuel flown in is reserved for the reinforced Allied and Chinese air arms. China’s own production of motor fuel, boosted by every expedient possible, can still meet only a fraction of the need. But men, animals, carts, and river-boats, which have served China for centuries, do not fail her now.

Manpower, in spite of enormous losses, remains China’s deepest reserve. She has organised and trained, it is estimated, 300 divisions, has 5,000,000 men in the field, and holds 15,000,000 in readiness or in training, with untrained reserves of 50,000,000 still to draw on. Behind the Japanese lines, moreover, 500,000 trained guerrillas are cooperating with 600,000 regulars. Guerrilla tactics developed and tested in the field are now taught in two special training schools, in which 2000 officers of other Allied forces have been instructed. Industrial training has been as methodically developed. But China’s war effort and the sacrifices it has cost can no more be summarised than they can be fully recorded. Their example, however, can be recognised, and its inspiration accepted; and it is perhaps one that New Zealanders, during the next few weeks, when asked for a financial sacrifice, a temporary one but allimportant, may keep in the forefront of their minds.