JAPAN IN CHINA.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 30, 29 October 1937, Page 4

JAPAN IN CHINA.

Although items of nevvs coming through from the Chinese battle-fronts are in some cases not easily reconcilable and are in others quite contradictory of one another, the summmg up of them leads to the final conclusion that both at Shanghai and in the northern provinces the Japanese armies are making ietinite progress. Undoubtedly in each area the advance is very much slower than the Japanese commanders had counted upon when first tbey set out on their adventures. Disappointment in this respect no doubt accounts in Iarge measure fpr the savagery with which the attacks are being pressed. This keen sense of the frustration of conhdent expectations is being vented upon a closely packed, hapless and helpless civil population by what looks like little else than gystematic butchery. Beyond this, of course, lies the planned purpose of reduction by terrorisation, which, with shame for our .civilisation, it has to be confessed seems now to be accepted as an mevitable accompaniment of modern warfare. Ihe gruesome stories wq are gefting from Shanghai are very much the same as those we had from Abyssinia not so very long ago, the main difference being in the numbers involved. Japan has thus a very recent Christian precedent to which to refer when the finger of condemnation is pointed at her for the brutalities she is inflictine on Chinese non-combatants, men, women and children. Judging, too, by the preparations that are being made in so many countries to safeguard against like barb'arities, nothing very much better is to be expected of#a purely European war should one come to .be .fought. As to this . Spain speaks almost louder than does Shanghai. • So far as concerns military results, despite the desperate resistance shown by the Chinese forces and occasional reports of minor successes on their side, the general result in the North is that Japan is pushing steadily for ward along a very much extended front. No doubt, were China's superior numbers as well equipped and as competently directed, this would mean danger for Japan. Even as it is we have heard of enflanking movements by the Chinese meeting with suecess, but it has been only transient and without any appreciable effect in the way of staying the advance. It looks very much therefore to be only a matter of time for the Japanese to attain their obiective in this region and lop olf another big branch from the great tree of the Chinese Republic. It will be one, too, of perhaps even greater strategic importance than Manchuria, as interposing a wedge between China and Russia, who may at any time make common cause against Japan. It is, of course, at and around Shanghai that the most intense and continuous conflict is going on and that the slaughter of Chinese, both soldiers and civilians, is on the vastest scale. There, after a long and really heroic stand against troops very much better trained, disciplined, officered and equipped, the Chinese have been compelled to make yet another retirement. This, it is said, has been carried out in wonderfully good order, but at the same time it cannot but be regarded as ominous. Though doubtless determined opposition will still be maintained for a time yet, the Japanese militarists cannot but fuliy realise that, if only to satisfy their people at home, the campaign must be brought to as speedy a close as possible. For this and other reasons it may be assumed that the assault will probably be continued with unabated, perhaps intensified, and relentless vigour and regardless altogether of' world opinion as to its methods. The problem here, assuming Japan' s success in her military efforts, is, of course', as to what will happen then with so many and so great foreign interests involved in China's chief .commercial city. On this point no satisfactory indication has yet been given by Japan as to her intentions. There are, oi course, vague and rather cynical-looking suggestions that all Japan is bent upon is to establish some system of friendly-co-operation between herself and her big continental neighbour, but to outside eyes it must seem that she is going a very queer way about achieving that purpose.