NOTES ON THE WAR

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3269, 28 May 1943, Page 7

NOTES ON THE WAR

CHINA’S DARKEST HOUR POSITION DETERIORATES ALLIES’ HELP BADLY NEEDED Events in the European theatre of war, being more spectacular and progressive, have 1 tended, especially recently, to overshadow what has been going on in the Pacific theatre, from Attu to Guadalcanal, including, above all, China. The position in China, on which recent news throws a lurid flash, is far from good. It has always been assumed by the general public that Chiang Kai-shek’s China', having resisted the Japanese invaders for nearly six years and preserved its main frontiers, established in eastern China after the first wave of invasion was checked in 1939, would continue the process, without serious loss, indefinitely. This assumption has been falsified by events since Pearl Harbour. By the occupation of the whole of the South-east Asia block from French Indo-China in the east to Burma in the west the Japanese have virtually blockaded Chung-king China.

Supplies at first came in from the outer world to Chiang Kai-shek through ports on the coast south of

the Yangtse, with Hong Kong as the entreport and distributing centre. This flow was curtailed as the Japanese began to occupy these ports, the most important of which was ■Canton. The next channel of supply was through French Indo-China, via the port of Haiphong and the railway running thence, via Hanoi and the Red River Valley, to Kunming or Yunnan-Fu, which was connected by road with Chungking. The Japanese occupation of IndoChina in 1940-41 closed that way of access to Chungking too. Only the Burma Road, constructed while China was at war with Japan, remained. This last “life-line” was severed by the Japanese campaign in Burma, which ended a year ago with total occupation. Since tnen China has been a beleaguered country, pressed from the east and the south, with supplies reaching Chungking almost exclusively by air. The position has deteriorated until in February last Chiang Kai-shek could say with truth that China was “facing her darkest hour.” Plight of China It was at this critical period that Madame Chiang Kai-shek revisited the United S.ates, where she was educated, and appealed directly to the American people for help. There

is no doubt her mission had its effect in America and prompted a special interest in the Pacific War to which Mr Churchill paid tribute in his recent address to the United States Congress at Washington. While the Allies in Europe are beginning to see daylight, the situation is still dark in China and the whole Pacific. The military problem is one of the most difficult that have ever confronted the leaders in any war. The blockade of Russia has been virtually broken; that of China remains untouched.

Mr Churchill has said more than once that China is the key to the whole war against Japan. To make that war effective the Allies must get somewhere where they can hit Japan decisively in the heart of the octopus, Japan itself, instead of at the tips of the tentacles.

There are only two places, so long as the Japanese fleet remains in being and Japanese air power is undestroyed. These places are Eastern Siberia and China.

It is possible that the mission of Mr Joseph Davies to Moscow has something to do with Siberia, because Siberia can hardly be used as an offensive base unless Russia is at war with Japan.

It is possible also that the United States attack on Attu has also a bearing on this aspect of the problem, for Attu is the last point on the air route to Vladivostok and must be recovered by America before much can be done by way of American co-oper-ation with Russia in this region.

But there is no easy road to China. The reconquest of South-east Asia by the Allies through the jungles of Burma and Indo-China would be a major operation of the most difficult type, even with the big forces massing in India, and these cannot act until the end of the monsoon in October.

Meanwhile, the Japanese, with a powerful army, fully equipped, have .penetrated from Ichang, south of the Yangtze Gorge, to within 180 miles of Chungking. They have also cut into the chief rice region of Chungking China round the Tungting Lake. They also threaten Changsha, on the Hankow-Canton railway. The situation speaks for itself.