The Southland Times SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1942. China's National Day

Southland Times, Issue 24871, 10 October 1942, Page 4

The Southland Times SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1942. China's National Day

TODAY is China’s National Day, and the Prime Minister has asked the people of New Zealand to give it a special observance. It is the first national day that China has celebi’ated since she became an active ally of the United Nations. For years she has been fighting in their cause, but not until last December, when Japan momentarily turned away from the west to drive east and south, was she formally allied with the democratic powers in what then became a fight not for national, but for world, freedom. In a statement printed earlier in the week Mr Fraser expressed the New Zealand Government’s tribute to the Chinese people. He referred to their long and arduous resistance against the Japanese, to their sufferings and to the firm resolution which had carried them through more than five years of war. “Not only in the present struggle, but also in the great work of post-war reconstruction, he said, “China is deserving of all we can give in both material and moral support.” No one who. has followed the course of the Chinese war can fail to endorse, and applaud, these words. The three years since Britain’s declaration of war against Germany seem long enough; China has been fighting for five. She has suffered reverse after reverse, disaster after disaster. Millions of her people have been killed, millions more have starved. Yet in her five years of agony China has been able to disprove many of the old social and military theories of war ana peace. She has demonstrated to the world that a country whose entire industrial area, ports, key cities and supply routes have been invested by an enemy is not necessarily defeated. She has shown that a stubborn people, under one strong leader, can hold on in circumstances which the world had previously thought unendurable. The “Incident” of 1937 A rattle of musketry on the outskirts of Peiping, five years ago last July, passed almost unnoticed by the outside world. Such skirmishes were the normal accompaniment of the process of domination and ex—propriation which Japan had long been following in northern China, and it seemed likely that this “incident” also would be settled by further Chinese concessions. But there soon appeared signs that Tokyo was preparing for a .final breach with the Central Chinese Government at Nanking. The Japanese gave out officially that Chinese forces had made an “unprovoked attack” on the Japanese garrison, {hat Japan “felt keenly” her responsibility for the maintenance of law and order, and that “the interests of peace” in the Far East might demand the dispatch of reinforcements to North China. . The language was less nauseatingly familiar’ then: Hitler and Mussolini had not yet begun to use it. But it was ominous enough. The Chinese “affair” was about to begin, and Tokyo was confident that it would be ended within six months. Chma was disunited and militarily and industrially unprepared; it seemed a fair enough assumption that she would collapse, within a space of months, before well-trained and fully-equipped armies of her rapacious neighbour. Japan had laid her plans well. The western powers seemed indifferent to China s fate provided their own rights were respected—a condition which the Japanese were then only too pleased to fulfil. Tokyo had foreseen everything—except that her attempt to despoil and dominate would awaken in Chinese hearts a fire of resistance which no amount of suffering could extinguish. Token of Allied Power China has now over 5,000,000 soldiers in the field—more than twice the number with which she entered this fantastic war. Her soldiers are being born faster than the Japanese can kill them. They are a tough race, and they can face terrible hardships without complaint. But they are not yet equipped to wage war on the modern scale. They lack arms, especially heavy artillery, and they lack aeroplanes. Yet in the last few months, when Japans efforts have been concentrated on other fronts, the Chinese have lost no opportunity to check and harass the troops occupying their own country. They even went to the assistance of the small British force which was available to defend Burma. Today, more than ever before, they fight on hopefully. For whatever their hardships and difficulties—aid from the western democracies is still only a trickle—they know that they no longer fight alone. Allied power, military and industrial, will gradually reinvigorate them. And the most heartening demonstration of that power has been provided by the United States Air Force in China. This force, according to Time, is still “pitifully small—a few fighters, fewer bombers.” But it has accomplished wonders. Its first communique, issued last July, reported the destruction of 50 Japanese naval planes which were surprised at their base. It would be too much to say that since then the United States Air Force has won the mastery of the air. But it has had spectacular successes, and it has given the Chinese people a degree of protection from bombing that they have not enjoyed since the first Japanese attack in 1937. Living habits in thousands of towns in south-west China have been changed: their people are once more able to walk safely in the streets by daylight. With this token of what the power of the United Nations can do for them, the Chinese have bravely entered their sixth year- of war. They know that victory may be still a long way off. But their armies are expanding and their resources are increasing, and now for the first time they can look forward to the day when defence will turn to attack and attack will lead to victory.