Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1938. JAPAN’S TASK IN CHINA.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 April 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1938. JAPAN’S TASK IN CHINA.

♦ JJEW evidence has been afforded of late that Japan is faced still by a task of unmeasured magnitude in her invasion of China. The broad fact has long been apparent even to those who admit freely that if it were a question merely of army against army, Japan could count with reasonable certainty on victory. Stubbornly and bravely as they defended the Shanghai area and opposed the invaders on the approaches to Nanking, the Chinese are much inferior to their enemy in military organisation and equipment and cannot hope to hold their own more than temporarily in any area of set operations in which both parties are able to call freely on their available resources. There is east upon the Japanese; however, the burden, not only of winning battles, but of holding and controlling vast areas which cannot accurately be described as conquered even if Chinese armies are no longer available to operate in them and defend them.

A well-informed American correspondent, Mr 'William Henry Chamberlin, writing recently in the “Christian Science Monitor,” said that three main military operations, of which one was then already in progress, seemed to be under consideration by the Japanese.

The first (lie continued) is the linking up of the Japanese conquests in Northern and Central China through occupation of the entire line of the TientsinNanking Railway. A second probable military objective is Canton, metropolis of South China. The occupation of this city, China’s main port in the South and the southern terminus of the newly-finished Can-ton-Hankow Railway, would seal up China from sea contact with the outside world. Finally, a direct drive up the Yangtse River against Hankow, which is today the main administrative centre of the Chinese Nationalist Government, is likely to be undertaken. Assuming that all these military expeditions are successful, Japan will still be at the beginning rather than at the end of its road to Empire in China. . . .'

News messages of the past week have, shown that the Chinese have at least heavily checked the Japanese in their advance along the Tientsin-Nanking Railway. It is likely enough that the check may be temporary, but that it has been possible at all is suggestively indicative of the increasing strain that is being imposed on Japanese military resources.

Japan in any ease is in visible danger of finding herself confronted by a terrible dilemma. Unless she undertakes further great military tasks as yet untouched, considerable parts of China, especially in the South, will be left free to organise anew for later resistance. On the other hand, if Japan completes her drive along the Nanking Railway, occupies Canton and advances up the Yangtse to Hankow, at -whatever immediate cost these enterprises may entail, she will be faced still by the necessity of establishing effective control over an enormous area inhabited by a population considerably greater than her own. Moreover, she cannot count with certainty upon being allowed to embark upon this tremendous task undisturbed by Russia, nor can she hope to find it easy, as time goes on, to avoid even more serious controversies over foreign rights in China than those in which she has already been engaged with Britain, the United States and other nations.