Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MAY 27, 1938. UNCONQUERED CHINA.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 May 1938, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, MAY 27, 1938. UNCONQUERED CHINA.

PLAINLY anxious to make the most of their recent success in the Suchow area, the Japanese have laid some rather vaguely-worded claims to a great and sweeping victory. Even the Japanese themselves, however, appear to have made little effort fully to substantiate, these claims. Yesterday’s report that the Emperor Hirohito had “conveyed to the Suchow commanders his gratification at their brilliant victory over a numerically superior enemy,” does not in itself suggest any very spectacular achievement.

There is no sign of any evidence supporting a statement reported to have been made by the Japanese War Minister (General Sugiyama) to Cabinet, that twenty Chinese divisions had been encircled. Any detail news available at time of writing supports the very different account of the position given a day or two ago by Mr W. H. Donald,, the Australian-born confidential adviser to Marshal Chiang Kai-shek. Mr Donald stated that the Chinese withdrawal from Suchow was in accordance with the policy of wearing down the Japanese by exhaustion and retaining the Chinese initiative. He added that the occupation' of Suchow had been extremely costly to Japan, which had insufficient men to entrap the Chinese.

It cannot reasonably be doubted that Mr Donald has painted a true and accurate picture of the actual situation. The principal known facts are that for several months past the Chinese have been holding positions north and south of the Lung Hai Railway, in which to all appearances they were in grave danger of being encircled. They have been driven gradually out of a series of positions in Eastern China, including Suchow, which is important as a junction of main railways, but there is as yet a complete absence of evidence that any .considerable part of their forces has been encircled. All the indications are that they have made a splendid fighting retreat, exacting a heavy price from the advancing enemy for gains that may prove at last to be barren, or at all events entirely inconclusive.

All the recent events of the campaign, with their evidence of the strain that is being imposed on the Japanese armies, tend to substantiate the claims that were made by Mr Donald in an interview at the beginning of last month. On that occasion Mr Donald admitted that the Chinese were suffering as no other people had suffered in warfare. “But,” he said, “it has to be remembered that they have survived as a race from time immemorial that they are the only nation extant that has lived through the vicissitudes of twenty or more centuries.” For the past twenty years, he added, this generation of Chinese had been taught by contentious war lords, to suffer. From one end of the country to the other they had ally at times, suffered or endured the loss of their belongings, their homes, and their villages, towns and cities.

They are possessed (Mr Donald declared) of a philosophy and a practieal-mindedness and a capacity to endure which permits them to face the ghastly happenings of this invasion without much complaint. Japan cannot conquer a people such as this. Japan cannot conquer China. The people and the armies will go on marching, and always there will be people behind the Japanese lines.

Late events support the view that Mr Donald summed up up the position accurately. With Suchow in their hands, the Japanese have every reason to look to the future with misgiving. A great and valuable trade between China and Japan, on which many people in the latter country were dependent, has been destroyed. Military gains secured at increasing cost by the Japanese armies in China are largely new liabilities, and comparatively little headway is being made in the attempted conquest of China.