CHINA’S WAR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 April 1940, Page 6

CHINA’S WAR

ENORMOUS LOSSES REPORTED CROWING WEAKNESS EVIDENT. STALEMATE NOT UNLIKELY. The enormous losses suffered by the Chinese armies in 31 months of war are revealed for the first time by an American correspondent. Hallet Abend, who has consulted official files which he believes to be accurate. He points to the likelihood of a stalemate because of the growing weakness and war weariness of both sides. Writing from Shanghai on February ID. Mr Abend, in an article which appears in the "Now York Timos." states: Last Thursday, besides being the Chinese Now Year, marked the beginning of the thirty-second month of the Sino-Japanese undeclared war and. at least militarily and economically, found the struggle still evidencing no signs of an early ending. Within the last 12 months Japan has broken the stalemate in only two areas, in the extreme north-west and the extreme south-west: lhe front-line maps of coastal China, the Yangtze basin, and lhe Shansi frontiers arc virtually unchanged. During this last year little real progress has been made toward wiping out the guerrillas find establishing law and order in the occupied areas. Today, as a year ago. it is still literally true Japanese authority in the occupied areas extends only as far as the Japanese can shoot.

3.500.000 ENGAGED. The beginning of the thirty-second month of hostilities finds approximately three and a half million men arrayed against each other in the far-fiung battle-lines of China, less than a third of whom are Japanese, but their numerical inferiority is more than covered in superiority in generalship and equipment and virtual command in the air. Reliable information from Chungking declares that Chiang Kai-shek now has about 2 500.000 men in uniform, but of this colossal total not more than 1,500.000 have rilles and other essential equipment, the other 1,000.000 being constantly trained to furnish replacements for losses in the front linos. Chinese rnililary and civilian casualties in the first 31 months of the Far Eastern, conflict constitute a major horror of modern times. They total at least 5 000.000. if the most conservative estimates are accepted, but exceed 8.000.000 if the official Japanese figures are accepted without reservation. THE FOREIGN ESTIMATE. Foreign observers estimate the Chinese dead as a result ol battles at about 1.000.000. with an additional 2,000.000 wouifded. to which must bo added another 2.000.000 civilians dead as a result of air raids, artillery bombardments. and wholesale executions by the Japanese, besides deaths from hunger and cold among at least 30.000.000 civilian refugees. However, the most interesting figures on Chinese rnililary casualties are those from official Japanese records, which this writer believes to bo meticulously compiled and scrupulously honest. Headquarters of the Japanese Army in China yesterday gave to this writer the following compilation of Chinese dead abandoned, on fields of battle and buried by the Japanese:—

From, the beginning of hostilities on July 7. 1937. until November 30. 1938. the" Chinese abandoned 823.296 uniformed dead. From December 1. 1938 until April 30. 1939. the figure is 113,049. From May 1 until November 30. 1939, abondoned uniformed dead totalled 282,117. This gives the astounding total of 1,218,462. io which must be added at least 75.000 more in the December and January fighting in Kwangsi and Suiyuan. . Chinese dead cared for behind their own lines must conservatively be totalled al. 300,000. which brings the total uniformed dead to roughly .1,600 000 men.

ADDING THE WOUNDED. At the accepted ratio of three wounded to one killed, Chinese wounded presumably are around 4.800.000. making the military casualties alone nearly" 6.500.000. To this must bo added at least another 2.000.000 civilian deaths directly chargeable to the hostilities. The most reliable information obtainable here indicates that Japanese War Minister Hata was approximately correct when he informed the Diet that Japan was maintaining a million armed mon in China south of the Great Wall. Since the outbreak of hostilities Japan has increased her standing army to the unprecedented strength of 56 divisions of 25,000 to 26.000 mon each. In addition she has organised many special units of less than divisional strength comprising heavy artillery, cavalry, and mechanised equipment. Fifty-six divisions at minimum divisional strength means at least 1.400.000 men in uniform today without counting the special units. Of tins total nine divisions are in Manchukuo. while 39 divisions, plus the special units, arc in China south of the Great Wail. The Japanese War Ministers told the Diet recently that upward of 100,000 Japanese soldiers had lost their lives in. China, which apparently does not include the 18.000 admittedly killed in battling with the Russians at Nomonhan last summer. Foreign military circles hero deride these figures as obviously vast understatements but even conceding that they are correct, and adding three wounded for each man killed, which is the official Japanese ratio, it would mean upward of 475.000 Japanese casualties in 31 months of warfare. These casualties, plus the huge number of men now in uniform, explain the Japanese labour shortage and the crippling of many essential industries. CHINESE WEAII! N ESS.

The much-vaunted winter nfloiisives of the Chinese nowhere resulted in the recapture of any towns or mountain passes of strategic importance, hence crodciice must lie given Io Japanese claims that the Chinese armies have lost striking power mid have even become so weal: that their resisting power is greatly depleted. All reports from Chungking emphasise liic growing war weariness of many important government circles.] particularly those sighing for the fleshpots of the foreign concessions in the coastal cities who now arc cut off from! any imported luxuries Io which they) have long been accustomed. This doos not moan that Japan is] about to win the war or that China is, about Io surrender. Far from it. The prospects now are that China will eon-, limio to resist and feebly counter-at-tack for many years and as time passes Japan will inevitably lose the strength necessary for a knock-out blow. Even’ round such an important trading centre as Wuhu. a short distance above Nanking on the Yangtze, the 1

Japanese cannot control the countryside or annihilate the guerrillas allhough they captured Wuhu 26 months ago. Nightly guerrillas emerge from hiding and attack Wuhu's Japanese outposts. Wuhu is typical of conditions prevailing over an enormous area with more than 200.000,000 population. The most important land development is the Japanese Army's smashing' victory over about -100.000 Chinese forces massed fur an attempt to recapture Nanning. THE NEXT MOVE. The next important development is likely to be witnessed in the Canton area, for it is understood that the reopening of the Pearl river has been deferred because of Hie unusual number of Japanese transports proceeding tn Japan. It is conjectured here that I two pushes are probable, one north-! ward to occupy the area in northern' Kwangtung and southern Kiangsi. I whence comes a large proportion ofl the world's supply of tungsten and' antimony. The second eonjcctiire is! that the forces being massed in the! Canion area may lie I’m- a i>U::h wcs!-| ward to effect a junction with Japan-1 ese forces eastward .of Nanning'. I'orj litis area also is rich in those essential I minerals.

in the far north-west, where the other important Japanese advance recently was made Japanese forces have cnlerd Nigsia Province, cutting off one of the routes Io Soviet Russia over which the Chinese Communists haveboon receiving arms and munitions.