"EITHER WAY CHINA CANNOT LOSE"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 101, 30 May 1941, Page 7

"EITHER WAY CHINA CANNOT LOSE"

Two Possible Outcomes OF

War With Japan. Says Dr. FT. ZZ Koo

FTER long years of a. war, just as wasteful of life and property as the war in the west, China is fighting on, more powerful and more united than she was when Japan first set out to walk the rickety plank of Asiatic domination. This much is common knowledge, as is the fact that China has been able to call to her aid tremendous hidden reserves of power, spiritual as well as material. Dr. T. Z. Koo, secretary of the World Student Christian Federation, now in New Zealand in the course of a world tour, has more recent news of events in China, however, and a more up-to-date appraisal of events in a theatre of war which has for some time occupied a minor place in the world’s news. For a year and a half, Dr. Koo told a representative of The Listener, there had been a military stalemate in China, disturbed only by local incidents. In the meantime, Japan had been licking her wounds, maintaining long lines of communication and doing her best to shore up the teetering morale of her armies on seven fronts. China, too, had been licking her wounds, but slowly gather- ing strength, equipping and training armies for a final struggle which is expected to push Japan back into the sea, and may even postpone, Dr. Koo thinks, Japan’s plan of Asiatic expansion, Sudden Death-Or Attrition There are two possible outcomes to ‘the war in China, says Dr. Koo, and either way China cannot lose. The first is that when China has accumulated enough heavy armaments and trained

and equipped a sufficient mumber . of men (she ‘should be able to put an army of three million men into the field in a year’s time) the force of a_ giant. coiled spring will be loosed upon. the Japanese armies. The second is that just by holding on, China will wear her invaders down, and finally when the process of attrition has reached a certain point, force her to come to terms. Enlarging on this second possibility, Dr. Koo points out that Japan’s hold on much of occupied China is desperately insecure. The occupation of some provinces extends merely to one or two lines of communication between isolated fortified points. The Chinese, moreover, are waging ceaseless guerilla warfare, with not a little success. The morale and health of the

Japanese soldier are both low. in country where the Chinese soldier can live frugally off the land, and fight hard and well, the Japanese is subject to disease and epidemics. Notwithstanding reports of friction between Communists and Nationalist leaders, which Dr. Koo warns should be treated with caution, China is still unified, and still behind Chiang Kaishek. When, at the outbreak of the war, the three big political groups, the Nationalists, the Communists, and the Kwang-Si group declared a truce, the work of the Communists, for instance, went on, and it was only to be expected that there would still be friction. Some months ago this flared up into open conflict, which was suppressed, however, without any serious breach occurring.

Japan’s Pact With Russia The non-aggression pact between Russia and Japan will have little effect on the war in China, Dr. Koo thinks. Supplies to China from Russia have been too sparse to be of great assistance. China’s hope rests mainly on the Burma Road. which, now that the road through Indo-China has been cut off, may be described as China’s most vital life-line. Over the Burma Road, in spite of regular bombing by the Japanese, supplies continue to flow in a great, steady stream. A month or two ago, on his way from India to China, Dr. Koo flew over

much of the country traversed by the road, and everywhere it was dotted with transport lorries, crawling along below like small fat beetles, carrying sorely needed munitions of war to Chiang Kaishek. Twice a day usually, the Japanese came over and bombed the roadin the morning between ten o’clock and noon, and in the afternoon between three and five. When advice was received of an impending raid, the drivers merely left the road and took shelter. When the raid was over, any damage done was repaired, and the stream of traffic continued. The Japanese had claimed the destruction of strategically important bridges, but supplies flowed on. Actually the most vulnerable points along the road were in mountain ravines, where accurate bombing was difficult. The Christian Influence Remarkable in a country of so many millions, where Christians are in such a comparative minority, is.the influence which Christianity. wields and the dynamic it has supplied during the present struggle, says Dr. Koo. This is one of the secrets of the strength and inexhaustibility of China. The roots _of Chinese national life and culture reach deep down into the ethical teachings of Confucius, but with progressive westernisation, the Chinese are learning to borrow the best elements of western

philosophies. It is possible, even, thinks Dr. Koo, that the West, weakened by recurring war, may eventually be replenished and revived from the age-old wells of Chinese culture. Dr. Koo is himself typical of the fusing of old and new in the leaders of modern China. He comes from an economically poor family of farmers, and is proud of the fact that he is only one generation removed from the soil. From the age of seven to 14 he was educated along the traditional classical lines, drinking in the teachings of Confucius at an age when he could only dimly comprehend the import of the statement that "man in his original state is a moral being." At the age of 14 he went to a high school in Shanghai, where the rigid discipline he had been subjected to was relaxed sufficiently to allow him to play football. To-day he can laugh at the picture he must have presented then, a pale young scholar making clumsy and inexpert attempts to kick a football. However, it was the physical training he received during the next few years which enabled him to stand up to the strain of his present big job. At St. John’s College, Shanghai, where he afterwards studied, he was a fellow student with Wellington Koo, Chinese Ambassador in London. The two are not related.