Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1940. JAPAN’S MOVE IN CHINA.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 45, 3 December 1940, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1940. JAPAN’S MOVE IN CHINA.

The signing of the treaty between the Japanese and the puppet Government at Nanking will not affect the position in China, because the Wang administration is already completely under the domination of the invaders. The Japanese grip on the country can be tightened only by military subjugation, which is as far off as ever. The army having proved unequal to the task imposed on it, recourse is had to propaganda organised by the senior partner in the Axis. It was reported the other day that Germans at Chungking are intensifying their efforts to persuade Marshal Chiang Kai-Shek,, the Chinese premier and military leader, of the inability of the western democracies to help , him the manifest purpose being to promote a Sino-Jap-anese peace, so that Japan s hands may be freed for that embarrassing southward thrust, which von Stahmers, Berlin’s ambassador-at-large, is to press Tokio to make. Chiang, who has repeatedly asserted his confidence in the ability of the Chinese to repel the invaders, is not likely to accept the German statements. American newspaper correspondents, it was reported the other day, have ascertained that the free China Government expresses complete confidence that M. Stalin will re fuse to make any deal with Tokio which would lessen Soviet aid to China or release the Japanese army that is at present immobile in Manchuria and Mongolia for use against China in other areas. This in spite of the fact that, in return for demilitarisation of the Si-berian-Manchurian border, Japan offered to cede the greater portion of North Manchuria to Russia. The odds at present are against the success ot Nazi diplomacy, or rather intrigue, in the Orient. Russia’s connivance,' a forthcoming, might swing the advantage there from Chungking to Tokio, but Moscow, ever prone to put its own interests first and last, will not lightly throw them away to please anybody.