CHINA'S WARS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 138, 12 June 1926, Page 13

CHINA'S WARS.

THE TRIUMPH OF CHANG. RUSSIA AND JAPAN BEHIND SCENES. JAPAN'S CHAMPION VICTORIOUS. (Specially Written for the "Auckland Star.") (By H. V. MILLINGTON.) KOBE, May 15. A Russo-Japanese war, with Chinese doing the fighting, has just terminated. Nippon provided the arms and ammunition for the Manchurian and Central provincial armies, while the Muscovites provided the cannon and fodder and money to the Chinese Christian general's forces. The Manchurian war-lord is once more the power behind the Government of Peking, and he will see that Nippon's sphere of influence in Manchuria is kept inviolate. Hence Nippon is the victor in the war.

That, to put it bluntly, is the meaning of the latest civil war in Cliina, during which the combined forces of the Manchurian war lord, Marshal Chang Tso-lin, allied with his old enemy Wn Peifu, assailed the so-called National army (or Kuominelnin) of Marshal Feng Yuhsiang, the Christian general. Tho latter is now somewhere in hiding in tiie mountain recesses bordering on Mongolia, while in China's capital tbe pawns in the Huso-Japanese war are haggling among themselves for the spoils.

Outside of China the reason for this last civil war, the sixth in the history of the 15-year-old Republic, has been meaningless. Men with unpronounceable names, and cities of equally vague nomenclature, have figured largely in the cables, but so frequent have been these internal strifes between military and political factions, that even the cabled reports sent out from the capital have failed to keep up with the everchanging series of events. Hence those resident in China alone can have the vaguest idea of what it has all been about.

Apparently there has been an incessant civil war since last autumn; actually, however, there have been at least three wars, and the strife in which Russia and Japan have been the principal contestants is the last of these three. To detail the events that led up to these conflicts, and to narrate their history, would be of little interest to Xew Zealanders; hence, a rough summary of the kaleidoscopic changes that have come about in the political and military situation since last autumn will help to clarify the position.

Tn the first place, it must lie remembered that China, has never been united since the Revolution of 1011, which resulted in the downfall of the age-old monarchy and the establishment of a Republic. China ia roughly divided into three distinct spheres of military and political influence. These are again subdivided —the lesult of internecine strife. Duping the four years I was in China there have been at least seven civil wars, but only four of these have been of great importance. The divisions of China are roughly as follow.- The province of Kwangtung. of which Canton is the capital. When President Yuan Shih-kai attempted to make himself emperor, a split occurred between the Canton party and Peking, resulting in the former declaring its independence of the capital. Several civil wars, and in fact a constant war has been going on in that province, but so far as the rest of China is concerned, Canton's wars affect the country little, as they are almost entirely dissociated from the national civil wars.

War Lord of Manchuria. , The two main divisions of China, therefore, remain. The first, and apparently the most powerful, is Manchuria, consisting of three provinces, under the dictatorship of Marshal Chang Tso-lin, an ex-bandit. From his headquarters in the Chinese section of Mukden city he rules supreme, in addition to having a large influence on the politics of the Republic outside, when his political fol lowers happen to be in power. His army, though not the largest, is the strongest and best equipped of the numerous armies in China; but what is a far greater asset of strength to him is the fact that a considerable portion of the Manchurian territory is owned or leased by Japan. Hence it is in Japan's interests to keep the provinces of Manchuria intact. The South Manchuria railway runs from the lower end of the peninsula, connecting Tort Arthur with Mudken in the north. Territory alongside this railway is under the control of the Japanese. That is the reason why, when one of Chang Tso-lin's generals, Kuo Sung-ling, turned against him and attempted to drive him out of Manchuria, the Japanese refused to allow the treacherous general to land his forces at Yinkou, just adjacent to Ncwchwang, where Japan's particular sphere of influence lay. The result was that Kuo Sungling, held up by Japanese troops, was soon caught in the net set by Chang Tsolin. The murder of Kuo and his wife, and the public exhibition of their mutilated bodies in a public park in Mukden, re-established Chung Tso-lin's challenged power, and incidentally'ended that particular civil war —the "first of the three that have been raging since last autumn. In the next war, which centred largely round the treaty port of Tientsin, though the Manchurian war lord was vitally interested in its outcome, his forces took no actual part in the fighting, Manchuria simply belping to supply the munitions of war. In this conflict the Christian General's forces attacked Tientsin and drove out the military'governor of that province. That for the time being ended war number two.

The third civil war—the one that started barely three months ago, and which apparently iinished yesterday, though it was actually an aftermath of these two previous wars and of another conflict which took place by the Great Wall of China at Shanhaikwaii in 1924, is the war in which Russia and Japan have been the two silent participators. To understand the exact alignment of the opposing forces, the position which existed in Peking after the 1924 war must be outlined. On that occasion Wu Pei-fu was the commander of the National Army, which declared allegiance to Peking. Tsao Kun was the President, and on the advice, or rather orders, of Wu Pei-fu, he declared war on his old enemy Chang Tso-lin, whom he had beaten a year before owing to the treachery of one of the hitter's generals. In the 1924' war the Christian General, Feng Yu-hsiang, was Wa's front linesman, in charge of the western line, which had been sent to the north to cheek the advance of the Manchurian armies on their way south. The invading forces reached the Great Wall at Shanhaikwaii. where t!;e wall runs into the sea. anil they were rapidly pressed

southwards in the direction of Tientsin, at the same time pushing their flank towards the Christian General's army, when the latter suddenly turned against his chief, and, after a four days' march, took Peking and carried out a coup d'etat, which resulted in Wu Pei-fu retreating to the south, President Tsao Kun being thrown into prison, and a new Government established, with himself and his recent enemy, Chan,"; Tso-lin, as the dictators.

Chang and Feng Come Together, These two Marshals met in Tientsin, and later proceeded to Peking, where, with the linal consent of the defeated Wu Pei-fu, they put a provisional chief executive in oiliee as President, lie was Marshal Tuaii Chi-jui, ex-Premier of China, who up till that time had been a refugee in a foreign concession in Tientsin.

Very soon it was seen that Peking was too small a place for two such redoubtable, generals, with such territorial ambituins. Chang Tso-lin suddenly departed for Tientsin, and subsequently to his stronghold in Manchuria, while Feng Yu-hsiang retired to the mountains in the west, leaving the chief executive to carry on the government as best he could, with no military forces of his own, but merely with the moral support of the two armies so long as he did the bidding of their commanders.

A period of peace came over China from that time, October, 1024, until the autumn of last year, when the two civil wars above narrated took place. The victory of Feng Yu-hsiang's forces in Tientsin, though the Christian General himself was too wary to approach nearer the righting line* than hi* headquarters in the mountains, many miles away, resulted in the iirmcr establishment of the National Army, and himself aa dictator of Peking. Kapidly his power there grew, and when he finally seized the opportunity to curry favour with Young China by allying himself to the revolutionary students when tlie great anti-British outbreak last year swept over tiie country, he used his advantage for all he was worth. Russia, which was largely responsible for fomenting the strife and providing the money for the boycott of British goods, gave large sums as well as munitions of war to Feng Yu-hsiang, egging him on to declare war against Britain. For several months prior to this, the Christian General had been receiving wagonloads of ammunition from Russia. A constant stream of carts had proceeded across the Russian frontier through Mongolia, and down to Kalgan—the headquarters of the Christian General.

When the anti-British agitation arose it was touch and go whether Feng Yuhsiang would be foolish enough to declare war on England. Had it not been for the fact that Chang Tso-lin's forces came down from the north, at the behest of the British Minister, and temporarily held the students in Shanghai in check, there is little doubt that Feng Yu-hsiang, who had never seen a modern army, and who had not the faintest conception even of the might of a British warship, would have declared war on Britain.

The checking of the students' violent agitation against the British resulted in Feng Yu-hsiang turning his attention to other directions for the further establishment of himself in power as the grand dictator of China, In this he was again helped considerably by Russia, through the agency of the sardonic Soviet Ambassador, Karakhan. who lavishly distributed money for propaganda, purposes, not only among the Chinese students and pressmen, but also among certain foreign-controlled and owned papers. The Red movement grew in strength, Russia's aim being to eliminate Chang Tso-lin, and, in return for a copious supply of munitions of war and silver dollars, obtain large concessions in Manchuria when it finally came back to the control of the Central Government.

A Reshuffle of the Cards. Feng -Yu-hsiang and his followers represented the people's or National Army and the Red students of Young China. The latter were undoubtedly hostile to the Manchurian satrap, and the Hands-off China movement, started in Moscow, quickly spread throughout the Repuhlic, politicians and students rapidly allying themselves for sundry purposes best known to themselves, to this new movement.

The scene was then all set for a conflict. Only three of China's war-lords counted. They were Chang-Tso-lin, Feng Yu-hsiang and Wu Tei-fu. If the two latter could be sot to unite against Mukden, there was every possibility with Russia's of Chang-Tso-lin being exterminated, and China's army regaining possession of a large part of the territory in Manchuria controlled by Japan.

Karakhan reckoned without one factor, however Much though Chang hates his old enemy Wu Pei-fu, the Soviet Ambassador forgot that the latter would be more than willing temporarily to join forces with his Mukden enemy in order to be revenged on the traitor Christian general who had been responsible for his defeat in the civil war of 1024. After many plots and conspiracies behind the scenes, which will probably never be revealed, a tentative agreement between Wu and Chang to attack Feng was decided on. The war resulted, and after strenuous fighting, chiefly along the railway line between Peking and Tientsin, the combined armies reached the capital, on which tlie Christain general's forces retired and the Provisional Chief Executive lied to Tientsin.

That is the position of affairs at the time of writing, though long before this appears in print, tho whole political situation of China may be changed. The end has by no means come, but certain incidents in respect to tbe civil war itself, which on one occasion, such as the firing on the Japanese destroyer at tlie mouth of the Tientsin River, almost resulted in international intervention, are of peculiar interest at the present time, showing as they do that behind the two warring factions were Russia and '.Tapnn.

The first important incident that rivetted the attention of the world on China and put its civil war on a different plane to the numerous conflicts that had gone before, was the firing on tfhe Japanese warship. A few days previously tlie National forces, which then held Tientsin and the territory along the river to Taku, laid mines in tbe water and prohibited all foreign ships from proceeding to Tientsin. This was done in order to prevent supplies coming in from Manchuria. This embargo on foreign shipping immediately resulted in a vigorous protest from the Towprs. The forts at Taku had by treaty been demolished after the Boxer ris : "g of 1000. the subsequent protocol which was forced on China stipulating that these forts be dismantled and that communication between Peking and tho sea be -"opt open, so that in the event of another attack on the Peking Legations, military assistance could readily be forthcoming. In ->ite of this treaty China on several

occasions flagrantly violated it, not only by manning the forts, but by blowing up bridges, tearing up the railway line, and completely stopping communications between Peking and ihe sea. International trains which had been specially armed with troops of the different Powers had been fired on and turned back. The mining of the channel was apparently the last straw, but immediately on top of that, the Chinese, encouraged by the impunity with which they could successfully violate tiie treaty, took the bull by the horns and fired on a Japanese warship as it was proceeding up the river to Tientsin. The Chinese had previously been advised that the ship would cross the bar that day and they promised to allow her to proceed unmolested.

Only then did the Towers take joint vigorous action and issue an ultimatum to China —the first that hud been issued' since the famous Boxer outbreak. The Powers' bellicose protest and threat, though it resulted in an abortive attempt on the part of the students to compel the Government to take up the world's challenge —an action which resulted in over a hundred of them being shot down by the President's bodyguard—compelled China to come to its senses. The mines were consequently cleared from the river ami foreign ships were allowed to navigate it.

Shortly after this incident a Soviet steamer, the Oleg, was seized oIT Taku by a Manchurian warship. The ship's papers showed that she carried nothing more war-like than seaweed, but an examination of the cargo revealed tne fact that hidden beneath the seaweed were vast quantities of arms and ammunition, valued at more than two million dollars.

Very soon a filer these events tJie National army was driven out of Taku nnd eventually from Tientsin, and were compelled to beat a. hasty retreat in the direction of Peking, near which they put up a vigorous stand against the combined armies of Chang Tso-lin and Wu Pei-fu. The Japanese Minister in Peking and the Foreign Minister in Tokyo constantly asseverated their determination that Japan bad remained and would conlinue to remain neutral in the conllict. So she did, but her arsenals continued to turn out their munitions of war for the Mukden armies. While the war was proceeding at Slinnhaikwan I myself picked up pieces of bombs dropped from Manchurian aeroplanes, piloted by Russians, which contained pieces of Japanese newspapers which were used as wadding. Where Japan did not actually furnish the money to carry on the war. she supplied the shells, trench mortars nnd small arms ammunition From Mukden and oilier parts of Manchuria there came an incessant stream of war supplies, consigned to Tientsin, and from there sent up to the front line. At tho same time Russia, in addition to suplying money to Feng Yu-hsiang. sent a constant stream of heavily-laden ammunition trains across the desert to Kalgan. No foreigner was allowed in the vicinity of the mountains for fear that he would see those trains and what they contained.

At the time of writing this. Marshal Chang Tso-lin, realising the insidious part played by the Soviet in this latest civil war. has ordered Russia to recall her Ambassador from Peking. Both he and Japan are united against Soviet intrigue. Tn actual lives this latest civil war has cost Japan and Russia nothing. but the respective finance ministers at Tokyo and Moscow could tell to what extent these two nations have been involved. H bus been a. silent war between Russia and Japan, with China doing the fiohting. V