Canton and Japan

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21806, 11 June 1936, Page 12

Canton and Japan

News from China in the last few days has been concerned mainly with military activities in the provinces of Kwantung and Kwangsi, activities which have been interpret! d by the Japanese press to portend a civil war. Whether this is true or not, it is certainly true that the equivocal attitude of the Nanking Government towards Japan, and its rigorous suppression of anti-Japanese activities, have greatly strengthened the autonomy movement in the south. Canton is, after all, the cradle of the Kuomintang movement; it has always remained faithful to the democratic teachings of Sun Yatsen; and, with th development of the Nanking Government into a military dictatorship, it has come increasingly to regard itself as the stronghold ot true Chinese nationalism. When the Kuomintang established a Central Government at Nanking in 1927, control of the southern provinces was delegated to the Southwestern Political Sub-committee of the party, with headquarters at Canton; but for the last five years the Canton Council, as it is usually called, has functioned as an independent government. The imminence of a Japanese military occupation of North China has evidently been regarded by the Canton Council as an opportunity to gain further prestige at the expense of the Nanking Government and Chiang Kai-shek. The possibility of the Canton Council organising military resistance to Japan must, however, be regarded as remote. Canton's interests and strength are commercial rather than military. Since the beginning of the century the city has been China’s main gateway to the outside world. From Canton and the neighbouring provinces have come the great majority of the millions of Chinese who have settled in the West Indies, Siam, Burnia, the Pacific islands, and the Pacific coast of America; revenue from these expatriates in the form of remittances is about £20,000,000 a year, most of which goes to Canton. The Cantonese leaders are mainly anxious to keep the peace and for this reason have studiously dissociated themselves from the Chinese Communists, whose strongholds are now in central China and whose armies are the only, effective force likely to be opposed to Japanese imperialism. The only factor likely .to influence the Canton Council towards making some show of resistance to Japan is the spread of Communism among the poorer classes in the provinces under its control. Twice since 1927 the city has been in the hands of Communist insurgents; and the Japanese advance in the north has been the signal for a recrudescence of political unrest.