CHINA TO-DAY

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21990, 14 January 1937, Page 7

CHINA TO-DAY

JAPANESE AND RUSSIAN INFLUENCE TASK FACED BY CHIANG KAI-SHEK “Though there is a growing feeling of national unity in China the .country has yet a long way to go in this hire 0 * tion, and General Chiang Kai-shek knows that if is impossible at present to oppose such a country as. Japan, said the Rev. G. W. Gibb, head of the China Inland Mission, who is at present in Christchurch, to a reporter last evening. When Japan was attacking there was always a great outburst or feeling against her in China, he sam, but where Japan was strong enough to meet a western power China had yet far to go to make her position strong enough. Japanese goods were boycotted and there was a great deal ox anti-Japanese propaganda. Japan occasionally challenged this feeling against her, as when she demanded that the propaganda should be stopped. Russia and Japan were endeavouring to extend their power. Russia was creeping in through Chinese Turkestan, and practically the whole _ area could be considered to be sovietised. Communication with that province from the Chinese side had become extremely difficult, and movements of missionaries, generally speaking, were somewhat restricted. Many of their reports were received at headquarters in Shanghai by way of England. _ In the north-east provinces of Chahar, Suiyan (both of which previously formed inner Mongolia), Shansi, Hopei, and Shantung Japanese influence was increasingly felt, and many observers thought that in the not distant future these districts might very largely come under the power of Japan. The great difficulty in China was that the country was divided. Apart from there being two governments, one in the south and one in the centre, there were in the various provinces the war lords who rendered purely nominal homage to the central Government. General Chiang Kai-shek, president of the central Government, faced a tremendous task in attempting to bring order out of chaos, but he had made great progress. « 11 1