SYMPATHY WITH CHINA

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22305, 20 January 1938, Page 11

SYMPATHY WITH CHINA

German Residents In War Zone KEEN ADMIRATION FOR SOLDIERS’ COURAGE (From Our Special Correspondent.) HONG KONG, December 30. Expressing keen admiration for the courage of the soldiers of China, and declaring that the people of Germany are in sympathy with China and the Chinese cause, Mr G. Scheffler, German Consul at Chungking, in a letter to Mr Li Yi-chih, adviser to the Yangtse River Commission, said that the Chinese army has won the admiration of the entire world. Japan’s aggression, the consul stated, has hastened China’s national unification, and from her present heroic fight against the aggressor. China is learning a lesson which will help shape her future destiny. The official said He did not believe that the Japanese army, though far better equipped than the Chinese, would be able successfully to carry out its ambitious plan of con* quering China. “China has existed for thousands of years,” he added, “and will no doubt continue to exist. The most urgent thsk now confronting her is to muster up her entire national strength in building a new China under the leadership of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. “The German people are in sympathy with China for her defensive war against Japan. This fact has been clearly manifested in the German press.” Referring to the German-Japanese Anti-Comintern Pact, Mr Scheffler pointed out that the agreement had no other political and military significance, apart from the pledge for joint suppression of Communism. “No Assistance for Japan” “Japan,” he asserted, “can never expect assistance from Germany in her present aggressive war in China on the false pretext of anticommunism. Germany is hoping for an early restoration of peace in China.” A warm tribute to the courage of the Chinese defenders was also paid by a leading member of Shanghai’s German community in an address at the Kaiser Wilhelm School recently. The speaker was Mr H. C. Ruser, deputy of the local “ NationalSocialist Party organisation. “For almost three months,” Mr Ruser said, “we have witnessed the fight put up by China against an aggressor. All who have followed the political events in China during the last 25 years agree that the psychological changes this country has passed through during the last decade have brought forth forces which nobody would have thought possible. Not only the gallantry and bravery of the Chinese soldiers stir our admiration, but also the new unification and unified organisation shown by them in the present national crisis.

“When we see. with sincere sympathy, the tens of thousands of refugees carrying their' small belongings, being driven away from their homesteads and huts, then we clearly realise that a nation commits a crime against itself, against its past, and against the future of its children, if it fails to defend itself against the attentions of an enemy, as China is so magnificently doing to-day.”