The Press TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1943. Japan’s Offensive In Yunnan

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24094, 2 November 1943, Page 4

The Press TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1943. Japan’s Offensive In Yunnan

The reiftwed Japanese offensive from Burma into western Yunnan, begun about a fortnight ago as the monsoon ended, will be anxiously watched. For at least three reasons, Yunnan is a highly desirable strategic objective. First, Chinese forces operating from there would greatly help an Allied offensive in Burma; second, the Burma road runs through it; and third, Kunming, the capital of the province, is a base on the Allied air route from India, a route which serves not only Chinese industry and armies but also the American air force in China. The immediate Japanese aims are not yet obvious. The enemy has struck from Teng Yueh, just north of the Burma road and about 250 miles west of Kunming, the Salween and Mekong rivers barring his path. When the offensive began a Japanese military spokesman suggested that it was planned, not to take Kunming, but to give the Japanese possession of the entire western bank of the Salween and so hamper Chinese preparations for a drive into Burma; and more recently, a Chinese spokesman has said that the enemy, in hard fighting, has spread along a 105 mile stretch of the western bank of the Salween. If the enemy does no more than consolidate along the Salween, that will be a substantial gain. A more distant possibility is that his offensive is also designed to strike up the Salween valley towards the Assam road, yet to be opened, and so, but for the Chinese-Soviet highway, complete his. land blockade of China. Such a venture would be exceedingly difficult and expensive, and the Chinese forces on this front are among the best trained and best equipped in the country. But the stakes may justify it.

Pre-war China was not united. That was a factor that set the Japanese armies marching six years ago; and ever since China’s struggle for unity has equalled in importance her struggle to hold back the invader. Japan’s war on Chinese morale has so far failed to achieve its purpose. But though Chiapg Kai-shek has strengthened China’s unity, elements of discord remain. The plainest are in the relations between the Kuomintang and the Communists. The distrust rising from the 10 years of civil war before 1937 is still to be seen, and the truce since then has been uneasy. The danger of a breach was acute in September, when the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang called on the Communists 1 to dissolve their Border Region government, cease propagating Communism, incorporate their armies in the Government’s army, and accept Sun Yat-sen’s principles for the reconstruction of China. The Communists’ reaction has not been reported; but the crisis seems to have passed. For General ChouEnlai, the Communists’ representative on the National Executive Council, who left Chungking for the Border Region soon after the Comintern had been dissolved, was a few days ago appointed by Marshal Chiang to a committee preparing the groundwork for constitutional government. “There will be no civil “ war in China,” said the Minister of Information, Mr Liang Han-tsao, when he announced the appointment. But it was more than Kuo-mintang-Communist discord that caused American observers some months ago to speculate whether the Government would hold out for one year, two, or more. Morale has had to fight against the drag of food shortages, inflation, and the other erosive effects of six years of war. It was helped when Britain and America abandoned their extraterritorial rights in China; when Moscow dissolved the Comintern; when the United States Congress recently began to reconsider the immigration laws that discriminate against Chinese. It has stood the test well, much too well to please Japan. Three peace feelers by Tokyo were rejected in July and August. These were not the first, nor will they be the last; and Japanese success in Yunnan would be as heavy a blow to China’s solidarity as to her capacity to fight. A growing list of reverses has made it more urgent than ever for Japan to deprive the United Nations of their most valuable land base in Asia. She may see in the Yunnan front a remote chance of weakening the coming offensive in the Pacific. Failing that, the Yunnan offers her a more immediate opportunity to strengthen her defences. It will not be surprising, therefore, if the fighting along the Salween spreads and becomes more violent.