Chinese Civil War

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25588, 1 September 1948, Page 4

Chinese Civil War

In its review of the Chinese civil war in the first six months of 1948 the National Defence Ministry gives facts and figures which only confirm what foreign observers have known for some time: that the Chinese Government has been slowly losing ground both militarily and economically to the Communists. Last year the Communists’ main striking forces were confined to relatively few areas in North China. Now they control nearly all of Manchuria, most of North China, and large areas in the Yangtse Valley. Their total strength has increased, and the Government admits that in the last six months they have disrupted communications and taken large quantities of food and other supplies from Nationalist areas. The Communists have improved their position because the Government has tried to crush them by military means without much consideration of public opinion in China. It has made little effort to carry out longneeded reforms that would make the Chinese people strongly proGovernment, and has failed to introduce anywhere the substantial land reforms that would win peasant support. The Communists, however, have strengthened their hold on the rural areas, which are not such an economic burden as the cities, where the Government is strongest, for the peasants grow their own food and in the main are self-sufficient. In the field the Government forces have been hampered by poor communications and faulty equipment; but the reasons for their military failure lie deeper. The Government has persisted in defending major cities and trying to maintain the communication lines between them. Its troops have thus been spread too thin, and its tactics have aided the Communists, whose normal strategy has been to ignore cities, expand their control of the rural regions through the use of guerrillas, and avoid fighting frontal battles. Government military leadership has been confused, and foreign critics have remarked on the lack of fighting spirit in most units. While the Communist military leaders are professionally competent. the majority of Government generals are political generals, and many of the higher ranking officers are corrupt as well as incompetent. The National Defence Ministry now .believes the Communists have reached the limit of their strength; but they are fighting the war economically as well as militarily,

destroying mines and railways, harassing river shipping, and occupying salt and food producing areas. While they do this the country’s economy must remain under severe strain, and the Government find difficulty in sustaining an effective war effort