JAPAN CONFIDENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 122, 19 November 1937, Page 9

JAPAN CONFIDENT

CAN COPE WITH ANY

SITUATION

LONDON, November 18.

The Tokio correspondent of "The Times" says that, although there is .a danger that the voluntary dismemberment of the Nanking Government and the dispersal of the departments to remote places will be followed by a breakdown of central authority, Japan is confident that she will be able to cope with any situation that may arise. The removal of the capital to the interior is a feature of strategy which the Chinese have never concealed. Nanking's decision has not surprised the Japanese, whose airmen have proved that no part of China is beyond their reach.' The Government will be pursued and attacked wherever it goes.

According to Japanese reports from Shanghai, one section of the Govern^ ment admitted defeat and wanted to ask for an armistice; another demanded war to the bitter end. General Chiang Kai-shek's decision . destroys the' hope that the Chinese might abandon resistance after the fall of Shanghai, but the Japanese have been prepared for an extended struggle. The Tokio correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" says the Emperor has sanctioned the establishment of Imperial' headquarters, to assume control of hostilities, co-ordinate the activities of the army and navy, free from political control, and accelerate victory, Membership is confined to high army and navy officers under the Emperor and chiefs of the army arid navy staffs. The public regard the transfer from Nanking as the firpt indication of the collapse of the National Government. It is realised, however, that such collapse is not necessarily the end of the war.- This can come only with the collapse of the Chinese morale, of which no signs are Visible.