CHINESE STRATEGY

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 112, 14 May 1938, Page 27

CHINESE STRATEGY

Out of the fog that has enveloped the warfare in China certain salient facts are now emerging. They are: That the German strategists at Nanking are having their way on the campaign in the north and that the big battle in this area is intended to be fought on the line of the Yellow River, where concentrations are taking place. That the far-flung operations of the Japanese and their lengthening lines of communication have put a strain on the available shipping and have limited their efforts. . That the home strain is having its effect, especially as extraordinary measures have failed to cure the adverse trade balance at a time when a profit in world activities is badly needed. And that fear of Russian intervention, coupled with the stronger attitude of Western nations, is having a bad effect not only on the plans of the military but on the morale o£ the Japanese people. Under the protection of their strict censorship and their discouragement of neutral observation of the fronts the Japanese have sent out a flood of reports of victories in the north. At one , time thex led the home newspapers

to print accounts, which were transmitted abroad, that their first success south of Peking was another Tannenburg and that 50,000 Chinese were trapped. The same sort of thing was said about the capture of Paoting. There a great garrison was annihilated. From Suiyuan and Shansi to the west have come similar reports. Yet later information shows there was no Tannenburg, that only a small garrison was left at Paoting, that no great forces have been encountered m the west. What the Chinese have been doing is fighting rearguard actions with inferior troops. These forces have been relatively large but they have not included the main army of the north and the crack troops, from the central and southern areas of China. Now Nanking is letting it be known that the Chinese do not intend to make such a determined stand as has been made at Shanghai until the line of the Yellow Rivet is reached. They pe gathering some of Nanking's best divisions and are reinforcing them with others from the south. Unless the signs are incorrect the Japanese there will bump into the same sort of opposition they have had at Shanghai. The Yellow River line, according to reliable reports that have come through military and other sources, was chosen from the first by the German advisers at Nanking and h.as been prepared under their .direction.