"CHINA INCIDENT"

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 39, 15 August 1945, Page 13 (Supplement)

"CHINA INCIDENT"

EIGHT YEARS OF CONFLICT Japan has never declared war on China, and the hostilities in which for over eight years armed forces on both sides have fought over wide areas with heavy loss, particularly to the Chinese, have been styled, euphemistically, by the Japanese "the China incident.' It began in a clash of patrols outside Peking on July 7-8, 1937. The Japanese made this the initiajl pretext to occupy whatever parts of China they needed for the greater objective disclosed by- the attack on Pearl Harbour, December 7-8, 1941. The Chinese, ill armed and ill led, put up what resistance they could without help from

the outside world, then pre-occupied with the Spanish Civil War and the machinations of Hitler and Mussolini threatening the peace of Europe. The "China incident" developed into a ! war de facto, if not de jure. On August 9 the deaths of a Japanese marine officer and sailor at Shanghai, led to heavy Japanese intervention in the Yangtse Valley. Shanghai was bombed viciously by the Japanese, who landed, on army of 50.000. Other Chinese cities, including Canton and Nanking, were bombed. After heavy fighting, at intervals, Shanghai fell at the end of November, 1937, and Hangchow and Nanking in December. Meanwhile the Japanese were advancing down the Peking-Nanking" and Peking-Hankow railways towards the Yangtse Valley from the north. There ] was never anything of a blitzkrieg type of war in China at this stage or later. The Japanese employed a iimitcd number of troops, and those not of the highest, quality. They were content to make haste slowly. ■In 1938 the Chinese had some successes in battles on the Lunghai eastwest railway in Honan and Shansi. but in general the Japanese advanced steadily up the Yangtse and over the plain betweten the Yangtse and the Yellow Rivers, occupying most of the country by' the middle of 1938. By the end of 1938 the invaders had pushed their occupation to include Hankow, chief centre of the Middle ■ Yangtse (October 25-) and Canton, chief port of southern China (October 21). With the best and richest part of, China in their hands the Japanese set out to secure overland communication between Hankow and Canton. This took several minor campaigns, with but limited success, until fighting China, with headquarters at Chungking, was cut off from the world after the Japanese hr.d in 1942 overrun South-east Asin and the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines. There were sharp attacks and counter-attacks in the Yangtse Vallev between Ichang andthe "rice bowl" area to the south. It was not until 1943-44 that against a weakened Chinese army the invaders were able to secure the Hankow-Can-ton railway and a corridor through Kwantung and Kwangsi Provinces to the border of French Indo-China. Since then a rejuvenated Chinese army, under the general direction of the American, General Wedemeyer, has recovered much of this lost territory. i The war in China nas not been characterised by large-scale operations at cny stage, and j:esistancG to the invader hay been offered separately by the Co'/imunist forces in the north and the Kuomintang armies in the south, j