TRUCE IN CHINA

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 October 1933, Page 4

TRUCE IN CHINA

TTOW IT CAME ABOUT The decision to accept an armistice on the northern front was not an easy one for the Chinese Government to take; it was in some measure a disavowal of its past policy, writes William Martin in the “Manchester Guardian.” The Premier, “Mr. Wang-Ching-wei. had declared so often that he would never sign anything! Mr. T. V. Soong went to Europe expressly in search of effective assistance from the Powers for China in her distress. Quite recently the Foreign Minister declared that to recognise the right of the Japanese to remain even temporarily on .the River Lan would be to recognise implicitly that. they had a right to be in Manchuria. Only General Chiang Kai-shek said nothing; but everyone in touch with him knew that he too was resolved to go on with the defence of the national territory. Three compelling reasons led these men to the decision. The first, which was reason enough in itself, was that no one in (he North, neither generals nor soldiers, was ready Io go on lighting. Most, of the generals had. studied in Japanese military schools, and they were extremely impressed by the strength of the Japanese, and, indeed, were suffering from a. sort of military inferiority complex. The soldiers were Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang’s men, and differed in no respect from those of Tang Yu-lin, the defender of Jehol; they were essentially Manchurian soldiers, brothers of those whom the Japanese had enrolled in the army of “Manchukuo.”

One must not be too severe on the soldiers. Many of them fought and fought well. In killed and wounded the Chinese army lost some 30,000 men, evidence enough that it put up a. resistance. The soldiers were, moreover, fighting in the worst conditions. Not only ryere they without arms and unprotected from, the Japanese bombs that rained down on them, but they had at their back a deplorable public opinion. No army in the world could fight and win while reading every morning in the papers that the bloodshed was useless, that Chinese emissaries were talking with the Japanese that peace was imminent, and so on. If men are asked to go out to their death they must at least be told that it is for some purpose.

Bi such circumstances it is not surprising that the army melted away. For some days the Chinese troops had boon disbanding. One saw troops leave on foot with their rifles and return without them riding donkeys or mules stolen from the peasants and carrying their spoils behind them. The military and civil authorities of Pekin and Tientsin took fright. They feared that this routed army would enter the towns, where the Japanese seemed to want to drive them, and where no one could say what they might do. The apprehensions of the Chinese command were sufficient to induce them to accept the dispatch by rail of 600 Japanese soldiers to Pekin to maintain order. It was a veritable occupation, since the Japanese had no right under existing treaties to reinforce the garrison of their Legation, the very existence of which at such a moment was a challenge, And for some days one had the paradoxical situation of Chinese soldiers operating" anti-aircraft guns against the Japanese from the walls of Pekin while they were being watched from the rear by Japanese soldiers, for whom the spectacle served as military instruction.

COULD NOT LAST This situation could not last, and conversations between Japanese and Chinese generals, who were already well known to each other, began spontaneously, without the Government being even informed until later. The generals faced the Chinese Government, and, indeed, the Japanese, with accomplished facts. The Chinese Government had a second reason for giving way; the internal situation had for some time been giving rise to grave anxiety. It is well known that Canton is virtually autonomous and has become the refuge of Opposition leaders and disgruntled generals. Their complaints against the central Government may have .justifications, but their attitude during this national crisis is difficult to justify; they have indirectly been helping the Japanese. They did so especially in their original refusal to agree to Chiang Kai-shek’s request for assistance against the Communists, which Would have enabled him to send more troops north. To make up for this they themselves sent an army to tight the Japanese. They made it take the land route, the longest and the most inconvenient. This army was to cross the province of Hunan to Hankow, on the Yangtse, and there to take train for Pekin. But it was suspected that once at Hangkow it would take not train but boat and would go down-stream to Nanking. Civil war might not be intended, but it seemed probable that the army might be meant to stage a. coup d’etat. At the same moment General Feng Yu-hsiang raised the standard of revolt. in the North. He is called the “Christian General,’’ it is not easy to see why, for he is not more Christian than Chiang Kai-shek and many others. However that may be, the two movements gave food for thought to the Government, which took precautions against the possibility of civil war; one of these was the ordering south towards Hankow of part of the army of the North—further weakening the ant i-Japanese front. If China had had the least hope of seeing the Powers intervene in her favour she would without doubt have continued to light. Now Hie Government is consoling itself and reassuring public opinion by saying that nothing has been lost, since honour lias been saved and political questions have not boon in any way prejudiced in the armistice. That is I rue so far us it goes; the armistice is purely military, and in theory H can lie ended and the struggle can be begun again at any moment. It may even be said that, a recommencement is not entirely impossible even in practice, if the army succeeds in reconstituting itself, if Hie international situation improves, and if the Powers give China reason to hope for material assistance. But the cumulative realisation of all these conditions is at the least improbable and it is generally easier to go on fighting than, having stopped, to begin again.