The Northern Advocate “NORTHLAND FIRST” Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1941. China’s Great Fight

Northern Advocate, 19 November 1941, Page 4

The Northern Advocate “NORTHLAND FIRST” Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1941. China’s Great Fight

THE contention of General Tojo that the assistance given to China by Britain and the United States has seriously embarrassed Japan, and that it should therefore be stopped in the interests of negotiating a settlement of the Pacific problem, draws attention to the wonderful fight which China has put up during five years of war. Whatever financial or moral assistance China may have received from sympathetic Powers, she has waged war with her own forces and made history thereby. It has been said that, terrible as have been the sufferings of many States in Europe, it is doubtful whether any of them, with the exception of Poland, has been the victim of such systematic violence as China. Wide areas, closely cultivated and densely populated, have been devastated by the invaders or by the Chinese themselves in their effort to deny food and other resources to their enemy. Great cities and small towns which lie within reach of Japanese aircraft have been repeatedly and mercilessly bombed. Others, including Nanking, the former capital, have been sacked with the utmost brutality. All the chief seaports are in the hands of the Japanese, who also control the principal railways and command the great navigable Yangtze as far inland as Ichang. A puppet Government, set up by Japanese orders at Nanking, professes to rule many provinces of China. Yet, as “The Times” recently pointed out, the victories of the Japanese armies have not brought the war to within measurable distance of a conclusion in their favour. They have lost heavily and they continue to do so. Sickness, especially malaria, has decimated their troops in Kwangsi and on the borders of Indo-China. An unending guerrilla warfare, flickering before, around, and behind their marching columns, takes its daily toll of lives, and forces even garrisons of the regions which they first occupied to maintain a perpetual and exhaustingvigilance against ambushes and surprises. Above all the Chinese regular forces remain in being. They are not yet strong enough as a rule to resist major Japanese offensives, but their vast numbers enable their leaders to form new concentrations in many widely separated parts of the country and thus to force their enemies to undertake fresh and wearisome and always inconclusive campaigns. Again and again we hear from Japanese sources that a Chinese army has been surrounded or a region “cleared” of Chinese partisans—only to learn a few weeks or months later that the region which saw these triumphs has become the scene of renewed and bitter fighting.

This is surely a record which makes weak and unconvincing Japan’s claim that Britain and the United States should deny to an ancient and unconquerable people the help which has been granted in the past. Such help has been but the repayment of a debt of gratitude, as well as a gesture of admiration for the prolonged and honourable resistance made by China in the interests of that for which all liberty-loving peoples are fighting.