NEARING SHANGHAI

Southland Times, Issue 20116, 1 March 1927, Page 6

NEARING SHANGHAI

Chen’s latest statement to the Chinese sympathetic with the Cantonese movement shows that the presence of the British troops in Shanghai has had an excellent effect. Although he persists with the idea that the landing of the soldiers is provocative, he follows this statement with urgent advice to the southerners to be extremely careful with firearms. Of course, a twinbarrelled statement of this kind may serve the double purpose of reiterating objecttions to the British forces, thus “gingering up” local prejudices while establishing as a protective basis the fact that all provocative acts were condemned in advance. Chen declared that the “invasion” of China by the British troops landed for the safety of Shanghai alienated southern sympathies and at one stage he hinted that they made an amicable agreement impossible, but it is noticeable that the arrival of the soldiers coincided with a marked change in Chen’s attitude and a speeding up of the negotiations which up to that time had languished. Chen’s victory in connection with these negotiations is the recognition accorded the Cantonese by the British Government, though this was foreshadowed by the British memorandum to the Powers last year as the only means of dealing with the situation in a practical way. The situation at Shanghai will depend on the course of events. Chang’s Shantung troops are stiffer material than anything Sun Chuan-fang has been able to send against the Cantonese, and the presence of a brigade of Russians will make his battle line stronger; but the principal weapon employed by the so-called Nationalist Army, copied from the Bolsheviks, is money and propaganda against which the northern leaders have not been able to make much headway. With the Southerners was General Yang, whose seizure of British vessels provoked the Wanhsien affair. He crossed from allegiance to Wu Pei-fu to the Cantonese cause and was in the western portion of the theatre ready to fight his old comrades, but he quarrelled with the Cantonese and was routed by them in December. His change of colour is typical of the warfare in China where the chief desire of the subordinate leaders is to be allied to the side which promises the greatest material advantage. If Chang Tsung-chang can depend on his Shantung troops he may check the southerners, but the northerners, if successful, cannot stop until they have regained the Yangf.se Valley which is the richest prize in the whole of China.