HANKOW’S VITAL IMPORTANCE

Southland Times, Issue 23652, 29 October 1938, Page 21

HANKOW’S VITAL IMPORTANCE

JUNCTION OF MAIN COMMUNICATIONS nortSebn china now in MILITARY ISOLATION Hankow is of vital importance because of its position as the hub of the Chinese wheel, as the essential junction of the main lines of communication by . which the parts of China still free from Japanese invasion are held together Under a central authority, says a writer- in The Economist of September 17,; Hankow is situated in the’- very, centre of China, at the intersection of the great Yangtze waterway (navigable from Chungking to the sea) with the Peiping-Canton railway, traversing China from north to south. The section of the Peiping-Canton railway north of the Yellow river has been lost, but the line is Still held by the Chinese as far as. Chengchow, whence there is contact by the Lunghai railway westward to Siam, the provincial capital of . Shensi. From Hankow the Chinese Government thus has railway communication south to Canton, the main source of supplies from abroad, and north to Honan and Shensi provinces, and to the west it has access by river shipping to the mountaingirt province of Szechwan, beyond the gorges above Ichang. If Hankow were to fall to the Japanese, this system of communication, on which .the unity and effectiveness of China as an organized State so largely depend, would be broken up. The northern provinces of Honan, Shensi and Kansu would be cut off altogether from railway -communication with Canton, and the Chinese forces operating in North China would no longer be able to obtain military supplies from the south. They would become entirely dependent for supplies on the Urumchi-Hami-Lanchow road from the Soviet Union; this route,, which .is. merely. a,.dirt, track, cannot compare with the .railway as a means of munitioning, and, in so far as it sustained the North China armies, it would involve a political orientation towards the Soviet -Union rather than a consolidation of Chinese unity under Kuomintang leadership.

SZECHWAN CUT OFF A similar loosening of cohesion would result between Canton and Szechwan. Apart from the main connection by the Canton-Hankow railway and the Yangtze, Szechwan is in contact with the coast only by inferior roads through the mountains of Kweichow and western Hunan; the Japanese capture df Hankow, especially if it were followed up by an advance to Yochhow and the Tungting lake, where the railway first approaches the Yangtze, would mean the virtual isolation of Szechwan and a dangerous separation of. Marshal Chiang Kai-shek’s main army from the Central Government. For, whereas Chungking in Szechwan is the reserve capital, and most of the Government offices have already been moved there, Chiang’s army cannot leave the railway by which it is munitioned; it must ’withdraw, not westward into Szechwan, but southwards into Himan.

Szechwan may be regarded as inaccessible to. Japanese forces because of the deep gorges of the Yangtze above Ichang, which form a gateway of enormous defensive strength. But the province would be very susceptible to blockade, because practically all its trade goes down the Yangtze, and with Hankow and Yochow in their hands the Japanese would be able to bring strong pressure on Szechwan to break away and conclude a separate peace. If they were to be successful in thus dealing with Szechwan, the Japanese would have cut China in two along the line of the Yangtze and they would have won the war as far as they can hope to win it.