TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY, 2nd MAY 1938. RISING SUN IN ECLIPSE?

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4042, 2 May 1938, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER. Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. MONDAY, 2nd MAY 1938. RISING SUN IN ECLIPSE?

THE great and tragic urania that ic being played out in and near the valley of China’s Yellow River continues to provide Japan with the greatest crisis of her history and to give China a sense ot hope and courage that is biingjng the birth of nationhood. The Chinese defence of their “ northern lifeline ’’ the Lunghai railway, symbolises the growing military strength of 450.0110,000 people whose traditional disunity -and pacifism have disappeared in the physical and mental suffering inflicted by the Japanese. Nearly three months have passed since the Japanese prepared the stage for a decisive battle for Suchow, the important junction of the TsinanPukow and Lunghai railways. Th? invaders advanced on Suchow from rhe north after apparently safeguarding their communications by their successes in Shantung.; and from the south the advance was made along the Tsinan-. Pukow railway after clearing the loft bank of the Yangise River between Wuhu and Kiangyin. Th. outstanding successes of the late autumn and early winter indicated that this pincers movement on Su chow would succeed and that the Japanese would assume control of one of the most important trunk railways from Tientsin to the Yangtse Valley, which would put their forces in a fav ourable position for a move against Hankow, considered to be the main objective of the advance into the interior. Capture of Chengchow where? the east-west (Lunghai) line crosses the Peking-Hankow line would have deprived the northern Chinese armies of the supplies from one of the largest arsenals at Kunghsien. But th? Chinese have defended Suchow to the north and south like a nation possessed, and attacks on the Lunghai railway to the west have also been repulsed Under the direction of Marshal Chiang Kaishek and the able Kwangs! (Canton) strategist. General Li Tsung-jen, with increased supplies of foreign and Chinese armament', with mechanised materials and with a revived <i>r force, the Chinese have even taken the initiative, driving a deep wedge in the Japanese northern line and encouraging the harassing and dangerous tactics of Chinese guerrillas in Shantung, Shansi, and Honan, i ven in the southnear Shanghai and Nanking, the guerrilla tactics of the Chinese have harried the Japanese. Growing public concern in Japan, increased reiforcements and the decision to withdraw from North Honan and elsewhere to strengthen the attacks toward Suchow indicate the desperate position of the Japanese, who have gone too far and too fast and who have been forced to assume the defensive. Has Japan in her mad assault upon all China been trapped by the inexorable force of superior man-power armed with growing quantities of modern weapons ? Is the Rising Sun to be eclipsed in the blood-drenched valleys of Central China ? Certain it i? that Japan's problems will grow heavier with every month that passes, both on the home and Chinese fronts. Her maritime blockade of China can be made complete only by isolating Hong Kong and risking a clash with Britain. She has no power to prevent the entry of Russian munitions through Sinkiang. to the far west. She may bluster and threaten, but Russian imperturbability will be unaffected. And if Russia is forced too far ? It.is known in Japan with good authority that at the last meeting of the Supreme Military Council at the Kremlin Marshal Bleucher, commander of the Soviet Far Eastern Army, said: “ Now is the time to fight Japan.” The silence with which this remark is said to have been received does not necessarily mean disapproval.