The Timaru Herald FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 1938 JAPAN’S NEW ENEMY IN CHINA.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 21065, 17 June 1938, Page 8

The Timaru Herald FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 1938 JAPAN’S NEW ENEMY IN CHINA.

Every Chinese who knows something of the history of his country, particularly the stories relating to the part the great rivers of China have played in the incessant struggle millions of Orientals have waged against the elemental forces of nature, will not lie slow to discern the menace that reposes in the-breakaway of Chinas Iliver of Sorrow. The Japanese invaders, on their part, have no doubt taken all known factors into account in making preparations for the undeclared war Ihe\ aie waging in China. But the leaders of the harassed and battered peoples in the Chinese provinces that lune come under the iron heel of the invader, have known light through the campaign that they had at their call, il they sought lit to act once important provinces came under the thrall of the Japanese, an ally which has never been completely conquered in the struggle with man right down the centuries. That the Yellow River has burst, ils banks and is sweeping eastward in a devastating Hood, would seem to suggest that the Japanese will be called upon to face up to an enemy that has won a sinister record as a destroyer of human life. Already the Japanese are admitting that the grim avenger has swallowed up some Japanese soldiers. It is realised, of course, that the Japanese in the threatened provinces will be compelled to attempt to stem the surging floods, otherwise the whole campaign in China will have to be reorganised. The Chinese, on their part, are not ignorant of the sinister character of the great river: Chinese history opens in the Book of History, or Shu King, about the 24th century 8.C., with an account of one of the inundations of the Yellow River—described in terms which have suggested to some students the Noachian deluge. Moreover, the fearful calamities caused by so many devastating inundations have procured for it the name of "China’s Sorrow.'" Repeatedly the Yellow River has burst its banks and poured its mighty Hood, with hideous devastation and tile destruction of millions of lives, in Io the populous province of Ho nan. Hence it has been the constant task of the Chinese leaders to remedy many disasters and regulate the terrible river for the future, a task made doubly difficult because along thousands of miles of its tortuous course to the sea, the bed ol the river is often above the level of the surrounding plain, and only the sturdy embankments that have been constructed and maintained by the laborious efforts ol' the industrious Chinese, have kept the menacing flood in ils course. It is probably that neglect on the part of (Lie Chinese, who are engaged in a life and death struggle on the battllTield may account for I he break in Hie embankment, or as the Chinese themselves suggest, the embankments might have been breached by the indiscriminate bombardment by Japanese invaders. That this river with such a sinister record should have burst its banks, and is sweeping in a devastating flood across the invaded provinces, means that this new factor in the war not only threatens the lives of millions of Chinese civilians but certainly menaces the Japanese campaign in the inundated provinces.