Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 1942. AN UNCONQUERABLE NATION.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 July 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JULY 8, 1942. AN UNCONQUERABLE NATION.

AS she enters on a sixth year of war with Japan, China looks back upon such a martyrdom as few nations have at any time endured and survived. That martyrdom is not yet over. The invasion of her territory is still being extended at some points in spite of the valiant, efforts of her inadequatelyequipped armies. Good grounds nevertheless appear for the declaration of her indomitable Generalissimo, Chiang Kai-shek, that the final collapse of Japan is only a question ol time.

It may be agreed, too, that Chiang Kai-shek made no departure from well-established facts when he said that the five years of her war with Japan—years for the greater part of which she fought alone and with little external aid—have given China the greatest prestige and everlasting glory. > It is now recognised that had she l been helped in good time for example when the Japanese laid violent hands on Manchuria —much of the dreadful tragedy that has since overtaken the world might have been averted. Instead it was left to China to take her stand, valiantly but almost unaided, against what developed speedily into a deadly menace to the existence of all free nations.

For their failure to support and aid China when Japan launched out on her career of lawless aggression, the Englishspeaking democracies and other nations have paid and are paying a bitter price. At least, however, there can be no doubt about the honoured place that China now takes in the company of the United Nations.

There have been some strange suggestions of late that in her conduct of the “China affair,” Japan has used only a part of her strength and ha's carried on something of a mock war under cover of which she has trained, organised and prepared her armed forces for greater and more formidable tasks. That theory will hardly bear serious examination. At an enormous cost in lives and wealth, Japan has conquered and garrisoned a vast extent of Eastern China, including the greater part of the seaboard, and latterly has closed the gateway of the Burma Road. The casualties of the invaders are estimated by the Chinese at something over two millions and that figure certainly is nearer the mark than the' absurdly inadequate total of 111,000 casualties up to April last admitted by the Japanese themselves.

The limited success of the Japanese invaders is accounted for fully by the fact that they have gained only what they have captured in frequently costly military effort and continued to hold by military force. It is certainly not by the will of the Japanese war lords that extensive' Chinese territories, garrisoned at strategic points by Japanese troops, have nevertheless remained unshaken in their allegiance to the Chinese National Government. The limits set to Japanese conquest find, their explanation in the spirit, of the Chinese people and in the heroic resolution with which they have carried on irregular warfare, supplementing the efforts of their organised military forces.

TJie Allied nations are now pledged to extend to China all the help in their power. That pledge meantime takes positive effect nowhere more notably than in the- establishment in China of an American air force —successor to the famous American Volunteer Group—which has opened its active career with heavily damaging attacks on Japanese air bases in the Yangtse valley and at Canton. It may very reasonably be believed that the expansion of Allied air operations in and from China will bring steadily nearer the day when the Chinese nation and armies will be able to play a full part in hastening that final collapse of Japan which Chiang Kai-shek has declared to be only a matter of time.