WAR IN CHINA: Sold Not Given

Of China’s 4,480,992 square miles, Japanese forces held:

This week: 635,322

Week Ago: 629,147

Month Ago: 616,750

Year Ago: 500,000

The Chinese “Hindenburg Line” behind Shanghai had crumpled up last week; the Conference at Brussels that was to have done something for peace in the Far East had collapsed (see p. 20); most of the Japanese warships in Chinese waters had rushed home for the announced purpose of bringing to China double the present number of Japanese effectives this week; and yet Chinese officials felt there was some “good news.”

President Roosevelt received at the White House last week Soviet Ambassador Alexander Troyanovsky. To Chinese this was a fact which rekindled all the hopes Orator Roosevelt set ablaze with his Chicago speech (TIME, Oct. 18). The other “good news” was the actual arrival of Soviet bombing planes to help China last week, this being confirmed in dispatches from Nanking, Chinese military headquarters. Shanghai dispatches reported that 40 planes left Russia, 25 arrived in China and that all are being “sold” not “given”—following thrifty Dictator Stalin’s policy, under which the Spanish Leftists have also had to pay for Moscow’s aid.

Father Jacquinot. In occupied Shanghai, hero of the week was a French priest, Father Jacquinot de Bange. Of aristocratic birth, he has long devoted his life to serving the Chinese masses, proposed at the height of recent hostilities that Japanese and Chinese forces should both treat the Nantao area of Shanghai as a neutral zone. The proposal was accepted by both sides, and in neutral Nantao cowered some 250,000 trembling natives, many of whom now feel they owe their lives to Father Jacquinot. Tall, grey-bearded and black-robed, he moved about Nantao last week venerated by Chinese with the gestures and cries they use to their Gods—and Father Jacquinot was just putting over a new idea.

He had proposed that instead of the standard practice of shooting looters, thieves and other malefactors under martial law, Chinese caught in such acts should be paraded around Nantao as objects of public shame. This system was working last week, with the addition that Father Jacquinot was having to sit as a judge several hours each day, with Chinese police bringing before him Chinese culprits with the request that they be sentenced to “hard labor.” The accused seemed highly delighted to receive sentences of from three to twenty days, instead of being shot. Father Jacquinot had even succeeded in touching Japanese General Iwane Matsui and Japanese Vice-Admiral Kiyoshi Hasegawa for contributions of $3,000 each to be used for Chinese relief.

“Only for Cash/’ Gas-mask-wearing U. S. Ambassador to China Nelson T. Johnson climbed aboard the U. S. gunboat Luzon at Nanking last week, led a procession of river gunboats which carried the corps diplomatique 400 miles up river to Hankow. This was found to be almost hopelessly overcrowded with tens of thousands of Chinese, many officials who had evacuated Nanking (TIME, Nov. 29), wandering about in the rain. Most had only small sums of money. They found Hankow room-renters profiteering, Hankow shopkeepers advising, “We sell only for cash. Better move on up to Chungking.” To this city, 1,000 miles up river, Chinese President Lin Sen had fled.

Chinese Premier & Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, according to his entourage, “did not see” any of the sheets showered by Japanese bombers upon Nanking last week advising him to quit and save the Chinese people further sacrifices. By riding around Nanking, he and Mme Chiang squelched rumors that they had fled, and the Generalissimo repeated his pledge to defend it against the Japanese whose advancing columns at latest dispatches still were some 80 miles distant.

“Requests.” In the politest terms they could think of, Japanese officials at Shanghai last week made “request” after “request.”

By request, five leading Chinese newspapers, with a total circulation of 380,000 and plants & structures worth $300,000, closed down at Shanghai.

By request, Sir Frederick Maze, a Britisher who is Inspector General of Shanghai Customs—a branch of the Chinese Government—appointed two Japanese his principal aides.

By request, Shanghai offices of the Chinese Government’s mail, telephone and radio services accepted Japanese supervisors. By request, scores of high Chinese officials who own homes in Shanghai’s hitherto sacrosanct foreign sections cleared out last week, notably Generalissimo Chiang’s famed brother-in-law Dr. T. V. Soong, “Financial Brains of the Chinese Government.”

The Japanese, by making no “demands” and by leaving everyone free to ignore their “requests” if he dared, were doing the best they knew how to make it difficult for the Great Powers to invoke International Law and claim that Japan was violating their rights in Shanghai. In Tokyo, officials of the Foreign Office received U. S. Ambassador Joseph Clark Grew and British Ambassador Sir Robert Leslie Craigie, listened to the vehement protests which Washington and London had instructed these two able envoys to make. What the U. S. had to “request” was soon announced in Washington by Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Replying to a Japanese Foreign Office spokesman’s insistence on Japan’s “right to act independently in Shanghai, Ambassador Grew demanded that Japan consult the U. S. on any changes in customs arrangements. For Chinese customs revenues are pledged as security for U. S. loans to China, and Japanese control of Chinese ports could well mean crippling of Sino-American trade.

U. S. Asia? Japanese Premier Prince Fuminaro Konoye journeyed to the Empire’s national shrines and prayed last week for “restoration of Peace.” In a loquacious interview with Japanese correspondents he envisioned peace under a sort of United States of Asia, a lineup of Japan, China and Manchukuo v. the West. Meanwhile General Kazushige Ugaki, one of Japan’s longtime Privy Councilors, mentioned prominently last spring as candidate for Premier, attempted to meet squarely the incredulity with which white men greet Japanese claims to be fighting China so that the two countries can become firm friends, even allies. In 1866 Prussia defeated Austria; in 1870 Austria was a “neutral” when Prussia fought and defeated France; and in 1914 Austria joined the Prussian War Lord as his chief ally—such in brief was the analogy from European history by which General Ugaki hoped last week to interpret to the West the faith of many Japanese that they can defeat and propagandize China into becoming their active friend, in say 50 years. To General Ugaki the fact that France, after her 1870 defeat by Germany, did not behave the same as defeated Austria, appeared immaterial.