WAR IN CHINA: Push of High Hope

A Japanese recently boasted that when Chinese soldiers took the offensive against Japanese on the ground, larks in the sky would attack eagles and goldfish in the waters would hunger after sharks. Larks and goldfish still knew their place last week, but not China’s fighters. Along a 1,500-mile front they attacked.

Two things had given the Chinese hope. Firstly, the Japanese had gravely weakened their garrisons, especially in the extreme north and extreme south, in order to penetrate French Indo-China with a proper show of “peacefulness.” Secondly, the Burma Road was open.

Last week the first tonic shipments in three months reached Kunming, upper terminus of the Burma Road. Reports differed as to how steadily the shipments would flow. The Japanese claimed hits on a vital bridge over the Mekong River; the Chinese said that no hits had registered and that new, giant ten-wheel trailer trucks were carrying the stuff of war into China faster than ever. But whatever the rate of future shipments, last week’s token arrivals were worth their weight in dead Japanese.

There were four main areas of Chinese push. Up north in Shansi a Chinese force of 20,000 was at work. In central China, near Nanking, Chinese mercenary troops of the Japanese puppet Wang Ching-wei reportedly revolted, blew up two Japanese troop trains and attacked several small villages. A Chinese force also attacked the town of Langsi and “liquidated all of the Japanese defenders.” Farther south, only 100 miles from Shanghai, another Chinese Army forced its way across the Chientang River. In the extreme southwest, whence the Japanese carelessly drained troops for the investment of Indo-China, some of China’s best troops claimed the capture of three towns near Nanning. This week the Japanese quit.

The Chinese offensive was perhaps not destined to do much except fizzle out. But it demonstrated that hope was far from dead in Chungking. During the week Japanese-inspired peace rumors rose mistily from Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong. The Chinese quickly fanned away these hopeful vapors. China’s erudite Ambassador to the U. S. Dr. Hu Shih said of these rumors: “Sheer nonsense. China has lost vast and important territories and has suffered stupendous casualties. … In spite of these, China still fights on.”