JAPAN-CHINA: Pointed Circumstances

Ready for a major battle at the drop of a coolie hat last week were Japanese divisions in North China, totaling about 45,000 men, faced by an estimated 150,000 Chinese troops. Nobody dropped it. Instead there occurred an almost unprecedented act in the history of China’s foreign concessions. Day after serious little Japanese marines had clambered ashore at Hankow, 600 mi. up the Yangtze River and 600 mi. south of the Peiping-Tientsin front, to protect some 3,500 Japanese nationals, the entire Japanese population of Hankow was suddenly ordered to evacuate the city, almost the first time that any foreign concession in China has been completely abandoned.

Reason for this move was that the commander of the Japanese torpedo flotilla responsible for the marine landing at Hankow (part of a staff officer’s dream of cutting China in two through naval control of the Yangtze) suddenly found the city surrounded on three sides by an overwhelming Chinese army, saw a squadron of Chinese bombers flying over his head. There was just one thing to do, clear out. Closely watching this mass evacuation were three shallow-draft U.S. gunboats built in China for use on China’s rivers, the Oahu, Guam and Luson, the latter flying the two-starred flag of Rear Admiral Edward J. Marquart.

In North China, meanwhile, Japanese troops dug in on their 150-mi., fan-shaped front, took formal possession of Peiping with a column of 3,000 men, prepared to move against the most immediate Chinese threat, Chinese Government troops, strength unknown, who might possible drive down from Kalgan northwest of Peiping to cut Japanese lines of communication between Peiping and Tientsin.

Almost daily Chinese warlords continued to arrive at Nanking to pledge their full assistance to Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, the latest to arrive being General Liu Hsiang, the chairman-dictator of Szechuan Province. Veteran correspondents were quick to point out how different this was from the manchurian crisis of 1931 when Chiang Kai-shek defied Japan as loudly, called for unified action as ardently, and practically all the Chinese warlords stayed prudently at home.

First paper to come out last week with what it declared was China’s definite plan of campaign was the Tokyo Nichi Nichi. According to this scheme, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek will not wait for the small Japanese army to advance its lines of communication farther south, but will attack almost at once before the fighting enthusiasm of the Chinese, whipped to a fine frenzy by years of Japanese insult, can cool.

Chiang naturally will remain commander-in-chief, will have as his chief-of-staff General Pai Tsung-hsi, one of China’s most brilliant military strategists. Generals Yen Hsi-shan and Han Fu-chu warlords of Shansi-Suiyan and Shantung provinces respectively, will command the left and right wings; command of the important centre will be divided between Generals Liu Chih and Feng Chi-han.

If all these generals put all their troops into the campaign Chiang Kai-shek can count on nearly a million men. So far Japan apparently expects to oppose all this with just one general. Lieut. General Kiyoshi Kazuki, commandant at Tientsin (see cut), who was not only fighting Japan’s war last week but busying himself with the details of setting up another Japanese puppet state in the Peiping North China area. During all this Premier Fumimaro Konoye took to his bed in Tokyo, ostensibly overcome by the heat.

The same Japanese heat wave did the Army some good. Ablaze with patriotism, Japanese geisha girls announced that they would charge one additional yen (20¢) to each patron every time he complained of the heat, the money going to the Army fund. Girls from one popular tea house had collected over $100 by week’s end. Heat, patriotism and disability caused Shimezo Maho, Tokyo merchant, to jump into the cold Pacific off the island Oshinta, leaving his $3,000 life insurance policy also to the Army fund.

Still hunting for a last minute compromise that might avert a major conflict Shigeru Kawagoe, Japanese Ambassador to China, hustled to Shanghai, refused to speak to any but Japanese newspaper men. Finally he issued a statement:

“I intend to exhaust all diplomatic possibilities in seeking a solution, but circumstances seem gradually to be pointing toward a grave crisis.”

Replied a Nanking Foreign Office spokesman: “If Kawagoe desires to open negotiations, there will be negotiations.”

Diplomacy was not helped by a clash at week’s end outside Shanghai between Japanese sailors and Chinese Peace Preservation militiamen near the Hungjao Military Airdrome. One Japanese officer and a Chinese sentry were killed, a Japanese seaman was reported missing. Angry little Japanese Bluejackets, burning to avenge the death of their comrade, landed under cover of darkness to reinforce the permanent naval garrison in Shanghai. More than 60,000 Chinese from the teeming native quarter, expecting a repetition of the Japanese retaliation bombing of the city in 1932 (TIME, Feb. 1, 1932 et seq.), screamed and fought to enter the already crowded foreign areas.