CHINA: By Land & by Sea

The day Communist Representative Chou En-lai came back to the Nanking negotiations after a month’s sulk in Shanghai, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek flew to Formosa on what he said was a routine, long-scheduled inspection trip. Observers, recalling the North Kiangsu offensive launched during Chiang’s summer absence at Kuling, decided to wait and see. They saw plenty.

The new, U.S.-equipped Sixth and Fifty-second Armies broke the Manchurian stalemate. With surprising but by now familiar ease they captured Antung, Red China’s only major Manchurian port, then pushed south (toward the Soviet-controlled port of Dairen) to clear lesser harbors. In what obviously was a coordinated offensive, other Nationalist armies closed in on Chefoo, across the Yellow Sea from Antung on the Shantung Peninsula. Once again U.S. equipment and training was in evidence—the Chefoo attackers splashed ashore from old Navy landing boats.

Squeeze Play. Strategically, the fall of Antung was a greater blow to the Communists than Kalgan, where they had lost land communications between Yenan and their Manchurian headquarters, Harbin. Across the 240-mile-wide neck of the Yellow Sea a great fleet of junks had plied, bringing captured Japanese arms to the Shantung Communists, ferrying Eighth Route Army soldiers to Manchuria. The Nationalist Victory pocketed the Shantung Reds between the Tsingtao-Tsinan Railway and the sea; and in Manchuria, it strengthened the Government flank for the ultimate drive north on Harbin.

No one could accurately forecast the effect of the Government victories on the Nanking negotiations. The Generalissimo, returning from Formosa, would have new successes with which to confront Chou Enlai. He might stiffen his recent eight-point peace proposal—or modify his demands (as he had done after Kalgan).