Officially there is no wax. The celestial regions are lapped in peace. For the last ten months, however, this peace has taken the form of the movement of very large armies, and of slaughter and devastation on a gigantic scale. But the Japanese friendship for China is, we are assured, unbroken. They tell us they long to enjoy again happy and fruitful relations with the Chinese. On no account would they willingly do them any injury, or allow ill will to grow up between ancient races who have so much in common. Nothing would induce them to annex an inch of Chinese territory. They are resolved to maintain the integrity and independence of China. All they want is to have a Chinese Government which will live with them on neighbourly terms, and not leave undone the things they like or do anything they do not like. Merely that! Such is the grimace which the Imperial Japanese Government presents to the world.
But then there has been an 'incident.' Trouble has arisen between the peace-loving Japanese and the Chinese bandits-they are Bolsheviks, of course-who seemed determined to obstruct all the Japanese plans to develop and civilise China. In order to help the Chinese set up a government which will restrain these bandits and Bolsheviks from causing 'incidents,' over 600,000 Japanese troops have felt themselves compelled to go a long way into China and do a lot of things to the Chinese. But all for their ultimate good! However, the Chinese bandits (and Bolsheviks) have turned out to be more numerous than was foreseen. Thus, the 'incident' has been protracted, and extra protection has to be offered by Japan to China against their evil behaviour. (See map of China)
The first great offensive of the Japanese invading armies was launched against Shanghai and Nanking. It was an unpleasant surprise that the Chinese resisted so long and that, after resisting, they escaped to fight again another day.
They are very good at this. The second main Japanese offensive has now been delivered. The struggle has proceeded 300 miles north of Shanghai on the line of the East and West railway of China around the important railway junction of Suchow (sometimes spelt Hsuchow). Along this line the Chinese had constructed a carefully prepared system of defence. It is extremely important for the Japanese to take Suchow. All that mattered to the Chinese, on the other hand, was to escape from the net, and go on fighting somewhere, somehow, in their vast country. It seems they are succeeding in this. It may be that they will learn to combine their ardent patriotism with a persistent use of guerrilla warfare, and will not attach too much importance to fixed positions or large-scale encounters; for the Chinese maxim should be to fight everywhere and be fought nowhere. It looks as if they were finding this out. If so, the position of Japan will become increasingly more embarrassed.
If a million Japanese soldiers were sent into China and you were to go and look for them six months later it would not be so easy to find them. As the lines of communication lengthen, the difficulties of an invader multiply. Every day all these Japanese soldiers have to be paid upon a scale far more expensive than when they live at home. Then there are the munitions of war, which are very costly, and pour out daily in a copious flow. It is difficult for a foreign observer to see how Japan can conquer China unless the Chinese give in. In Japan everyone counted upon their giving in. The fact that they have not done so is described in Tokyo as 'the worst disaster in our history.' Many authorities think that the Chinese have only to endure to put a strain almost blasting in its intensity upon the life-strength of Japan.
For this 'incident' in China does not stand alone. There is always the Russian Anxiety. Russian armies, aggregating nearly a million, well-equipped and largely self-contained, with their arsenals and munition plants on the spot, lie far to the north along the Siberian frontier or, more precisely, the Siberian front; for it is a front of silent war. Against this heavy impending weight Japan must set nearly half a million of her finest troops. Whether these would be sufficient to stem a sudden Russian advance no one can tell. It is, at any rate, a daring adventure for Japan to try to ward off the Russian masses with her right hand while strangling this voluminous China with the other. On the one side, a great bear growling low; on the other, an enormous jelly-fish stinging poisonously. Altogether, a nasty job for an over-strained, none-too-contented nation to tackle. Japan is sprawled in China; Russia is crouched ready to spring in the North. 'Incidentally,' to follow the Japanese mode, the Russian air force can inflict frightful damage upon Tokyo and other Japanese cities any fine night.
Here we must recognise the services which Soviet Russia is rendering in the Far East to civilisation and also to British and United States interests. Russia is holding the best army of Japan gripped upon her front. At the same time, by a wonderful motor-road from Russian Turkestan to the Chinese Western Province of Kansu, and thence on into the heart of China, a constant stream of lorries carry Russian munitions to the Chinese forces. Half a million coolies toil continuously upon this road, and some at least of the weapons of modern war are placed in the hands of those who are defending their native soil. It is certainly neither in the interests of the British Empire nor of world peace that this traffic should stop. The Western democracies should recognise the part Soviet Russia, albeit for her own purposes, is playing in the Far East.
The fighting has rolled away from Shanghai, and the immediate danger to British life and property has become less intense. The Government at Tokyo has grown more polite; and although the rough and hostile attitude of the Japanese soldiers towards British subjects and other Europeans in Shanghai has not changed, there is not the same danger of a major clash. Major-General Telfer-Smollett, whose steely composure through a score of dangerous collisions has gained the respect and, indeed, admiration of all Europeans in the Far East, must be conscious of a temporary relief. They feel more comfortable, too, for the moment in Hong Kong. It is greatly to be hoped that our Foreign Office and Conservative members of Parliament will not overlook the source, however unpopular it may be, from which this easement comes.
On the top of their immense commitments in China the Japanese military and naval secret societies, who have displaced the Elder Statesmen, have also managed to start a naval race in battleships, etc., with Great Britain and the United States, either of which can easily outdo them. It was not a clever move for them to start their ancient and honoured country upon so vain a rivalry.
But after all the grand and cardinal event in the Far East is the revival of China. Japan has done for the Chinese people what they could, perhaps, never have done for themselves. It has unified them once more. General Chiang Kai-shek is a national hero amongst the most numerous race of mankind. He may well become a world hero, as a patriot and a leader who, amid a thousand difficulties and wants, does not despair of saving China from a base and merciless exploitation. It may thus be that from the opposite side of the earth will come that exemplary discomfiture of a brutal aggression which will cheer the democracies of the Western world and teach them to stand up for themselves while time remains.
On the 30th of May Sir Thomas Inskip, Minister for Coordination of Defence, made a speech in the House of Commons in which he indicated that the Government had plans ready which would provide for universal national service in time of war.
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