Boycott, Bloodshed & Puppetry

(See front cover)

In Shanghai such sniveling, furtive Chinese storekeepers as dared to offer Japanese goods for sale last week were roughly pounced upon by Chinese "police" of the self-appointed Anti-Japan Association and locked up in improvised jails.

Gibbering with terror, the unpatriotic storekeepers were flung prostrate on the floor before Anti-Japan Association "judges," kowtowing and howling for mercy. The "judges" imposed and actually collected "fines" up to $10,000 Mex. ($2,500) for the "crime" of selling Japanese goods. Convicted shopkeepers who said they could not pay were kicked back into Anti-Japan Association jails, kept there on persuasive starvation rations. This queer kind of justice, flagrantly illegal in every way, was everywhere upheld by Chinese public opinion, the opinion of one-fourth of mankind.

In hundreds of Chinese cities and towns, patriots routed out the whole community to swear such mighty oaths as this (sworn by all students and teachers in the schools of Nanking, Chinese capital):

"Before the blue sky, before the white sun, before our fatherland, before the graves of our ancestors, we, faculty and students, solemnly swear as long as we live never to use anything made by Japanese. Should we break this oath, may Heaven and men kill us!"

Chinatowns throughout the world took up the boycott of Japan. Whites in Windsor, Ontario, were startled by 400 Canadian Chinese who staged a sort of Boston Tea Party. Piling up $6,000 worth of Japanese tea, silks and sea food, they poured on gasoline. Windsor's venerable Fong Lee, cackling defiance at Japan, fired the protest pyre. On the Pacific Coast, U. S. shipowners assumed with glee that Japanese shipping lines had canceled sailings to China, scrambled to get the business.

China's international boycott was what tiny Japanese delegate Kenkichi Yoshi-zawa (who puffs huge cigars) had in mind when he told the League Council in Geneva last week that Japan demands--as her chief condition for withdrawing Japanese troops from Manchuria--that China's Government actively combat all Anti-Japanese demonstrations by Chinese (see p. 16). Shot back Chinese Delegate Dr. Alfred Sze in the general direction of Mr. Yoshizawa's aromatic stogie:

"I know of no international law by which a government, however autocratic, can compel its people to buy from people they don't like!"

Actually of course the weak Chinese Government at Nanking brandished boycott last week as their strongest weapon against compact, sinewy Japan.

Lord Abbot Emeritus. Japanese public opinion continued with honest simplicity to support the Japanese Army's action in Manchuria for what it was, a land grab. But Japan has her equivalent to an Archbishop of Canterbury. Voluminous in his sombre robe, the Buddhist Elder, Count Kozui Otani, Lord Abbot Emeritus of the Great Western Hongwanji Temple at Kyoto, summoned U. S. correspondents and sonorously declared:

"Red Russia is brooding over Asia, wherein Japan is the only stabilizing element. If America's moral support is refused to Japan in the present crisis the world may see Asia go Red. Give Japan a free hand to fight chaos and disorder."

E Pluribus Chinam. Chaos and disorder are "normalcy" to China. There was a trifle less chaos, a mite less disorder last week (although floods & famine continued and bubonic plague broke out in western Honan) as President Chiang Kai-shek succeeded in rallying all Chinese factions (except the Communists in China's central sore spot) to fight and resist the moral wrong of Japanese occupation of Manchuria.*

The President released last week Hon. Hu Han-min, onetime president of Nanking's Legislative Council, imprisoned last March when suspected of disloyalty to the President. In a spasm of patriotism Hon. Mr. Hu embraced President Chiang and set off at once to persuade his friends of the Canton Government to join the Nanking Government. Good news for China was a patriotic communique soon issued by Canton Foreign Minister Eugene Chen, sometimes suspected of Red leanings. Declared Mr. Chen, backing up President Chiang:

"China's anti-Japanese boycott movement can be ended only by Japan, by a policy based on frank and honest recognition of Manchuria as a real and integral part of China, and consequent adjustment of rights and interests claimed by Japan."

Whampoa. With a Japanese war boat still lying in almost every Chinese port last week, numberless Chinese fled inland from their homes. Ten thousand fled from President Chiang's own Nanking. Then in Nanking arrived British Minister Sir Miles Lampson and U. S. Minister Nelson Trusler Johnson with his bride. Chinese who had fled at once came back. The Japanese war boats in the harbor would not fire, figured the Chinese, so long as there was any risk of hitting Sir Miles or the Johnsons, bride & groom.

Popular fears were thus calmed but President Chiang grimly proceeded with steps to move his General Staff (and possibly later his Civil Government) inland. Division after division of Chinese soldiers marched from Nanking northward into eastern Honan and therefore toward Manchuria, toward Japan. Was China going to fight Japan, going to try to Whampoa her?

Famed are the Whampoa Cadets, Chinese West Pointers, special favorites of President Chiang who was once Principal of Whampoa. Whampoan officers are the backbone of the Chinese Army today. President Chiang threatened fortnight ago to declare war on Japan (TIME, Oct. 19). Last week he kept quiet, despatched urgent wires to northern War Lords who might join in a fight with Japan. Two of these, Marshal Feng Yu-hsiang "The Christian General" in Inner Mongolia and Marshal Yen Hsi-shan "The Model Governor" are doughty battlers whose names are Chinese household words. If they joined President Chiang, and they have joined him before (TIME, Dec. 24,1928), China could oppose Japan with perhaps 200,000 trained and equipped soldiers, plus a rag-tag & bobtail of 1,600,000 ineffective Chinese mercenaries.

Japan's standing army numbers 210,880, some 15,000 Japanese soldiers occupying Manchuria last week. Japan's trained reserve, citizens well drilled and ready to spring to the colors, topped 1,750,000. On the sea Japan has an incomparably superior navy of 798.394 tons. The entire Chinese Navy (68 ships) does not displace as much as one British super-dread-naught (40,000 tons). Japanese opinion of Chinese fighting strength was expressed by a Government spokesman at Tokyo: "if China declares war on Japan, we will simply ignore it."

"Basis of Righteousness." Stubbornly, for obvious diplomatic reasons, the Japanese Government insisted that they were not at war with China last week. But in Manchuria, which is part of China, acts of war continued:

> Japanese planes bombed three trainloads of Chinese soldiers at Tahusan on the Peiping-Mukden Railway.

In Tokyo War Minister General Minami said that Japan has "no bombing planes" in Manchuria, explained that from "scout planes" Japanese airmen drop "not bombs but three-inch shells" which nevertheless explode. Continuing these technicalities, Japanese Ambassador Debuchi announced in Washington that Japan has withdrawn "all fighting planes" from Manchuria.

> After bombing Chinchow, field headquarters of the ousted Chinese Governor of Manchuria, Chang Hsueh-liang (TIME, Sept. 28), Japanese planes swooped low to drop explanatory handbills. Text:

"The Imperial Japanese Army, which strives to uphold the rights of the masses on the basis of righteousness, will under no circumstances recognize Chang Hsueh-liang or the authority of his provisional government at Chinchow. The army is now compelled to resort to positive action to destroy his base."

> Six Japanese troop trains, preceded by an armored train and escorted by bombing planes, moved westward out of Mukden, occupying the "Heart of Manchuria."

> Rashly approaching Mukden, 1,000 Chinese soldiers were met by Japanese five miles outside the city, skirmished bravely for nine hours, were routed, fled.

> Three out of a caravan of 50 Koreans straggling across Manchuria reached Mukden alive. Said they: "Our comrades were butchered by Chinese troops."

> Egged by Japanese General Honjo, now seeking to set up a puppet Chinese regime in Manchuria, puppet Chinese General Chang Hai-peng advanced last week upon Tsitsihar, held by loyal Chinese General Ma Chan-shan who offered peacefully to give up the old walled town.

Advancing cautiously to accept General Ma's surrender, General Chang's advance guard was set upon with orthodox Oriental treachery by General Ma, fought savagely, but was sent flying for its life.

C. Out of dim Mongolia appeared the Dar Khan, barbaric Prince of the Blood, friendly to Chinese. In Peiping he vowed that Japanese agents had offered him bribes to declare the independence of Inner Mongolia and become its puppet ruler, protected by Japan.

* Setting morals aside, Japanese rule has proven more efficient than Chinese. Japanese troops along the Southern Manchurian Railway (long before the recent Japanese occupation of Manchuria) induced comparative peace. Result: 1,000,000 Chinese have been emigrating from chaotic central China to Manchuria each year, seeking the Pax Japana.

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