Japan Admits It

Until last week the ancient axiom that China is too big to be conquered had never been admitted by Japan. Last week the world was astounded to hear Japan admit it. With perhaps the greatest loss of face in modern Japanese history, the Japan Times and Advertiser, English-language mouthpiece of the Japanese Foreign Office, permitted itself to say that "ideas of overcoming this mastodon of nations must have little more appeal even to the most sanguine of soldierly minds."

The Advertiser's extraordinary editorial also advocated a radical change of Japanese conduct in China: "The maintenance of peace by armed garrisons would always involve considerable expense. Chinese cooperation, on the other hand, will not be forthcoming unless there is good reason for it. Coercion would be useless."

When the Japanese Army spokesman in China, Lieut. Colonel Kunio Akiyama, was asked about the Advertiser's statement he blandly remarked that the Japanese Army "can't catch the Chinese. This continental area is too large. It is difficult for us to run about it."

These remarks were as dumfounding as if a Japanese poet had suddenly expressed a profound loathing for the sight of moonrise over the Inland Sea. Some Far Eastern experts at once suspected all manner of guile behind the Japanese words. It was suggested that Japan was jockeying for a peace with Chiang Kaishek, preferably for one which would bind him to join Japan in war on the Chinese Communists.

There was much more evidence to suggest that Japan really had learned the near impossibility of conquering China and had decided to consolidate its Chinese gains and increase as much as possible its economic benefits. For once it seemed likely that the Japanese Government had decided that a loss of face--even so staggering a loss--was worth the cost. The Chinese "Incident" has cost Japan at least $4,000,000,000.

Resistance is the one language in peace or war that the Japanese can be counted on to understand, and General Chiang's resistance to Japan has presumably been stiffened by the U.S. loan of $50,000,000 to Chungking, which has drawn many Chinese bankers to that city from Shanghai. Last week as Chungking got its 114th bombing--as usual a poor exchange of Japanese steel and high explosives for Chinese brick and rubble--Far Easterners began referring to Chungking as the economic center of China. A popular Chinese witticism about U.S. aid--"Loud noise on staircase but nobody comes down steps"--is still funny but perhaps less pertinent than it used to be.

Last week Chiang Kai-shek vented strong pro-American sentiments, declaring that "any country in the world matching itself against American democracy would meet with certain destruction." He added that with material and economic aid China would undertake to defeat Japan without the help of a foreign expeditionary force or naval action.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.