London, Aug. 23.
The Japanese will not be influenced what the fighting may or may not do to the great city of Shanghai, or, if they are, it will be because the destruction serves their purpose, declares the "Manchester Guardian" in commenting to-day on the Shanghai situation, Japan's policy, the newspaper proceeds, has three stages:
1. Win the war.
2. By a successful war produce in China a state of moral and physical collapse.
3. Exploit this state so as to absorb or make "independent" whatever parts of China she desires to control for her own benefit and reduce the Central Government to a subject condition which she calls "harmonious ce-operation.
Shanghai to Japan, says the "Guardian," is only a means of weakening China.*China and Japan, between them, it adds, "are destroying Shanghai piecemeal, but whereas China is defending her own soil Japan is maintaining a foothold as invader. It is ironical, but the stronger the Chinese forces are the worse it is at present for Shanghai.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.