The long awaited landing of substantial Japanese forces in south China has become an accomplished fact with the descent of a large number of transports and war vessels into Bias Bay, the well-known pirate resort, but nevertheless the most suitable place for the manceuvre. With Mirs Bay between themselves and Hongkong, the Japanese are sufficiently far away to avoid any contretemps, but at the same time close enough to the Canton-Kowloon Railway to make any movement to cut it rich with the possibilities of success. Once astride the railway connecting the British colony with the City of Rams, the Japanese need only to secure command of the river to make sure that this important channel, through which large quantities of supplies have undoubtedly been reaching the interior, would be eventually closed, with the result that Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek will be increasingly dependent upon supplies from Soviet Russia, or those others which may reach him by the long overland routes from the south. Reports of the movement of transports have been current for some time, and, if they are now to be believed in their entirety, it would appear that the troops which are not being landed in Bias Bay are for the most part forces which have been used elsewhere in China, and consequently does not mean so much the despatch of more troops from Japan, as a readjustment of the disposition of those already on the spot. This would in some degree account for the remarkably light manner in which the territory over which the Japanese have already advanced is being held, and the general impression to be gained is that this latest move is not so much the embarkation upon a new scheme as a development of the general plan to bring about the downfall of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek as early as possible. Viewed in that light it may very well be that the manner in which the Chinese have succeeded in delaying the Japanese advance on Bani has demanded this wider effort in the hope that the time until the hoped for collapse of Chiang Kai-shek will not be unduly prolonged.
It is obvious that if the Chinese determination to persist after the fall of Hankow is adhered to, the river port is but a secondary objective, and in order to gain its way the Japanese High Command must expect to be engaged in wider and further flung activities. The degree of opposition which they must expect to encounter in Kwangtung must of necessity be for the time being a matter of speculation. A few months ago there were apparently sufficient troops in South China to have offered a passable resistance to any Japanese movement inland from the coast. It is not yet clear how much-they have been drawn upon to strengthen the forces operating in Central China, but, if they have been too greatly depleted, the possibility of iheir being able to offer any very serious opposition to the Japanese in that area will be proportionately reduced. If on the other hand this new threat forces the Chinese to despatch assistance from Central China to the south, then the Japanese will have succeeded in bringing about the decentralization of the strength which is at present opposing them around Hankow, and it is only if the training of recruits during the past fifteen months has proceeded at the same rate as the wastage of man-power that China will be in the position to combat this new menace which she was a few months ago. If the Japanese, as it is reported, are fighting at Nimshan, at the extreme northern end of Bias Bay, then the guess that they intend to forge on to Waichow, and thence westward to the Canton-Kowloon Railway may prove correct. They would have the advantage of working along the Canton-Swatow highway which may prove of no little assistance to them, but, unless the Canton River itself is taken into the scheme, the cutting off of Canton will only be partial, and by no means as complete as the size of the endeavour would indicate to be necessary. The route has the further advantage that it permits of the Japanese operations being conducted at such a distance from the boundaries of the New Territories that the danger of interference with British interests in the course of actual hostilities on land may be reduced to a minimum.
It is not by any means clear that the Japhmese contemplate anything in the nature of an advance upon Cahton. In the first place it is not really necessary so long as the Japanese can close that important supply "route, and in the second anything in the nature of resistance approaching that offered before Hankow would necessitate the employment of far larger bodies of Japanese troops than have at mecsent been derlisied ey the south. If on the other hand the leaders in the South can be persuaded to abandon their support of Chiang Kai-shek the forces already available may be ample fòr the Japanese f3|purposes but it will be a very development if the home of the Nationalist Government ever betrayed it in the manner which some observers believe to be possible. Such a blow might very well prove fatal to the National Government, for not only would it deprive it of very considerable support which has been so valuable in the past, but would so reduce the area in which its fiats run, that, at any rate from a geographical point of view, the Chinese Government would be reduced to that regional importance which the Japanese have for long contemplated. A loyal south on the other hand might very well force Japan to commit herself in that area to a very much greater extent than she might feel convenient, and what may have originally started as an attempt to divert a route of supplies may very well be transformed into another of those major operations as costly as some of its predecessors. That doubtless accounts for the long period during which the Japanese have delayed action, and if there is any hope for the Chinese in this latest development it must lie in their ability to offer just that type of opposition which has been so successfully offered in other parts of the country. If, however, Chiang Kai-shek has all his eggs in the Hankow basket the situation is undoubtedly grave, but if the strength of the South has been adequately conserved it has not yet been rendered hopeless.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.