The deadlock on the Lunghai railway front continues, and neither
side is able to make any progress. The Chinese can be well satisfied with the failure of Japan's great offensive on Suchow. This week, however, the Japanese have carried the war into another area by bombing and landing troops at the Treaty port of Amoy in South China. Unless intended purely as a diversion and as a blow to China's morale and unity, the operation is somewhat surprising ; for by now Japan has so many of her troops tied up in China that any extension of the scale of hostilities is bound to place the severest strain upon her. She has only been able to send reinforcements to the Lunghai front by weakening herself dangerously in other areas. Japan, however, appears to have given up hope of an early victory ; the plan, outlined by Mr. Hirota, the Foreign Minister, in Tokyo this week, of waiting until a stable Government can be formed in China by uniting the puppet administrations in Peking and Nanking, implies that the war is expected to last a long time ; in a campaign of exhaustion the advantages will not all be on Japan's side. The unexpected resistance offered by the Chinese has changed the entire character of the war ; and no one can any longer be confident that it may not end rather than increase Japan's supremacy in Eastern Asia. Dr. Wellington Koo's sinister report to the League Council of the use of poison gas by the Japanese is so far unconfirmed.
