NEWS OF THE WEEK
MILITARY events in China have been overshadowed by the decisions on Japan's war policy taken at the Imperial Con- ference in Tokyo. It seems certain that, despite pressure from the Naval Staff, Japan will not declare a blockade, and has decided that the advantages of declaring it outweigh its disadvantages. By declaring war Japan would call the American Neutrality Act into force and cut off herself as well as China from Americatrmsnpplies, while a blockade might fail to achieve its object, as supplies of arms are reported to be reaching China through French Indo-China and from Russia via Sinkiang. Yet the course Japan has chosen appears to offer her no other way of ending the war than the prolonged and exhausting process, which continuously lengthens her communications, of reducing China province by province, however remote they be. The attack on Canton has been postponed or temporarily abandoned ; and Japan has concen- trated on her advance by railway in North and Central China. On the Tientsin-Pukow railway her armies, advancing south from the Yellow River and north from the Yangtse, have almost effected a junction at Lunghai, at the crossing of the railway running east to west from the coast to the interior ; at Lunghai, where Chiang Kai-shek is reported to be present, the Chinese are preparing to resist ; they are reported also to have decided to strike at the lengthy communications which link the Japanese troops with their bases in North China and on the Yangtse.
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