These are, as it were, the tactical elements of the
situation. The strategic are far more important. That the Japanese military party is in full control at Tokyo is plain, and that it is resolved on a Chinese campaign on a totally different scale from anything previously undertaken is no less plain. The proposal made by the British Government that both Japanese and Chinese should withdraw from the Shanghai area all forces beyond those normally stationed there, the defence of Japanese in the city being undertaken by British, French and American troops, has been accepted by Nanking but not by Tokyo. A lengthy statement in which Mr. Cordell Hull, the American Secretary of State, appealed on Monday for a peaceful settlement and intimated that the United States could not remain indifferent to the threat to her interests in Shanghai, has fallen on deaf ears. The statement cannot be held to portend definite action by the United States. It is hard, indeed, to see what immediate action any of the Powers—Britain, the United States, France—whose vast interests at Shanghai are so gravely threatened and have already so gravely suffered, can take across two continents or 6,000 miles Of ocean against a Power dominant locally by land, sea and air. But in view of the certainty that Japan, if once she establishes herself at Shanghai, will never assent to forgo domination there, it is imperative that the Western Powers should lose no time in concerting a joint policy in the closest co-operation.
