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THE HONG KONG WEEKLY PRESS &
October 29, 1937
紅酒啤址
War scene from the Shanghai area
3.
We have
SINO-JAPANESE SITUATION: EDITOR'S COMMENTS
CHINA FIGHTS AS ONE MAN
(Daily Press, October 21, 1937)
on many
recent roundings would instantly be able to see in this latest effort a venomous misrepresentation of the true facts.
occasions called attention to the campaign of hypocrisy and lies conducted by Japanese propagan- dists both in and out of Japan to provide an excuse for the crimes now being perpetrated in China and to cover up blatant facts. What they seek to deceive by such puerile methods is best known to the Japanese them- selves, for it is inconceivable that anybody aware of the truth, and not drugged by censorship and delusion as are the masses in Japan, would for a moment be misled.
Only a couple of days ago we were furnished with another
flagrant falsehood emanating from the Tokyo radio station. It was calmly announced that a general survey of the situation since the outbreak of hostilities between the two countries had revealed that public sentiment in China was opposed to fighting with Japan and that the people were not doing anything to support the stand taken by the soldiers at the front.
That the Chinese do not want war with Japan or any country is to a certain extent correct. The Chinese are a peace-loving race, and they have been forced to take up arins because, in the face of grave provocation, they have had no alternative. It is a matter of life or death for China and the Chinese. The Chinese have turned the other cheek too often, in the past but they are not prepared to submit forever to insult and humiliation. If the Japanese were prepared to un- dertake a more comprehensive "survey,' they would be prised to find that China is now united, heart and soul, in a tremendous endeavour to main tain her national existence. And that is certainly not pleasing to the Nipponese sabre-rattlers; the Chinese did not expect it to be.
"
sur-
As to the charge that the people are completely indifferent This is all fiction, as those towards the position of the responsible for its propagation soldiers now engaged in a brave well know. Even if Japanese defence of their mother soil, we statements had not all been submit that such a charge is so cock-and-bull stories, we who groundless as to be unworthy of move in more enlightened sur- argument.
THE RULES OF WAR
(Duity Press, October 22, 1937)
It is not a little surprising, perhaps, that the rules of war should be so extensively discus-
·
sed as one of the results of a war which is not a war at all-fori, North China is only an example of what a cowardly nation, pos- sessed of nearly all the modern weapons of war can do to a more gallant but alas! none too well equipped people. The hostilities in this emergency-and emergency is one of the official descriptions given. to the events in North China must, after all is said and done be conducted under some sort of rules, but it has long since become evident that the Japan- ese have so disregarded every rule of decency in this undeclared war that in the short space of three months thousands of in- nocent civilians have either been killed or wounded. The breach is complete but there is no war at all--merely a wish on one side. that the other would stop their uncalled-for and illegal aggres- sion.
Japanese spokesmen have all along maintained that Japan has. no territorial designs on China. In point of fact all they desire is to become good and friendly neighbours, and as a demonstra-
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