The situation in China is so amazingly complicated that nobody
could be surprised at whatever might happen. The advance of the Cantonese northwards has been checked by the dramatic reappearance of Sun- Clutan-fang. After the fiasco in front of Shanghai it looked as though Sun Chuan-fang had been finally eliminated. That seemed to be so whether the elimina- tion was to be regarded as the result of his own incom- petence or of the orders of his new superior, and former rival, Chang Chung-chang. Now Sun Chuang-fang has rallied his Shantungese and turned upon the Cantonese in the neighbourhood of Chinkiang. He has driven them back to the Yangtze which many of them are busily recrossing when we write. If this change in the fortunes of the civil war continues it will have a considerable effect upon the millions of waverers who now hardly know whether to give their sympathies—outwardly at least—to the Cantonese and to Moscow or to reserve them for the Northern cause. Already there are fewer Cantonese flags flying than there were, even in Shanghai.
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