Islands in the China Sea
Nationalist air-raids on Shanghai from bases in Formosa and other Chinese cities continue, and so does the blockade of the China coast, which is having so disastrous an effect on British and other foreign interests as well as hampering economic recovery through- out the country. A Communist force is reported to have established a bridgehead on Hainan Island, but combined operations against the Chusan Archipelago off the mouth of the Yangtse—possession of which is the most important single factor enabling the Nationalists to enforce their blockade—have been repulsed. One train has reached Hongkong from Shanghai, following a necessarily round- about route, travelling only by night for fear of air-raids and taking twelve days to do the journey. Evidence that morale on Formosa is improving continues to come in, and belated measures to improve the lot of the Taiwanese (originally—except for the head-hunting aboriginals—Chinese from the mainland opposite Formosa) are being put in hand, thanks partly to American advice and assistance. It looks now as if Formosa, though it is high on the announced list of the Communists' military objectives, is strong enough to deter a direct assault by forces destitute of air-cover ; but the possibility that it will ever provide the springboard for a Nationalist invasion is remote in the extreme. Chiang Kai-shek and his associates may be able to defend their reasonably well-found hide-out ; but they are not the men, and they will never have the resources, to re- conguer the vast territories from which they were extruded with such ease. Meanwhile, though our diplomatic Envoy at Peking is not being allowed to make much headway in his procedural discussions, the position at Hongkong is regarded in Whitehall as sufficiently stable to justify the detachment of a Gurkha brigade for service in Malaya. It will be interesting to see whether the Cominform's reaction to this move expresses itself in anything more concrete or less obvious than the inevitable propaganda gambits.
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