This week Japan broke off all relations with the Nanking
Government, and her decision was marked by the withdrawal of her Ambassador in China and by a statement by Prince Konoye, the Prime Minister, that henceforward Japan does not recognise the Government of Chiang Kai-shek, and will devote herself to developing in China a regime similar to that in Manchukuo. It is doubtful whether the decision was made from choice or whether it was not rather imposed by the Nanking Government's refusal to consider Japan's peace tern's. Japan, indeed, is now faced with the difficult task of completely destroying Chiang Kai-shek's regime. China's reply to the Japanese ultimatum has been to deliver attacks at three points, at Hangchow, at Wuhu near Nanking, and at Tsining in Shantung, where General Chiang Kai-shek is reported to be in command ; the heavy fighting at Tsining, which the Japanese have recaptured, has no doubt been intended successfully to impede the Japanese advance along the Tientsin-Pukow railway. China, however, must now prepare to meet another invasion, and a further drain on 11.r military resources, as on Monday a force of 500-60o Japanese marines landed at Changshtrs, 5o miles across the Canton river delta from Hong-kong, as a preliminary, it is believed, to an invasion in force of Kwantung. But entanglement is as serious a matter for japan as local defeats for China.
