Japan's New Cabinet News from China and Japan this week
confirms the impression that the Japanese failed to turn their advance on Suchow into a complete rout of the Chinese armies. Indeed, the Chinese are reported to have recaptured Lanfeng, 15o miles west of Suchow, and the famous General Doihara and his division, fighting with their backs to the Yellow River, are said to be cut off and facing annihilation. The incompleteness of the victory at Suchow has brought to a head dissatisfaction in Tokyo with the conduct of the war, and Prince Konoye's Government has been recon- stituted to give greater influence, including control of the Foreign Office, to the army leaders. The Cabinet changes certainly imply a more vigorous war policy and probably greater hostility to other foreign interests, especially British, in China. Whatever the intentions when the war began, Japan now faces a great crisis in which she must either advance to the complete conquest of China or suffer collapse. The first result of her more " vigorous " war policy has been the devastating air raids on Canton ; at Hankow, however, Japan has had to fight, with serious losses, the greatest air battle the Far East has ever seen. The war has not yet produced its greatest horrors ; those conversant with condLions in China predict that this summer it will be swept by plague and pestilence.
