In China the Nanking Government alone flourishes financially, and it
has a great advantage over others -so long as it can thrive on illegal • seizures of surtaxes, salt revenue, &c. While quite incalculable intrigues are being carried on by the various generals, the military situation becomes worse for Chiang Kai-shek, whose army is threatened from three sides. But there are more ways of meeting a threatened military disaster than fighting against odds, which is not the one usually chosen by a Chinaman, and in Canton, Chiang's influence is said to be stronger again. There is as yet no news of the representatives of the Powers taking any strong united line. It is the Japanese whose interests will suffer most immediately. The French, however, have taken. independent action at Tientsin in expelling from their office in the French concession the officials who were collecting the carpet . taxes. Reports from Hankow report that Borodin really has left intending to return to Russia. He apparently arranged to see General Feng Yu-hsiang on his journey out of China, intending,' no doubt, to give him bad advice. Feng, however, is said to have arrested him and to be holding him as c; hostage to •his own relatives whom he left in Moscow.
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