Cannae, Tannenberg, Nanning

In the little park at the crest of Chungking hill--where one bloody day last May 200 Chinese were bombed to death because they thought they would be safe from air attack if they hid under trees and bushes --a gay new game was being played last week. It was called "Get the Traitors." Five papier-mache puppet heads were arranged on the ground. Each represented a Chinese who had sold out to the Japanese. Several paces away laughing Chungking citizens lined up for chances, at 5-c- a throw, to try to ring the heads with evergreen wreaths. Whoever succeeded in "crowning" the puppet which represented the most important traitor of them all, Wang Ching-wei, was awarded a five-dollar National Reconstruction Bond.

Chinese had many things besides this game to laugh about last week. And not unconnected with their mirth was the phrase National Reconstruction.

For one thing, a new army landed on the coast of Fukien Province (about halfway between Shanghai and Hong Kong).It was a pathetic puppet army, and its generalissimo was a poet, scholar, gentleman, politician, anything but a fighter--Puppet-elect Wang Ching-wei. The Japanese said it was made up of 50,000 Chinese who love the New Order. Its name, which only the Japanese could have devised: The Peace and National Reconstruction Army.

But far more important to Chungking's gaiety last week was the belief that, at last, serious National Reconstruction might become a reality. It looked for the first time as if Japan might be ready to quit.

Japan's South China Command released an exceedingly important document. Declaring that recent Japanese victories near Nanning in South China were "unprecedented in East Asia, in that they were annihilating operations which resembled those launched by Hannibal at Cannae [v. the Romans, 216 B.C.] and by the Germans against the Russians at Tannenberg in 1914," the proclamation went on to announce that the Wang Ching-wei puppetry was ready to go, China's supply routes from the south were cut, and therefore the Japanese had no desire to extend their occupied areas. "In the future." it concluded, "our forces will wait for offensive moves by the Chinese."

This did not mean peace. Not until the Japanese are driven or withdraw from all China will Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek even talk peace. But it did mean a breather for weary China, and it meant, too, that even if Japanese armies can still whip the Chinese, economic and political troubles in Tokyo have seriously checked the Japanese army.

Last week those troubles were very much in evidence. For the third week in succession criticism (as rare in recent Japan as whales in the Mississippi) broke out in the Diet. Three weeks ago Takao Saito said the country was tired of war. Then Kiroku Oguchi said some of Japan's shortages and hardships could be avoided if the light industries, with the vital export trade they nourish, were not sacrificed for the sake of war industries. Last week Foreign Minister Hachiro Arita was repeatedly criticized. And Ryozo Makino bitterly attacked War Minister Shunroku Hata for keeping military finances secret. "The people are uneasy," warned Member Makino. But War Minister Hata bluntly refused to reveal military expenses, and when debate began to sizzle, he coolly cut off the stenographic record of proceedings.

At week's end Puppet-elect Wang Ching-wei announced that his Government would be set up on April 1. Both Puppet-elect Wang and his Japanese sponsors have announced "imminent establishment" for over six months, but most wrinkles had last week been ironed out, and this time it appeared that the inauguration actually would go through--providing no Chinese sharpshooters play a real game of Get the Traitor before April Fool's Day.

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