China Speaks Japanese

From an underground concrete shell just outside Chungking "The Voice of China" talks to the world--especially to Japan. Throughout its three-year life The Voice (35-kilowatt station XGOY) has suffered World War II's most persistent, punishing bombing. Once bomb blasts tore down its antennas; thrice its studios have been totally destroyed. Somehow or other, The Voice has managed to keep speaking every day.

Often--and eloquently--it speaks Japanese. Because short-wave reception has been banned in Japan, XGOY talks to its foe (by relay) through China's most powerful medium-wave station XPRA at Kunming. Some of the broadcasters are Chinese who were born or raised in Japan. But the most potent are anti-imperial Japanese taken prisoner by the Chinese armies. They are men who have convinced themselves that only a common cause with the Chinese can save the people of Japan. Their fiery opposition is not restricted to the Japanese militarists; it is directed also at the Emperor and all his myth.* They hope for a post-war Japanese republic.

These voices are what the Tokyo radio chiefly means when it warns Japan against propaganda from Chungking. Tokyo's great daily Nichi Nichi has even gone so far as to admit that XGOY's Japanese programs "were well thought out and executed, but are, of course, voices crying in the wilderness."

Today XGOY counts its worldwide fan mail by the thousands of letters. Its program director and prime mover is balding, begoggled U.S.-educated Peng "Mike" Lo-shan. Eleven hours a day he and his polylingual staff tell the world about China's war in 14 languages and dialects. U.S. propagandists, who cannot reach the Japanese people by short wave or Australian medium wave, are much impressed with the Voice of China. Last week Director Peng Lo-shan was en route to the U.S. to discuss more ways of propagandizing the Jap.

* OWFs Elmer Davis has been directed by the State Department to take a contrary view. Last week Mr. Davis announced that the U.S. Government did not propose to attack Emperor Hirohito by radio. Said Mr. Davis: "There is every evidence to show that he has had nothing to do with the military for a long time. He is regarded as a god. Attacks against him would be resented, and would serve no useful purpose." Mr. Davis did not say whether he thinks attacks on the Japanese Emperor by Japanese are bad propaganda.

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