JAPAN-CHINA: Soft Words, Hard Facts

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Returning from a talk in Washington with Undersecretary of State Phillips last week, smiling Ambassador Katsuji Debuchi received U. S. reporters and announced:

"Japan regards the Great Wall as a definite boundary between the State of Manchukuo and China proper. . . . The Japanese troops now south of the Great Wall will return to Manchukuo shortly. The Japanese Army has no intention of advancing into the Peiping-Tientsin area."

Here were soft words for U. S. consumption. Reporters in China were faced by a much harder array of facts:

After a bloody battle, Japanese troops mashed their way into Miyun, 50 mi. from Peiping. At one point the Japanese advance reached Tungchow, only 13 mi. from Peiping's walls. To the east, Japanese troops were nearing Lutai, 40 mi. from Tientsin. Unaware of Ambassador Debuchi's statement, an official spokesman for General Kotaro Nakamura, commander of the Japanese garrison in Tientsin, announced:

"If the Chinese do not show signs of reasonableness, our army must necessarily continue beyond Peiping and Tientsin, and occupy Paotingfu [80 mi. from both] and points even further southward."

New York Times Correspondent Hallett Abend reported that the following message had been handed foreign diplomats in Peiping:

''Unless responsible Chinese agree to our terms without equivocation, without further delay and without new major attacks, we will occupy Peiping and Tientsin at once."

U. S. Minister to China Nelson Trusler Johnson issued formal warning to U. S. citizens last week to withdraw from the North China war zone to the safety of the international settlements. (In the war zone are 1,540 U. S. civilians, $25,000,000 worth of U. S. property.)

From South China the Canton Government screamed that Marshal Chiang Kai-shek of Nanking had sold out to Japan, bartering promises of a pro-Japanese State in North China for peace. Under banners blazoned RECOVER OUR MOUNTAINS AND RIVERS two divisions went north from Canton including two brigades of the famed 19th Route Army, heroes of the defense of Shanghai last year.

In Nanking. Chiang Kai-shek promptly described the Canton expedition as "futile." There were other facts to suggest some truth in the Cantonese charges. General Hwang Fu, generally considered friendly to Japan, rushed to Peiping as an emissary from Chiang, presumably to dicker for peace. Word reached Tientsin last week of a Chinese army marching parallel to and cooperating with the Japanese troops. Its commander is a General Li Lichen who raised the old five-barred flag, first flag of the Chinese Republic, in Chinwangtao in March, is supposed to have been picked by Japan to head still another North China puppet state. This one's name would be HOPEIKUO.