The Daily Alaska empire., 1932-02-17
EARTH SHAKING BOIBARDllENT RAGING AT SHANGHAI
China's Potential Var Strength Riddle;
 Lack of Unity Handicap m Opposing Japan
By OSCAR LEIDING

WASHINGTON, D. O., Feb. H. China, after 20 years of perennial civil wars, is still a military enigma.
 Experts, however, are almost unanimous in their belief that the experiences of the troops of the Republic have not fitted them to withstand campaigns engineered by the well trained commanders of Japan if the present inabroglios eventuate into a formal conflict.
 Tt is held that the two million or more Chinese who are under arms of one sort or another are imbued only with loyalty to various factional leaders and incapable of being welded into a cohesive whole
 These observers acknowledge, however, that if the leaders could be brought into a singleness of purpose based upon a truly com prehended national emergency the struggle might be long and bitter.
 "No fight, no pay has long been the rule with these war lords Hence their soldiers have, to a great extent, adopted for them selves the reverse of this and say, No pay, no fight"
 Rewards for Accomplishments
 Pointing in this direction were recent dispatches from the far east relating that Chang Hsaio-Liang deposed marshal of Manchuria, had offered a graduated series of re- wards for troops who accomplished definite achievements against the Japanese.
 Latest figures here placed at 2 ,438,0 the number of armed Chi nese went into battle armed with army of 23o,O00, with 100000 in reserve.
 But mere numbers count for lit tie more now than in 1894-5 when the Island Empire whipped her huge neigihbor both afloat and on shore.
 Then scores of thousands of Chi nese went into battel armed with bows and arrows, or crude pike poles, and wearing grotesque mask to frighten the enemy.
 Since then China has discarded medieval weapons and cotton wad- ding ar1nor. But she has not pos sessed nor learned to use all the modern methods of destruction possessed by Japan.
 There are several divisions of crack Chinese infantry armed with repeating rifles, disciplined enough to attack with the bayonet or huge trench knives. There are few regiments of field artillery that can lay down a fairly effective barrage.
 No Tanks Or Gas
 But there is only scattering of armored cars, only a few armored trains, no real tanks and gas war fare is virtually unknown to the Chinese.
 In the air commercial planes have been used with good effect as carriers of small tin can bombs which spread terror among bandits But if there are any real bombers, pursuit and scouting planes in the Chinese military organization, the world has not heard of them.
 To top all this, China has had no navy worthy of the name since the war of 1894. Japan possesses the third naval force of the world The chief reliance of China in a real war, say the Washington ex- perts, would be her inertia. Her capacity for passive resistance is held to be superior to India's.
 In view of the fact that China is on paper, Japan's best customer and that the Shanghai boycott goaded the Nipponesee into unpre- cedented actions, the result of a widespread movement of this sort among Cathay's 100000, 900 nation als might prove we'll nigh fatal to Japan economically.