Terror in Shanghai

First it was Manchuria, then Tsingtao, and last week Shanghai. It seemed as though Japan was deliberately asking for trouble. The raid oh Tsingtao fortnight ago was apparently a feeler to see how a world busy with its own problems would react to the invasion of Chinese territory. Results were apparently satisfactory. Last week Japan repeated exactly the same formula.

It had to start with a riot. The excuse was a series of anti-Japanese editorials in the Chinese Republican Daily News, and the tousling of five Japanese monks by a gang of coolies. Promptly a group of Japanese naval officers called on the editor in his office in the International Settlement, gave him 24 hours to print an apology "on pain of adopting suitable measures." The monks were avenged by a lone Japanese who attacked a Chinese towel factory single-handed in the middle of the night. He flung blazing newspapers into the weaving room. Other Japanese attacked policemen attempting to summon fire engines. When the towels were finally extinguished 1,000 Japanese held a mass meeting in the Japan Club, and Rear Admiral Koichi Shiosawa, commander of the Japanese fleet anchored off Shanghai, issued an ultimatum: all anti-Japanese organizations in the foreign settlement as well as in the native cities must be suppressed "on pain of drastic naval action."

Tokyo backed him up by sending an aircraft carrier and four destroyers. At Admiral Shiosawa's command were ten Japanese warships and 1,300 troops.

This was a threat the rest of the world could not ignore. Until 1840 Shanghai was little more than a second rate Chinese city sitting on a mud flat at the mouth of the turbulent Yangtze River, but in 1842 Britain defended her right to sell dope to the Chinese by fighting and winning the Opium War. Shanghai was made one of five Treaty Ports opened to foreign trade. Other nations saw the importance of the city. France and the U. S. acquired territorial concessions there. Shanghai became the funnel mouth for half the commerce of China. Today it is the greatest port in the East, fifth most important port in the world. Defending the International Settlement and the French concession are British, French, U. S., Italian, Japanese troops. Three thousand U. S. citizens live there. There is an enormous and impoverished colony of White Russian emigres (many of whom are supplanting Britain's tall, bearded Sikhs as policemen). The city is popularly known as the Paris of the East, boasts an excellent golf course, race track, yacht club, an enormous number of disreputable resorts and the Shanghai Club, with the longest bar in the world. So popular is Shanghai with officials of the Nanking Government as a week-end resort that tourists wishing to travel to Nanking, eight hours away, Sunday night must book sleeper accommodations weeks in advance.

British, French, U. S. officials in Shanghai itself lost no time replying to Admiral Shiosawa. A delegation of them boarded a launch, chugged out to the Japanese flagship and demanded a statement. Hissing politely through his teeth, Admiral Shiosawa replied that he was not a free agent, that he was merely obeying orders from Tokyo. He did agree to consult the Settlement Council before taking any military action.

The Japanese did stay out of the International Settlement, but they did not stay out of Shanghai. By next nightfall 1,300 Japanese had landed with field pieces and machine guns. The ten warships were spotted at even intervals all up and down the river with their guns trained on the city, decks cleared and men at battle stations. Admiral Shiosawa threatened to occupy all the Chinese forts and barracks in the Shanghai district unless a full apology for the tousling of the monks, one of whom had died, was made, an indemnity paid, and the anti-Japanese boycott called off. The city was on edge. Somebody planted a bomb in the Nanking Theatre, largest cinema in Shanghai. It fizzled. A nervous Chinese sentry shot and killed Dr. Alexander Proges, Austrian manager of American Express Co. (known to Chinese taxi drivers as Mei-gwok wantung ngan-hong). A Chinese munitions launch blew up in the middle of the river, killed 35 coolies, just as a passenger airplane was passing overhead. Thousands of citizens thought the Japanese invasion had begun. There are no cellars to hide in in Shanghai (any hole three feet deep strikes water), so they rushed for the International Settlement. The engineer of the Shanghai-Hangchow express heard the explosion of the munitions launch some miles outside the city. In terror he ran the train on a siding, uncoupled the locomotive himself and ran back to Shanghai leaving his passengers stranded.

The entire Shanghai gesture was intended not to seize the city, but to throttle the officially fostered boycott which is ruining Japan quicker than any army.

To force the Chinese Mayor, General Wu Teh-chen and other officials to call off the boycott Japan had two other weapons. Though few U. S. citizens realize it, China has a merchant marine. Japan threatened last week to close the port of Shanghai to all Chinese vessels. One of the city's greatest tycoons is grizzled, wily old Yu Ya-ching, ex-President of the Chamber of Commerce, Municipal Councilor, Managing Director of the Sanpeh Steam Navigation Co., second largest Chinese steamship company, and generally known as "The Big Boss of Shanghai." He is rumored to be one of the leading spirits of the Anti-Japan Boycott Society. Japan could at least ruin Tycoon Yu. And she could do more than that. The Japanese Cotton Spinners' Association owns twelve mills in Shanghai. Under orders from Tokyo they threatened to close their mills last week, throw 70,000 Chinese out of work. A group of worried Chinese merchants last week called on Mayor Wu Teh-chen, begged him to disown the boycott society. Chinese, they slyly added, could still boycott to their heart's content, privately. Meanwhile, Mayor Wu temporized, Chinese troops began barricading the city, the Japanese marines fretted aboard their warships, eager to get ashore and have some fun.

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