Sick Cities

In his first report on the state of the nation last week, new Premier Wong Wen-hao said little that the Legislative Yuan did not know already. The Chinese Reds held all but a fraction of Manchuria. They were straining the Nationalist lines in North China. Some industry was already moving southward; more might soon have to go. Dr. Wong likened it to the great exodus of 1937-39, when Chinese factories were moved to the interior ahead of the Japs. But he promised: "Even though we are compelled to shift our center to South China ... we shall come back and drive out the Communists."

Twilight Blindness. The angry Yuan demanded a listing of the exact measures to be taken. Cried a member from Central China: "Nearly all Manchuria and North China have been lost . . . Yet the ever-weakening strength of government troops and their low morale have not even been discussed in Dr. Wong's report." When the Yuan adjourned for the day, 132 legislators were still clamoring to speak.

Premier Wong was also faced by Red pressure in supposedly "safe" areas. In Shanghai, Communists gleefully helped widen a split in U.S.-Chinese relations--capitalizing on Chinese fears of a revived Japan, they sparked student demonstrations against the U.S. (see cut).

But the north was still the critical danger point. Most of China's economic and military woes were highlighted in Mukden. For six months its only link with Nationalist China has been Claire Chennault's commercial airline.

Mukden was once the Chicago of Manchuria. Now the city has almost no economic fat left. Only 10% of its industrial plant is functioning. More than half its 16,000 shops are boarded up.

Yet last week the Mukden garrison was hanging on. They were even momentarily confident, largely because the expected Communist offensive was two months overdue. Ruddy-cheeked, pipe-smoking Commanding General Wei Li-huang thought perhaps the Reds had not replaced the losses suffered in last fall's attacks. But, though the Communist attacks were beaten off, it was at heavy cost: the Reds had captured foodstuffs which might have fed the city for 15 months.

Because of the lost supplies, Mukden's 2,500,000 civilians faced slow death by hunger and disease. Cabled TIME Correspondent Frederick Gruin after a look at the city: "You see the marks of the struggle in the taut, unsmiling faces on the streets. You see it in the meagerly equipped hospitals where acute tuberculosis has doubled. Rickets, twilight blindness, beriberi and other vitamin-deficiency diseases have become common."

Despairing Message. Everybody who could was leaving beleaguered Mukden. The lucky few went by plane, the majority (140,000 last month) by train, which ran only as far as Hsinmin on the edge of the Mukden defense perimeter. Said a ragged shopkeeper, crouched in the station with his family of ten: "We will go to Tientsin where my ancestors lived. We'll become farmers again." The Chinese Reds would gladly let him through. The message of despair that he and other refugees would bring to Nationalist China was payment enough.

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