Psychological Warfare

Under "Chiang the Chairman," the Chinese national government waged a dignified, humane kind of psychological warfare against Japan. Few people remember an odd chapter out of modern history, the Chinese bombardment of Nagasaki, although it is possible that Asiatic historians of the future will make a substantial contrast between the Chinese who struck the first blow at that city and the Americans who struck the last. Shortly after the outbreak of the full quasi-war between China and Japan in 1937, the Generalissimo ordered his bombers to attack Japan. American-built Chinese bombers appeared over Kyushu, the first invaders to show up since the shoguns repelled Kublai Khan 656 years earlier. But instead of dropping bombs, they dropped leaflets denouncing aggression and inferentially pointing out that while the Japanese were uncivilized enough to bomb their fellow-Asiatics, the Chinese were too civilized to undertake reprisals in kind.

The Generalissimo's troops also had fraternization and front-line propaganda, but not to the extent to which the Chinese Communists did. The Generalissimo himself followed a very liberal (not in the Leftist but the true sense) political line toward Japan. He uttered no threat of vengeance. He was the first leader of a great nation to say that the Japanese Emperor question was to be settled by letting the Japanese themselves choose their own form of government after the war was all over. He had Japanese on his political staffs—democratic persons whom his officials encouraged—and regular Japanese broadcasts were kept up throughout the war on the Chungking radio.