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Aside from some accident to the Chiangs the Japanese hope that the strong anti-Communist group in Chungking will become synonymous with a peace movement, that the old politicians will become traitors or appeasers—in short that the pattern of France will be repeated.
For a whole year, peace has been in the air in Chungking. Last July Ambassador Johnson was rumored to have smuggled in two Japanese agents in the rumble seat of his car (which has no rumble seat). One of them was supposed to be no less a person than Prince Fumimaro Konoye. British Ambassador Sir Archibald Kerr Clark Kerr was later said to have peace terms for Chiang. Mme. Chiang flew to Hong Kong: she was going to talk peace with Puppet-Elect Wang Ching-wei. The U. S., British and French Ambassadors met in Shanghai; they were talking peace. They met in Chungking; they were talking peace. Last week Shanghai's onetime Mayor Wu Te-chen was in Hong Kong; he too was rumored making peace feelers.
But whether or not the sentiment for peace grows in China, a Chungking armistice would not mean the end of the Far Eastern conflict. The last flanking movements in the three-year-old War in China had become the first forays of the Battle of the Eastern Empire (see p. 30).