793.94/15517: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in France (Bullitt)
1475. Your 2866, November 30, 3 p.m. The Department is repeating to you Chungking’s 614, November 29, 9 a.m.10
While the loss of Nanning obviously may be a serious blow to China’s transport system, reports that the Chinese are planning a counter-attack and that the Japanese may encounter difficulty in keeping open their lines of communication with the coast indicate that it is as yet too early to assume that the Japanese will be successful in holding Nanning.
[Page 717]Even if the Japanese should continue to occupy Nanning, we do not regard that loss as disastrous to the Chinese. In the southwest there remain open two important external channels of supply (the Burma road and the Tonkin–Yunnan Railway); also, a main interior route (the highway from Yunnanfu to Chungking) remains open; and a new highway (Yunnanfu to Luchow, Szechwan) is about to be opened. It would accordingly seem that the loss of the Nanning route should not cause a cessation of transportation of supplies. It is possible that an important consideration in connection with the capture of Nanning is that the advance of Japanese lines to that point may facilitate Japanese air attacks upon other interior transportation routes. The extent to which this factor may disrupt the transportation of supplies is, of course, a matter for speculation. It is our impression, however, that Japanese bombing operations in the past directed against routes of communication have been signally unproductive as, for example, in the case of the Canton–Hankow Railway.