Foreigners Support Japan（タイトル）から
But they were literally pushed into the clash by the Chinese, who seemed intent on involving the foreign area and foreign interests in this clash.
までです。
Last months number of "Oriental Affairs" edited by Mr. H.G.W.Woodhead.
"herald" correspondent in the Far East, points out that "Nanking appears to be in the grip of a warlever as intense as that which has overwhelmed Japan."
It holds that "It is a grotesque misrepresentation of realities to suggest that the Japanese sought and provoked the recent hostilities in Shanghai."
The most provocative action, it suggests, was not the Japanese occupation of the Eight Character Bridge, but the despatch of two Chinese regular divisions - the 87th and the 88th - into the demilitarised zone, thus breaking the 1932 agreement.
This breach could only be explained "on the theory that the Nanking Government decided that if there was to be a military showdown with the Japanese, it would elect its best troops and material in the Shanghai area, rather than in the north, owing to the fact that enormous international interests were involved, and international intervention might, therefore, be expected."
"Oriental Affairs," in explaining partly why "it is not tenable to pretend that the Japanese were the aggressors in Shanghai, whatever they may have done in the north," points out that when hostilities began, the Japanese had only up to 4000 troops (including reinforcements) to protect a community of about 20,000 to 25,000 civilians.
War between China and Japan was finally forced by the spontaneous residence of rank-and-file Chinese troops in North China.
The resistance was so extensive, and the outburst of Nationalist fervor that responded to it so overwhelming, that the government was carried along.
The Chinese for whom the U.S. had delivered the ultimatum that brought on Pearl Harbor,
had hoped for great things if ever the U.S. and Britain came to their aid.
1942年7月20日 p.30 https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=6k0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA30#v=onepage&q&f=false
