Wang and Kung both made a prescient observation: “some day the United States would have to face Japanese aggression, unless that aggression should be checked by China”; therefore, the US should help China now.24 But Hornbeck, while sympathetic, was careful to point out that the US would only intervene where its own national interests were at stake. It was clear that as far as the US government was concerned, Japanese aggression in China was not a priority issue in the summer of 1937.
