Had he known of this positive assessment, Chiang Kai-shek would have valued it. China’s situation was precarious by the spring of 1940. In March high-level Japanese negotiators tried to secure an agreement with Chiang in Chongqing, while Wang Jingwei was attempting to formalize his own Nationalist government in Nanjing. This strategy, known in Chinese as the Tong Operation, and in Japanese as Operation Kiri, led to talks in Hong Kong between March 7 and 10, 1940. The Nationalists were
