In August 1937, hiding in a shelter from the aerial bombing of Nanjing, Zhou and his friends began to discuss an end to the war. “In three months,” Zhou wrote with some hope in mid-August, “they should be able to start talking about peace.” The “Low-Key Club” had no doubt that a long war of resistance would be disastrous for China. “China’s national strength is not sufficient,” wrote Zhou, “so the war should end at the right point.”20 Many of them had visited Japan in their younger days, and felt they knew the country. Years of conflict with a highly uncertain outcome would be worse than a
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