The Japanese appeared to be making rapid progress today in their campaign to clear major Chinese forces from the great Canton-Hankow-Shanghai triangle of southeast China and it was obvious that the position of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek's harassed government in Chungking was becoming increasingly difficult.

Chungking reported Sunday that heavy fighting was continuing in coastal Chekiang province, southeast of Shanghai, following the Japanese capture of the provisional provincial capital and key communications center, Kinhwa, and claimed that the Japanese had won their victories only by using "poison gas."

Elsewhere there was little change in the great struggle for the control of East Asia and the western Pacific ocean and the general lull, which has prevailed since the Japanese conquered Burma, continued.