WAR IN FAR EAST.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 21, 4 November 1938, Page 5

WAR IN FAR EAST.

JAPANESE FORCE AMBUSHED. LOSS OF FOUR. HUNDRED MEN. (United Press Association —Copyright.) (Received This Day, 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, November 3. It is reported from Chungking that Chinese troops gained the upper hand in North Shansi, where they ambushed 200 Japanese at Kwanlung. They killed 100, then killed 10 officers and 300 men of reinforcements. ‘

ECONOMIC COHESION. JAPAN’S POLICY IN CHINA. TOKIO, November 2. The Prime Minister of Japan (Prince Konoye), in a broadcast speech which was approved by the Cabinet and the Emperor, said that the Kuomintang Government had been reduced to a local regime, but Japan would not give up until it had been crushed or it abandoned its anti-Japanese policies. Tho tripartite relationship of China, Japan and Manchukuo, jointly antiCommunistic, would create a cultural and economic cohesion throughout Asia. Japan had asked China to share in the task. Even the Kuomintang’s .participation would not be spurned if it amended its policy and remoulded its personnel.

CHINA WILL RESIST TO THE END. HARDENED DETERMINATION. (Received This Day, 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, November 3. “Japan may seize all our seaports and disrupt our traffic arteries, but we shall resist until she collapses from sheer exhaustion,” declared, a Chinese Foreign Office spokesman at Chungking, replying to a Japanese statement of policy which, he “typified Japanese military swagger and spiritual bravado, and gravely insulted Chinese intelligence and hardened their determination to maintain the bitter struggle.” The spokesman denied that the Chinese National Government was a mere local administration. It controlled three-fourths of the territory behind the Chinese lines. China would resist political co-operation which would sacrifice her independence, attempts to force her into economic co-operation, that would plunder her resources and cultural co-operation that would impose slavish education and transform the future generation into “cannon fodder” for further Japanese expansion.

“REPORTS ABSOLUTELY TRUE.” WOMAN’S VIEW OF ATROCITIES. VANCOUVER, November 2. Miss Freda Utley, a British writer who was barred from Japan, has returned from the Orient. She declares that Japan is using poison gas in China. “The stories concerning Japanese atrocities are absolutely true,” she said. Given 1 sufficient munitions by Britain, the United States and others, China would ultimately win.

The Chinese were fighting under horrible conditions and were hampered by disease and lack of medical care for the wounded. Malaria was the real cause of the Hankow debacle.