JAPANESE NAVAL EXPANSION PLANS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 34, 10 February 1939, Page 7

JAPANESE NAVAL EXPANSION PLANS.

■ KEPT SECRET. "Build To Equality With Any Power" Rumour. NO BASE TOR GERMANS. United Press Association. —Copyright. (Received 10.30 a.m.) TOKYO, February P. "The situation is most delicate. I am unable to reveal the naval expansion plans," said the Admiralty spokesman, replying to a report that Japan would build up to equality with any Power. [ He denied that Japan had fortified the Caroline Islands or sanctioned Germany creating a base within the Japanese mandate. Japan did not contemplate it naval base in China, but the spokesman refused to say whether this included Hainan. SECRET MISSION. Japanese To Confer In Berlin. DISCUSS MILITARY ALLIANCE. (Received 1 p.m.) LONDON, February 9. A "News Chronicle" special correspondent writes I that three members of a secret .Japanese mission are going to Berlin for a conference at the end of February with Japanese Ambassadors throughout Europe. The purpose of this is the final step to convert the Anti-Comintern Pact into a formal .three-Power alliance. The Japanese are anxious that the pact be directed primarily against the Soviet. Italy and Germany are insistent that it also covers Britain, France and the United States, to which Japan is now agreeing.