JAP. OCCUPATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 9

JAP. OCCUPATION.

HAINAN ISLAND. Move To Cut Off Arms Supplies For Chinese. FRANCO-BRITISH INTERESTS i United Press Association.—Copyright. (Received 10.30 a.m.) I LONDON, February 10. It is officially announced from lokyo that Japanese forces have landed at Hainan Island, off the South China coast. Hainan, about the threatened invasion of which France and Britain Jast yeai* expressed anxiety, since it is opposite French Indo-China, is by far the largest island in the Chinese Republic.

A later announcement states that the Chinese at Fort Siuying fired on Japanese vessels covering the landing at Hainan, but were silenced after naval and aerial bombardment.

The J\avy co-operated in occupying Hainan Island. The landing troops immediately began advancing to the interior. An official announcement of the landing describes it as a military necessity, aimed at the extermination of Chinese forces on the island. It is claimed that the operations do not conflict with the French-Japanese agreement. n

The Japanese occupied the capital, Kiungshan, also Hoichow, without a casualty.

The spokesman denied that the occupation implies Japanese territorial ambitions. It was only undertaken, he states, to suppress the bases in North Hainan, whence pirates are trafficking in munitions for China, and this is now the chief route of supply for the army.

WHien a Japanese Foreign Office spokesman stated at the end of June last that Japan would occupy Hainan if such action became necessary to further the campaign, the British Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Mr. R. A. Butler, stated in the House of Commons that Britain and France had made it clear to the Japanese Government that they regarded any occupation of Hainan by Japanese forces as calculated to give rise to undesirable complications. Should such complications arise, said Mr. Butler, the British and French Governments would no doubt afford each other such support as appeared to be warranted by the circumstances.

On July 4 it was officially stated in, Tokyo that the French had occupied the Paracel Islands, a series of coral reefs lying to the south-east of Hainan. On July 7 the French Ambassador in Tokyo was handed a "Note verbale" setting forth the views of the Japanese Government. This expressed the belief that the dispatch of Indo-Chinese police to the Parac'els was likely to give rise to "some j unexpected misunderstanding" between them and the Japanese engaged in work there, and that the Japanese Government therefore hoped the police would be withdrawn.