NEW REGIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 73, 27 March 1940, Page 7

NEW REGIME.

EVENTS IN FAR EAST. National Government Under Wang Ching-wei. CONTROLLED BT JAPAN. British Official Wireless. RUGBY, March 26. "The Times" devotes a leading article to-day to events in the Far East, of which the most important is the inauguration next Sunday of the new Chinese regime to be styled the National Government of China, under the rule of Wang Ching-wei and under the control of Japan. The article describes how a conference of delegates from the occupied provinces of China and Inner Mongolia. with Wang himself and the heads of the "reformed'' administration of Peking and Nanking, met last week at Nanking to organise the new Government.

It says: "The delegates naturally were well guarded, for it is clear that the Japanese Government and Army are entirely committed to this experiment."

Tracing the obstacles which have had| to be met. in connection with what its! own correspondent calls "a carefullyplanned peace move," which the Japanese Government believes will completely change the situation for it in China, "The Times" says: "Chief among the many difficulties of Wang himself was, and is, the reluctance of many Chinese to regard him as anything but a deserter. But he had also to reckon with the usual divisions of opinion between the Japanese Army and the Japanese Government."

Commenting on Admiral Yonai's recent statement on the new administration "The Times" says it thinks that from the point of view of foreign 1 nations which have important commercial interests in China, and are not able to exercise any direct influence in favour of a just peace in the Far East, the omissions from this statement are more significant than its contents. It calls attention to a manifesto which Wang recently issued at Shanghai, in which he stated that foreign rights and interests would be respected and protected by the Government he proposed to form "and that foreign capital would be invited to China.

"The Times" finds it significant that there was no reference to this in Admiral Yonai's remarks. /