CANTON MAY NOT BE DEFENDED

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25933, 13 October 1949, Page 5

CANTON MAY NOT BE DEFENDED

Communists Less Than 40 Miles Away NATIONALISTS CONTINUE TO WITHDRAW (New Zealand Press Association.) (Rec. 11 p.m.) HONG KONG, Oct. 12. Waichow, 55 miles north-east of the British New Territories on the Chinese mainland, was captured by Communist irregulars yesterday, according to reliable Chinese reports. In northern Kwangtung, General Chen Keng’s Communist armies are reported to have occupied Tsingyun, 40 miles north of Canton, and they are now racing towards the Nationalists’ refugee capital. According to an unconfirmed report. Marshal Chiang Kai-shek has ordered his trusted lieutenant, General Liu An-chi, to abandon Canton. This report adds that all the Nationalist troops in the Canton area have been ordered to concentrate at the mouth of the Pearl river for evacuation to Formosa and Hainan. Foreign sources in Canton say all the indications are that Canton will not be defended. The Nationalist Government has officially notified foreign embassies and consulates of its transfer from Canton to Chungking. Some diplomats left last night aboard a British ship for Hong Kong.

The Nationalist Foreign Office is eva’cuating Canton to-day. Most of its staff are flying to Chungking. Swatow. on the coast of eastern Kwangtung, has been abandoned by the Nationalists, and the Nationalist commander in the area has been ordered by Marshal Chiang to evacuate all Nationalist troops to Formosa. According to the Paris correspondent of the Associated Press, the Charge d'Affaires at the Chinese Nationalist Embassy in Paris (Mr Tuan Mao-lan) said that three of the six members of the embassy staff, who had earlier switched their allegiance to the Chinese Communist Government, yesterday switched back again. A French police inspector who went to the embassy to investigate the situation found the dissident faction still occupying their offices, while next door to them the loyal members of the staff were carrying on as if nothing had happened. Mr Tuan told the police inspector: “This is ridiculous. There cannot be representatives of two regimes under one roof. They must leave the building.” Mr Lin Chi-han. who was Ministerial Counsellor before he switched, said on behalf of the dissidents: “We await instructions from the popular Government.” He refused to leave the building. The Associated Press quotes a Vatican source as saying that the Chinese Communists are conducting a bitter fight against the Roman Catholic >

Church in the territory under their control. In small Chinese cities and villages, Roman Catholic schools “have become the headquarters of the liberators.” according to reports received by the Vatican from missionary organisations. In some cities, missionaries have been forbidden to ring church bells, and in many places Roman Catholics are not allowed to pray together or attend Mass.