BRITISH PROTEST TO PEIPING REPORTED

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26263, 7 November 1950, Page 7

BRITISH PROTEST TO PEIPING REPORTED

Capture Of Two Britons In Tibet

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 12.30 a.m.) NEW DELHI, November 6. The British Government has protested to Communist China over the capture of two British nationals— Jeffrey Bull, a Scottish missionary, and Robert Ford a wireless operator formerly employed by the Tibetan Government—by Chinese troops near Chamdo, a Tibetan fortress 400 miles from Lhasa, says Reuter’s correspondent at Kalimpong. The protest is understood to have been delivered in Peiping by the British Charge d’Affaires. It asked for an explanation of the detention of the two men.

' The Chinese Government has asked the Indian Government to withdraw the Indian troops stationed at Gyantse and Yatung, on the trade route between India and Lhasa, according to a Peiping broadcast to-day. The broadcast said the Chinese Government had expressed the view that it was no longer necessary for the Indian troops to remain at these places, as Tibet had become the sole concern and responsibility of China. A spearhead of the Chinese 2nd Field Division and Tibetan “people’s troops” were within 90 miles of Lhasa, said authoritative reports reaching Kalimpong to-day.