SOVIET MOVES IN FAR EAST

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26968, 18 February 1953, Page 7

SOVIET MOVES IN FAR EAST

Warning To U.N. Seen

(N.Z. Pr°ss —Copyright) (Rec. 11.10 pan.) NEW YORK, February 17. The Soviet Union and Communist China are seeking to warn the United Nations against any attempt to seize the initiative in the Far East, says C. L. Sulzberger, the chief foreign correspondent of the “New York Times, in a dispatch from Paris. t ays t . l ! at . the y are a lso cautioning Japan by implication to shift her allegiance. ' , It would seem as if Moscow and Peking had agreed on three basic principles- to warn the United. Nations forces against an offensive by threatening heavy bombing attacks on their rear; to try to neutralise Japan through a combination of menaces and commercial offers; and to try to hamper any potential efforts at blockading the Chinese Coast by expanding trade with Japan and opening ports to Japanese shipping. In support of his view, the correspondent says that the Soviet Far Eastern Command has sent an unknown number of new 1-28 bombers to Manchurian bases, and flown them in the region of the Yalu river.

These have apparently, been exposed deliberately to Allied pilots as a warning of what ■ the United Nations may be faced with in the event of a new all-out offensive. The Soviet aircraft began a series of flights over Japanese territory drawing an American reaction and a sharp statement of warning from the Japanese Foreign Office.

Simultaneously there have been increasing indications of Communist bloc attempts to “bribe” Japan away from her current sympathies ■ and thus remove the United Nations operational base supporting Korea. Both Moscow and Peking have been dangling the prospects of large trade contracts before Japanese businessmen, while cautioning .them on the fateful economic political consequences of the present pro-Western alignment, i •