OUTSIDE THE RING

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 32, 8 February 1927, Page 9

OUTSIDE THE RING

AMERICAN PROPOSAL

SHANGHAI NEUTRAL ZONE

"WASHINGTON, 6th February. . The text of the proposal of Mr. Frank Kellogg (United States Minister of State) to the Chinese factions to exclude the internal ional settlement at

Shanghai from the area of armed conflict states: The fate of American interests in the settlement '^occasions, great anxiety to the American Government. The interests of the Chinese people and foreign nations to a supreme degree require that here

order shall prevail. The American Gov-

eminent is confident that the Chinese military commanders will lend their sincere support to a proposal that the settlement be excluded from the area of armed conflict. So that American citizens and other foreigners may receive adequate protection, the American Government will be ready to become a party to friendly, orderly negotiations properly instituted and conducted regarding the future status of the settlement. ■ '

objectively false. This is particularly true.in Great Britain, but instead of frankly and courageously dealing with the only Government that can make an effective. and binding peace with her sue retakes the old cart road ts Pekin in order to associate with/the arti-Nat-lonahst authorities there in negotiation or a settlement on questions which ■Uunese nationalism has compelled the British and others to envisage as vital and urgent. DIVIDED CHINA. whil^l^-"' 0! 17 «° f tjjc P°siti°n fa that whilst Sir Austen Chamberlain, in his Birmingham speech implies that negot ation s . sol Iy with the NationaH |° ■nould iuvolve.:the recognition of the chvision of China, he is applying a dh>° lomatic technique that would i&allibFy bring about a real division of the counn,?»i + !i as communicated simultaneItflK V h% *: ationalist Government and to the feudal authorities in Pekin certain proposals which, if negotiated in the manner desired by him, must cleave tjhma into a Nationalist China, with its Government at Wuhan, and a feudalist Uiina, with its anti-Nationalist Government at Pekin. "The vice in this diplomacy lies in the persistence of the Pekin complex m the mind of British imperialism. The latter admits, through the Foreign Secretary, the fundamental reasonableness or the. demand' for treaty revision which is the fundamental objective of Chinese Nationalism in its struggle with alien imperialism. Instead of working on this fact seriously and realistically! with the sole Government that derives its sanction and authority from Chinese Nationalism, Britain continues to twiddle with Chinese feudalism in Pekin. For fifteen years Britain has looked to Pekin for a Government that will govern and bring peace to the harassed country. To-day Pekin is dying, and Britain, her chief sustainer, is facing the greatest crisis in its career in the Far East. Between Chinese Nationalism and Chinese feudalism there can be no compromise, and the moment has come for, the British to decide whether their trade and commerce is to flourish in independent Nationalist China or continue to decline in unfree feudal China."