NEW CHINESE TERROR

Evening Star, Issue 20653, 28 November 1930, Page 12

NEW CHINESE TERROR

SPREAD OF BRIGANDAGE GANGS LEVYING TRIBUTE. Although the Nanking Government in China has regained some of the prestige it lost in the summer as a result of the Northern Coalition’s military successes, says the diplomatic correspondent of the ‘ Observer,’ London, it has not yet re-established itself to an extent sufficient to dispel tbo increasing anxiety felt by foreign interests over the new terror produced by rapidly spreading'’ brigandage throughout the eighteen provinces.

No doubt the condition of stalemate that descended upon tho struggle between Yen Hsi-shan and Ycng Kai-shek on the one, hand and Chiang Kai-shek on the other provided tho opportunity for banditry witli impunity, but tho scale on which tho bandits have begun to operate is causing consternation among those who have economic or financial interests in China.

As tho demoralisation increases, brigandage becomes a more and more popular profession. It has been stated in the Shanghai Press that fourteen separate Red armies arc ravaging Central and Southern China without opposition, their main objective being loot. Ono Communist gang established itself at Hanchwan, only thirty miles from Hankow, and effectively levied tribute on tho surrounding country. Tho capture of individuals such as of the two English missionaries for a ransom of 50,OOOdol is a mere sideline in the newlydeveloped technique of banditry. A Communist gang lately held up Changsha and demanded a ransom of a million dollars under tho threat of burning it to tho ground. As a form of preliminary demonstration tho gang looted the town and executed many of tho local officials. Tho gang loft the town within twenty-four hours, the town having been recaptured, according to tho Nanking Ministry ot Marine, by a gunboat; but the more general belief was that the 1.000.000d0l had been paid. The gang next moved toward Hankow, naming IOO.OOOdoI as their' price.

It is believed that the separate gangs are controlled by a central organisation. Their methods arO remarkably consistent and thorough. In one case they deliberately won a desperate reputation by sending a gang 3,000 strong to capture tho town of Yungang, on the Honan-Hnpeh border, and to murder 15,000 of the inhabitants before carrying off 500 of them for ransom. In one fortnight no fewer than fifty towns were captured, raided, or looted by Communist gangs. A crew of pirates even landed in Shanghai harbour, killed a Chinese and wounded four others, one of whom, a British Australian. died of his wounds.