CHINESE GOVERNMENT IS ACCUSED OF FORCE IN SUPPRESSING CRITICISM

Evening Star, Issue 26153, 15 July 1947, Page 5

CHINESE GOVERNMENT IS ACCUSED OF FORCE IN SUPPRESSING CRITICISM

(Rec. 9 a.m.) PEIPING, July 14. declaring that the Chinese Communists are now both militarily and politically strong, Professor Chang Tun Sun, liwder of the North China Democratic League, issued a warning that any United States attempt to underestimate their appeal to millions of Chinese would be unrealistic. Professor Chang emphasised that lie and his fellow members of the league are Liberals, not Communists or Communist apologists, but he claimed that the Central Government’s policy of suppressing by _ force all opposition criticism had driven scores of Chinese Liberals to regard the Communist Party as the only alternative. The league was still trying to bridge the ever-widening gap between the Kuomintang and Communist viewpoints. He suggested that an exchange of both persons and views between the Liberal organisations in China and the United States would strengthen the hand of the Liberal groups in China, who at present were finding it both dangerous and difficult openly to express themselves. COMMUNISTS CAPTURE STRATEGIC RAILWAY (Rec. 11 a.m.) NANKING, July 14. The Government acknowledged today that Communists had captured Taian, a strategic railway town north of Suchow. . It is reported that 20,000 Communists are converging oil Taier Chuang in their drive through Southern Shantung towards Suchow, which is the Government centre for all East China. Government forces have recovered Freiclieng, 35 miles south-west of Tsinan.