INDO-CHINA CRISIS

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 September 1940, Page 8

INDO-CHINA CRISIS

JAP. DEMANDS REJECTED FRENCH TROOPS MOBILISED [BY CABLE —PRESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.J LONDON, September 21. The Hanoi correspondent of the United Press of America says that the authorities there are taking 'emergency measures. The new Japanese demands have apparently been rejected. French mobilisation is almost complete and troops are reported to be ready to move at short notice. Trains are standing by to evacuate women and children to the south. Another Hanoi message says that Nippon Airways has suspended the Hanoi service and removed all.equipment. Japanese evacuation ships at Saigon have sailed, but as far as is known evacuees have not yet left Haiphong. French authorities said that they* would resist a Japanese landing if Japan attempted to enforce their ultimatum. According to an earlier report, a French communique issued in Hanoi, said that the Japanese had modified the range of the new demands, and therefore negotiations had been resumed “in a favourable atmosphere.” French officials gave the impression that the conversations would produce an early agreement. The leader of the Japanese Military Mission in Hanoi (Major-Gen-eral Nishihara) said: “The Japanese attitude does not threaten IndoChina’s territorial integrity nor French sovereignty, but Japan is convinced that the situation demands setting a time limit for detailed and final settlement.” He added that the Japanese attitude was based on. a Tokio-Vichy understanding, providing for the French and Japanese to settle locally the details of military facilities to be granted to Japan for facilitating operations against Marshal Chiang Kai-shek.

JAPS. BEGIN ATTACK. (Received September 23, 1.35 p.m.) HANOI, September 22. The Japanese have crossed the border and are attacking Dongdang, on the north-east frontier of IndoChina. x , x, + The French fully resisted the attacks, which were suspended at midnight. However, the French officials expect the Japanese to resume the attacks at dawn. The Japanese assaulted Dondang, contrary to the Franco-Japanese agreement, giving the Japanese ‘certain military facilities, including airfields. ~ Dondang is about TOO miles northeast of Hanoi. The Singapore authorities announced the detention of a Japanese named Shihozaki, and certain others, but there are no details. ESPIONAGE SENTENCE SHANGHAI, September 22. A British subject, Mr. Vincent Oswald Peters, a former merchant marine officer, was convicted of espionage and sentenced at Kobe to eight years’ imprisonment. JAPANESE RELEASED. RUGBY, September 21. Mr. Ishike Kobayassi, manager of the Eastern News’. Japanese News Agency at Singapore, who was detained'oy the police early last month, was to-day released. PACIFIC BASES WASHINGTON, September 21. Colonel Knox (Secretary to the Navy) told the press that Hawaii would become one of the great military bastions of the world. At present the United States was expending eighty million dollars there, which would make it one of the world’s most efficient and most compact armed bases. Pearl Harbour alone was a unique base. There was plenty of room for a fleet twice the size of the present United States Fleet. SEATTLE, September 22. Six months of the Canada-United States Joint Defence Board have completed a preliminary • survey of the west coast defences from Sitka, Alaska, to the mouth of Columbia River. Captain Harry Hill, the spokesman, said that they had reached perfect accord on the co-ordination of the defences in the event of emergency.