CHINESE COMMUNISTS

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 December 1945, Page 5

CHINESE COMMUNISTS

MAIN POLICY POINTS DESIRE FOR PEACE YENAN (North-west China), Dec. 5. Failure of the negotiations with the Kuomintang will not result in the Chinese Communists establishing a separate central government for the areas they dominate, according to Mr Liu Chi, a high-ranking member of the powerful Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party. Mr Liu added that if the forthcoming Com-munist-Kuomintang discussions failed to produce agreement, Communist policy would be to continue the existing “local democratic government” over the Communist controlled areas. Mr Liu emphasised that it was Communist policy to work for ' a peaceful settlement of the differences with the Kuomintang on a national basis. For this reason the Communists would not establish a rival central government. Mr Liu, who is considered to be one of the keenest political thinkers in the Chinese Communist Party, said he was acting as spokesman for Mao Tse-tung, chairman of the Communist Central Committee. The following significant points were made by Mr Liu:— (1) The Communist Party’s programme for China at present was democratic capitalist development, based on State and private cooperative enterprise. (2) Soviet Russian Communism was not the model for the present Chinese Communist policies. (3) Their programme was comparable to political and economic concepts in the United States at the time of Jefferson and Lincoln. The Chinese Comunist Party maintained no liaison with the Russian Communist arty or other foreign Communist parties. (4) Considering it to be true that Communism does not suit China in its present stage of political _ and economic development, the Chinese Communist Party would oppose any party attempting to introduce Communism of the Russian pattern into China. (5) The end of the Japanese war did not mean any change of political and economic programmes in the Communist-controlled areas of China. . ENTRY INTO MUKDEN. CHUNGKING, December 4. General Chang Hsushih’s independent forces marched into Mukden and declared they would support the Nationalists. NEGOTIATIONS WITH RUSSIA CHUNGKING, Dec. 5. The Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs (Liu Chieh) announced that Chinese-Russian negotiations for airborne movement of Nationalist troops into Mukden and Chunkchun would be concluded soon. A Cabinet spokesman said the Executive in Yuan would meet at Nanking after December 15, to which Dr. Soong would move. However, while the personnel of the various ministries would be installed at Nanking, the Government would remain at Chungking, possibly until March. HIROHITO’S GUILT TOKIO, December 5. The Prime Minister, Baron Shidehara, told the House of Representatives that he does not believe the Emperor has a war responsibility. He added that the occupation authorities so far had not raised the question with him. The statement was made in answer to an unprecedented question by Shozo Suzuki, who asked Baron Shidehara for the date of the Imperial conference which decided that Japan should wage war. The Associated Press correspondent learned that the Emperor Hirohito, late in 1941, atended at least 50 highly secret conferences at which plans were discussed for war against Britain and the United Stottses Supreme Headquarters announced there would be no special dispensation for Prince Nashimoto.. YAMASHITA’S DEFENCE (Recd. 10.40 a.m.) MANILA, Dec. 5. The Military Commission trying Yamashita has concluded its hearings and promised a verdict of guilty and the death sentence. The defence asserted that Yamashita did not permit the atrocities, was not aware of their commission and did not condone them. The Commission would be open to charges of succumbing to mob desire for revenge unless it returned a verdict of not guilty. Yamashita was visibly moved and took the defence counsel, Captain Reel, by the shoulders and said “Thank you.” SLAUGHTER OF PRISONERS SYDNEY, Dec. 5. Found guilty of the massacre of 47 Allied prisoners of war at Miro, Sarawak, on June 10, 1945, a Japanese sergeant-major, Tsuruo Sugino, has been sentenced to be shot. The verdict, announced by an Australian military court at Labuan, Borneo, must be confirmed by the Governor-Gen-eral of Australia. The massacre took place during a grim death march along the coast of Borneo on the day the Australian 9th Division landed on Labuan Island. Chinese who witnessed the massacre said that the prisoners included Europeans, Eurasians, and Indians. The prosecution said that Sugino was in charge of the death march. In a statement read to the Court, Sugino said the party of 32 prisoners was five miles and a half from Miri when one prisoner started running. He ordered the guard to open fire on all the prisoners in the group. Many of the prisoners were killed outright, but some were still alive after the shooting. He used “the humane method of bayoneting them to end their agony.” Evidence was given that after the first massacre, Sugino went back to get 15 prisoners who had been left at a point three miles from Miri. These prisoners were slaughtered after the Japanese had dug graves for them.