“Indescribable Confusion” Shanghai Tension Rises As Reds Close Cordon

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 May 1949, Page 5

“Indescribable Confusion” Shanghai Tension Rises As Reds Close Cordon

SHANGHAI, May 20 (Rec, 11 a.m.) Optimistic communiques notwithstanding, the battle for Shanghai is generally believed today to be moving towards a climax amid rising tension and indescribable confusion in China’s commercial capital. With the city’s nerve centre —the Bund area—paralysed by a stringent blockade, business is at a complete standstill vVfoile housewives confront empty stalls in the food markets. The latest official communique indicated that the Red pincers converging on the mouth of the harbour at Woosung were only five miles apart, but said that crack Nationalist units, fighting with their backs to the city's lifeline —the Whangpoo river—succeeded today in preventing further construction of the Red steel cordon round the metropolis. The Nationalist defenders were still holding the Communist attackers west of Woosung and east of Shanghai in the Pootung district, said 4he communique. Unopposed Sweep The police authorities, however, admitted that the Communist forces at Pootung are sweeping unopposed to the eastern bank of the Whangpoo. The Communists today again used human sea tactics in the latest attempt to crack the Woosung defences, but the Nationalists repulsed the attacking waves in a battle that lasted three hours and involved bitter hand-to-hand fighting, both sides freely using grenades and bayonets. In a review of naval operations, the Nationalist navy spokesman estimated that more than 15,000 Communist troops have been killed by naval gunfire in the past week when warships helped to smash the Red attacks on the Woosung-Pootung front. Traffic Jams The military blockade of the Bund —officially stated to be due to its “close proximity to the battlefront” —caused unprecedented traffic jams in down-town Shanghai all day with pedestrians, motor-cars and manpowered vehicles clogging all the side streets. Siren-screeching ambulances with wounded Nationalist troops had to weave their way through a tangled mass of vehicles, but along the deserted Bund lorries with troops roared north or south without hindrance. A special committee is being formed in Shanghai, comprising representatives of the various consulates and communities, to work with the police to maintain law and order. Particular attention will be paid to the pro-

tection of foreign lives and property. Mirroring the critical local situation, the gold yuan went into another tailspin today with the silver dollar fetching 24,000,000 in the open market, against 16,000,000 yesterday. The little rice available for purchase was quoted at 216,000,000 gold yuan per picul of 1701 b, compared with 153,000,000 yesterday. A Washington message says that members of the Senate Foreign Relations Sub-committee told reporters today‘that Mr Dean Acheson, the United States Secretary of Defence, had told them that the United States would not grant diplomatic recognition to a Communist Government in China as long as the Nationalist Government continued to function.

Replying to Mr T. White (Liberal), who asked whether Australia was doing anything to assist Hong Kong, the Prime Minister (Mr Chifley) said in the House of Representatives at Canberra that Australia had been asked to divert shipping normally used for immigration to evacuate soldiers’ wives from Hong Kong to Malaya. He added that certain assistance was being given Hong Kong by the British Government, but that in some cases fears concerning a possible attack on Hong Kong were exaggerated. There had been no request to make the new aircraft-carrier Sydney available.