CHINA & JAPAN

Hokitika Guardian, 20 September 1937, Page 5

CHINA & JAPAN

JAPS. ADVANCE CHINESE 'ARMY DANGER. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph—Copy r igh t). LONDON, September 18. The fate of the hemmed-in Chinese army south of Liangsiang remains uncertain. .A Tokio message states that a strong Chinese relief force is moving up. There is deeply mudded terrain, which hampers the Japanese from intercepting the progress of the Chinese relief force. It is claimed that at one point in yesterday’s fiercest onslaught, the Chinese left on the field 1200 dead, and innumerable guns. The Chinese appear to be concentrating at Laishuhsien, sixteen miles south-west of Chochow on the Japanese left flank. They resisted every yard throughout the past night’s fighting, but yielded slowly to superior Japanese tactics and armament. A message from Peking says that the Japanese claim a further advance of twelve miles south of Chochow. They are pursuing the Chinese, fanwise to the west and south. They have captured a Chinese armoured train, and six troop trains. Chinese, further east, are establishing strong defence works connecting Tsangchow with the PekingHankow railway. They also are opening canal banks to impede the Japanese steamroller tactics. JAPS. TAKE CHOCHOW TOKIO, September 18. The Japanese War Office announces that main bodies of the Japanese forces have triumphantly entered Chochow, west of which the Japanese have advanced to Sunlingticn. The Japanese are pursuing the • fleeing Phinose, whose losses in the PekinHanlcow railway fighting are estimated at six thousand. There is a b'attle now developing in Shansi '.between the Japan os- ana Chinese forces. The Chinese have taken up a position at the Timer Great Wall, between Yingchow and SoChow ADVANCE IN INNER MONGOLIA SHANGHAI, September 18. It. is reported that the Japanese have entered the Province of Sniyuan, in inner Mongolia, and that they are occupying Fengchen and are inon r >''- ing Pingtichunn, an important military base. 1 ' SHANGHAI FRONT LONDON, September 18. A Shanghai report says’ 'that torrential rain is falling there. It is holding up major activities. The Japanese have resisted all eounteiattacks by Chinese, and they are now strengthening their positions between the International Settlement, and the Chinese quarter or the crty «o as to preserve their communications.

The Chinese population of Shanghai, swollen by hundreds of thousands of refugees, .faces a serious food shortage due to the blockade and the peasants abandoning their farms. To-morrow, on tlm .anniversary of the opening of Japanese Manchuria, all shops will close. No meat will be sold, the people eating only vegetables. and devoting tlu> consequent «nvitiers to the Chinese war chest. Madame Chians Kai-Shek has handed over "the Nanking Orphanage, of which she was the founder, to the Minister of Health'for a field hospital. The orphan boys and girls who were organised into a corps for service on the war fronts, marched out, and a stream of wounded soldiers was carried into the hospital. The Chinese servants at the Orman Consulate have boon arrested on elpfres of espionage.

The Japanese have drawn attention to grave robbers, gangs of whom are using the labour forces to loot the tombs of the Munchu princess near Peiping. A local constable was found entertaining three of the bandits to tea at the police station. The bandits have released, without ransom, three more foreigners who were kidnapped at the Heishanhu mission school as a result of'more patriotic, guerilla hands, disarming the criminal element after the failure of other gangs to seize the captives and hold them to ransom. The ,T‘ir*apese did lmt take military rctinn lest the bandits murder their captives. The remaining three prisoners have been kept as hostages. The Hong Kong correspondent of the “Daily Mail” states that following a Japanese air raid on Canton last nmht. the Governor CUV iVn' ordered the arrest, mutilation and execution of forty traitors who sent n p Verov lights to indicate the objectives to Japanese bombing aero-

planes. The nop-an-im! at Shanghai of the liner Nagasaki Marti has created mystification. Officials decline to discuss the suggestion that the Chinese /bombed her in mistake for a transport. The passengers include Britons and foreigners.

and ending in a bomb-proof dugout, when Japanese war-planes Hew over, General Yeh Cbinenbing, Chief of Staff of the Eighth Route Army, formerly a Communist Force, and reputedly the best fighters in China, has given allegiance.to the Nanking Government and placed the troops ol’ the organisation at its disposal against tile Japanese. It is recalled that Chiang Kai-shek for ten years fought the Communist jArmy, which 'successfully resisted/ continuous attacks, and secured control of ■Shensi, Kansu and other regions which Nanking has now agreed shall be organised as special administrative areas, "itli due consideration to the former status, while the Communist Party may nominate candidates throughout China, at the forthcoming elections 'for the People’s Congress. The agreement is regarded as a significant step towards unity, to which Japan is opposed, as it has persistently sought to compel Nanking to allow her to send troops against the Communists. The Eighth Army is already engaged against the Japanese, but its eceotiveness against a modern force remains to be proved. CHINESE BOMBERS SHANGHAI, September 18. Chinese planes eight times raided Japanese areas in Shanghai at nignt time, .resulting in many conflagrations being caused.

Their bombs alsO' set fire to several buildings in the International Settlement, ineluding Lever’s Soap Factory, also a British-owned Egg Packing plant. The Chinese claim a direct hit on a Japanese warship. THE JAPANESE BLOCKADE TOKIO, September 18. The Japanese Foreign office announces that, in view of the strengthening Y>f Japan’s thousand mile blooicade, the Japanese will not recognise any transfer of Chinese vessels to other nationalities that has been mane subsequent t<) the proclamation of August 25 last, unless such transfer is in accordance with the laws of the countries concerned, and is fully carried out. Ail inspection will be underta.en where it is doubtful whether a Transfer is a satisfactory one. JAPANESE FEARS TOKTO, September 18. The Domei News Agency declares that the Japanese authorities are giving serious attention to large quantities of chemical warfare apparatus which have been imported by China from Europe, and especially from Russia, which importation suggests that the Chinese will resort to gas warfare.

CONSUL’S REPORT WELLINGTON, Sept, 18. The Chinese Consul received the following cablegram from Nanking: - Heralded by intense shelling and bombing of Chinese positions, the Japanese rene w ed their thrust yesterday towards Lotien and Luihang, on the Shangluii-Tientsin motor road. Sharp encounters •'occurred at points eastward of the highway, but the attackers made no progress. Japanese assaults on the .Chinese right flank in the Chapei area were also repulsed. It is officially stated that Chinese bombers sank a Japanese destroyer off Swatow. Chinese planes beat off eight Japanese planes from Canton. No bombs were dropped. WATCHING JAPAN’S INTERESTS. AND MOVES IN PACIFIC. (Received tliis day at It) a.in.) TOKIO, September 19. Broadcasting on the Pacific question and the Japanese Navy’s role, the naval commander, Umegaki, alluding to the sparsely populated New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, said Japan’s constantly increasing population was quite naturally ever more strongly expanding overseas, migrationally, commercially, and industriallv. like the fisheries, and it was the Navy’s duty to guard this expansion, particularly Japan’s vital interests in the West Pacific.

Considering the European situation, Britain was reasonably expanding tier naval and air forces towards the Pacific and Australia. Nevertheless, Japan was keenly watching these activities, besides the American naval movements and the preparation for an air line to New Zealand and any movements made bv the Soviet,