JAPAN AND SHANGHAI

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4814, 24 July 1939, Page 2

JAPAN AND SHANGHAI

CLAIMS NOW PRESSED. GROWING UNEASINESS. Considerable uneasiness is felt in the International Settlement here over increasing steps taken by the Japanese to press their hold over the Settelment, said a Shanghai message to the “Christian Science Monitor.” A series of seven demands recently made by Mayor Fu Siao-en, head of the Japanese-sponsored Government of Greater Shanghai, and backed by the Japanese military leaders includes the closing of all agencies of the Chungking Government in the Settlement and the ,French Concession, surrender of the Chinese courts to the Japanese-sponsored courts, and stoppage of all terrorisms and anti-Japanese campaigns. , Foreign members of the Settlement here see in these demands something more than a formal protest. They are convinced that they portend a Japanese effort summarily to take over the government of the whole Settlement. In the government of the Settlement proper, Japan has two members of the Council, Britain five, and the United States two. Before the Japan-ese-Chinese war there were also five Chinese members.

Japan already exercises a virtual armed overlordship over a section of the Settlement and has shown a tendency to place armed Chinese on police duty beyond that section—north of the Soochow Creek.

Council Defends Rights.

These “puppet” Chinese police have sometimes been stationed as sent.ries together with the Japanese military on several of the bridges—a practice which drew formal protest from Mr. Conell S. Franklin, American Chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Council.

Meanwhile, a recent protest by the Shanghai Municipal Council against regulations governing motor vehicular traffic “within the limits of the Japanese Naval Sector in Shanghai” seems to indicate a quasi-Japanese concession in that portion of the International Settlement lying north of the Soochow Creek.

The area in question has been rather largely controlled by the Japanese forces since the outbreak of Sino- Japanese hostilities in August of 1937.

In its protest, the Council affirmed that it alone was in charge of such matters as traffic rules. The Council has had rules that were theoretically applied—but it was difficult to do anything about them since military Japanese regarded themselves as above all law, and civilian Japanese had to be taken before the Japanese Consular Court under the prevailing extraterritorial situation.

Shanghai Trade Handicapped. The trade of Shanghai under these unsettled conditions has suffered considerably, yet the causes which gave it commercial pre-eminence have not changed radically, and there is no reason to think that these factors will

not make themselves felt again later. Trade is expected to return in as great a volume as formerly. The question is whether it will be shared on anything like the same terms as before by all foreign countries. That depends upon the peace terms and whether Japan will be able to retain the advantages which it at present has over its competitors.

The greater part of Shanghai's trading has for years been done by America, Germany, Britain, and Japan. To-day Japanese trade has run far ahead, while American, German, and British trade has been stagnant. Sections of Shanghai occupied by the Japanese are full of activity, “the streets thronged, not with indigent and poverty-stricken war refugees, but with those who are employed and have money to spend.” Shops are busy quarters almost impossible to find, rents are high, and communication lines are making money.