EASTERN UNREST.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 303, 20 November 1935, Page 7

EASTERN UNREST.

FRESH WAR CLOUDS HOVER

REVOLT IN NORTH CHINA

LONDON, Nov. 18. The Times regards telegrams from Pekin and Tokio as indicating that a wax cloud is gathering in the Far East. The paper points out that the massing of Japanese troops in order to co-operate with troops in the revolting provinces in China gives the movement a different aspect than a merely local revolt against Nanking. The Tokio correspondent of the Times points out that although it is officially stated that the Japanese garrison is not being reinforced (which corrects a previous message), the newspapers announce that the commander at Tientsin is making precautionary arrangements with the Kwantung army, which is gravely, at rexiorts that General Chiang Kaishek is massing troops, and moreover will regard coercion in North China as a v iolation of the Tankgu Truce,] which the Japanese Foreign Office states prohibits Nanking sending troops to North China. • Moreover, the question whether the Tangku agreement will prevent the Nanking Government suppressing the revolt was answered at the Foreign Office by the statement that clashes between Government troops and the people of North China would create a serious situation. The correspondent further says that North China will separate from the Nanking Government within a week. According to Japanese correspondents five provinces are expected to sign a declaration of independence. The Foreign Office views benignly a Clnnese movement assuming the appearance of a revolt against oppressive government under Chinese generals. One of the chief aims of the new bloc will be co-operation with the Japanese army in checking the Communists’ advance.

The Daily Telegraph’s Pekin correspondent mentions Chahar, _ fiJiansi, Chihli, and Shantung as provinces detaching from Nanking and forming an autonomous administration as the result of a conference of leaders, in which General Chihyuan (Governor of Chahar) was most prominent. The News-Chronicle’s Pekin correspondent says the movement will mean that Japan will control the whole of Northern China, with a population' of 100,000,000. The Pekin correspondent of the Times says that serious developments are believed to be inevitable owing to Major-General Doihara pressing General Chihyuan in connection with the new regime. Meanwhile the Japanese army is holding 12 troop trains, two armoured trains, cavalry, tanks and artillery, in readiness at Shanhaikwan. Japanese engineers at Mukden are reported to be awaiting orders, while 25 troop trains are concentrated at Chinchow. Japanese circles are professing concern regarding troops at Nanking, which are reported to be moving in Honan and Kiangsu. The Daily Telegraph’s Tokio correspondent says that the War Office states that, despite Nanking’s hostility to Chihyuan, _ war is unlikely to develop. Japan is determined to insist on tlie fulfilment of the truce which ended the earlier Chinese conflict, whereby all troops hostile to Japan and Manchukuo must be kept out of the Pekin region.