JAPANESE CLAIMS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 195, 19 July 1937, Page 7

JAPANESE CLAIMS

NORTH CHINA DISPUTE. NO ULTIMATUM ISSUED. ATTEMPT AT LOCALISATION. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received July 19, 9.50 a.m. , TOKIO, July 18. Cabinet has decided to continue its efforts to localise the North China dispute. In the meantime, Mr Hikada, Japanese Charge d’Affaires, conferred with Mr Wang Chung Hui, Chinese f oreign. Minister at faulting, and asked the Chinese Government not to take any measure calculated to interfere with the fulfilment of the three-point agreement which the Japanese anege was, readied on July 11 with the Chinese Administration in .North China.

This agreement, which the Chinese deny having concluded, is stated to consist of acceptance of the responsibility for tno previous fighting, an apology and the punishment of the leading culprits, and steps to control the anti-Japanese movement and Communism in North China. Mr Wang Chung Hui told Mr Hikada that he woulu probably give a reply on July 19. The Domei News Agency understands that there is no question of an ultimatum, as was earlier reported, hut when Colonel Okido, Japanese Military Resident Officer, earlier saw General Ho Ying-cliin, Chinese War Minister, he intimated that the Japanese army would possibly take measures if China despatched Central Government troops to North China or used its air force.

The spokesman at the Japanese War Office said that since the original clash at Lukouchiao the Japanese had made extraordinary efforts to reach a local settlement. China, however, had not only shown no sincerity in carrying out the agreement of July 11, but there were indications that Nanking was making feverish war preparations against Japan, who had been obliged therefore to show a “clear-cut attitude.”

VIRTUAL ULTIMATUM.

MUST REPLY WITHIN 48 HOURS,

Received July 39, 9.50 a.m. SHANGHAI, July 18.

Mr Hikada’s representations are described as a, virtual ultimatum to which Mr Wang Cluing Hui must reply within 48 hours.

APOLOGY TENDERED

FOR RECENT INCIDENTS.

Received Julv 19, 9.50 a.m. TIENTSIN, July 18.

The British United Press correspondndent says that the Japanese military spokesman announces that Mr Sung Cheli Yuan, chairman of the Hopei-Chahar Political Council, saw General Katsuji, commander of the Japanese forces in Cliina, apologised for the recent incidents, and agreed to arrange for the fulfilment of the Japanese demands. Chinese officials here doubt whether the majority of the commanders of tho Chinese Twenty-Ninth Route Army would accept, as the terms are considered degrading. 1 INDEPENDENT STATE. REPORTED DEMAND BY JAPAN.

LONDON, July 18. It is reported from Pekin that the Japanese are demanding the fusion of North Hopei, East Hopei and Chaliar into an independent State, with Tientsin as the capital. Further Japanese demands are the conversion of Tangku into a Japanese naval base, the demilitarisation of the Pekin area, including Lukouchiao, and a demand that Japanese troops should garrison Pekin city. The Japanese Embassy at Nanking has demanded that troop movements to North China shall cease. Japan no longer will tolerate the entry of Chinese troops into the Hopei province. Signs of anti-Japanese boycott, China’s strongest peaceful weapon, are beginning to appear. The student body, the most powerful engine of public opinion in China, has issued a liianilesto demanding a boycott of tho Japanese goods pouring in without duty through the frontier of North China. The movement is now being extended to all Japanese products with deadly efficiency. The boycott has already proved that it is an impenetrable wall against which no weapon seems to be effective.

Reports of a change of atmosphere in Tokio are welcomed in Chinese political circles, but it is doubted whether Japanese statesmen are able to restrain the army, the rank and file of which is truculent and ready to overthrow its leaders if they accept a humiliating settlement. ' China has not yet invoked the Washington Treaty, but simply issued a memorandum to interested Powers explaining the situation. ]t is confirmed that several Chinese divisions have arrived at Paotingfu, 85 miles south of Pekin, and four divisions at Hopei. A conference of the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs (Mr lv. Hirota), the Minister of War (General Sugiyama), the Minister of the Navy (Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai), and the Minister of Finance (Mr 0. Kaya) resolved to accelerate the Sino-Japanese negotiations. The Domei news agency. Tokio, says that hope for peace is dwindling, owing to the delay in Die negotiations. There is a steady advance of Chinese troops northward, and the agency says that the head of the Chinese Central Government at Nanking, Marshal Chiang Kai-shek, is read}' to assume tile command of them.

The Japanese Cabinet announces that tlie situation does not admit of further procrastination. The Government insists that it has no territorial designs on North China. It simplv wants a local settlement, with, amicable protection of Japanese citizens in China.

.NINE POWER TREATY. NO ACTION BY AMERICA. ■WASHINGTON, July 17. The Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Hull) in a statement to the Press, without naming any country, but obviously directed to China and Japan, said that war in the Far East was impossible without encroaching on American and other interests. It was understood earlier in the day that the Chinese Ambassador had requested the United States to invoke the Nine-Power Treaty against Japan. Mr Hull reiterated the traditional American foreign policy and concluded: “We avoid entering alliances or entangling commitments, hut we believe in co-operative effort by peaceful means.” *

The Washington correspondent of the New York -Times says it is not believed that the United States will take

direct action on the Chinese appeal under the Nine-Power Treaty at present. •