DRIVE INLAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23507, 18 November 1939, Page 12

DRIVE INLAND

SOUTH CHINA JAPANESE FORCES lAD VANCE OF 30 MILES CITIES OCCUPIED !By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright (Received November 17, 5.5 p.m.) NEW YORK, Nov. 10 The Japanese have occupied Pakhoi, 5n Kwangsi', Province, after heavy fighting in £ho suburbs, says tho Shanghai correspondent of the American United Press. According to tho Domei (Japanese) .■news agenev's correspondent with tho Wes, it is intended to drive inland to Anning, in Kwangsi. A column may ho sent 1 later into Yunnan Province, which adjoins Kwangsi, on the northern border of French Indo-China. Tho Japanese vanguard is already SO miles inland. Chinchow, Fanclieng and other cities have been occupied. From Chungking, the Chineso deny that Pakhoi has fallen, and claim that the Japanese were repulsed at Lungmen after a night of bitter fighting, but are maintaining an insecuro foothold at Shislia, a few miles away. Tho Chinese aro/rushing reinforcements to Lungmen. A Tokio despatch says tho Japanese Foreign Offieo spokesman said that Wang Ching Wei was delaying indefinitely the proclamation of the Central China Government at Japan's request, because certain matters remain for clarification.

Ho added that it was too early to predict the date of tho withdrawal of the Japanese forces, as Wang is reported to havo demanded. : The negotiations between the Soviet •Charge d'Affaires, M. Smetanin, and the Japanese Foreign Minister, Admiral Nomura, are at present on economic matters. Suggestions that they are for an agreement between Russia and Japan' on the partition of China .are ridiculed.