CHINA PEACE TALKS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27040, 26 March 1949, Page 7

CHINA PEACE TALKS

NATIONALISTS SEEK EARLY NEGOTIATIONS REQUEST TO COMMUNISTS NZPA—Reuter—Copyright NANKING, Mar. 24. The Ho Ying-chin Cabinet, at its first meeting to-day, decided to send a telegram to the Communists expressing the hope that they would promptly appoint their delegates for the peace negotiations and suggest a time and place for formal talks to begin. About 20,000 Communists of General Chen-keng’s Central China armies are moving south in Anhwei province in an attempt to attack Nanking, an important strategic centre on the north bank of the Yangtse. The Anhwei Provincial Government, which has its temporary seat >at Nanking, has begun to evacuate the city. A Nationalist military spokesman said the Communists now had 30 armies spread along the north bank of the Yangtse in the Anhwei and Kiangsu provinces, and were continuing to expand their grip on the north bank in readiness for a crossing which, the spokesman said, might come before May if the Communist North China forces were brought south soon enough. The spokesman said the Communists were endeavouring to sneak through the Nationalist defences along the Yangtse in civilian clothes.

Unconfirmed reports from Chinkiang to-day said that half of the 40 Communist river craft which attempted to cross the river 110 miles north-west of Shanghai had been sunk.