AMERICAN AID

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27079, 13 May 1949, Page 7

AMERICAN AID

APPEAL FROM CHINA DEFINITE ASSURANCES SOUGHT NZPA—Copyright Rec. 1016 p.m. WASHINGTON, May 11. Dr Wellington Koo, the Chinese Ambassador, to-day asked the Secretary of State, Mr Dean Acheson, for a definite assurance of American moral and material support for the anti-Commun-ist forces in Asia. Dr Koo said it was vital that forces opposed to freedom should not think that America did not view with equal concern their advance on Europe and in Asia. He said he saw Mr Acheson to inform him of two decisions by the Chinese Nationalist Government. First, China will continue to fight; and secondly, the Chinese Government has decided to do everything possible to safeguard the constitution under which a free China has been organised and to preserve the freedom of the nation and the liberties of the people. Asked if he had asked definitely for a pact for the defence of Asia against Communism, Dr Koo replied: “ Not in the same form, but we ask for somet

thing along those lines to show that the problems facing the freedom-lov-ing nations are the same throughout the world.”

Dr Koo said he emphasised to Mr Acheson that lack of such an arrangement might be misinterpreted by the opponents of the Atlantic Treaty and Marshall Plan “as an intimation that what happens in China is not a matter of equal concern to the United States and the other Atlantic Treaty signatories.”

Dr Koo said Mr Acheson had given no definite assurances of any new American action, but had given a more sympathetic response to the Chinese suggestions than he had shown previously. From Shanghai it is reported that the Communists north-west of Shanghai have penetrated to within 22 miles of Shanghai and 15 miles of Woosung. At the same time two Red divisions opened an assault on Quinsan, 30 miles to the west, and other forces attacked Kashan, a railway town 30 miles to the south, slowly tightening the Communist stranglehold on Shanghai.