OPUNAKE TIMES ‘Speaks for the District. TUES., FEBRUARY 14, 1939. JAPAN THRUSTS SOUTHWARD

Opunake Times, 14 February 1939, Page 2

OPUNAKE TIMES ‘Speaks for the District. TUES., FEBRUARY 14, 1939. JAPAN THRUSTS SOUTHWARD

Japan’s southward move in an ‘ endeavour to get a s.trangle-hold | on China has now reached Ham- 1 an Island, where Japanese forces | have landed. This move has been , progressive. In May of last year j Amoy, one ox the oldest of Chinese treaty ports and one of the finest harbours on the coast, was the scene of a Japanese landing, which even as a demonstration was serious; the fact that the port possessed facilities for drydocking and repairing of ships gave the invasion a particularly sinister meaning. Later occurred the systematical! v ruthless bombing of Canton, which was viewed with apprehension by foreign Powers, especially in its bringing Hongkong definitely within the zone of war. The military landing on Hainan Island similarly amuses such anxiety. Early in last year the Paracels, a group of inhospitable islets south-east of Hainan and a third of the way across from French Indo-China to. the Philippines, were understood to be the subjects of Japanese strategic designs ; so France sent a body of Annamese police to take possession, with a view to establishing a seaplane bas.e there as a precaution against attack on IndoChina. Soon afterwards France and Britain, perturbed about the Japanese thrust southward, jointly requested Japan to refrain from occupying Hainan Island, on the ground that such a step would endanger the security of their respective possessions at Kwang-chpw-wan and Hongkong ; the Portuguese coastal town of Macao would also have been threatened. Japan thereupon protested innocence of any design on Hainan Island. Whatever may have induced Japan to act in contravention of that assurance. the official announcem°nt of the landing must he interpreted as a deliberate disregard of the French and British request. Neither of those Powers, nor Portugal, can be unconcerned. for a base of Japanese operations iu this region may at any moment he turned, by a decision in Tokio, into a grave menace of their possessions in the Orient.