CHANG NEGOTIATING WITH JAPAN NOW.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18469, 22 May 1928, Page 4

CHANG NEGOTIATING WITH JAPAN NOW.

WANTS TO AVOID SHOW-DOWN BATTLE. (United Press Assn.—By Electric Tel egraph.—Copyrigh t.) (Received Mav 22, 1.5 p.m.) TOKIO. May 21. Today’s despatches indicate that Marshal Chang Tso-lin is now negotiating with Japan in an effort to arrange an orderly retreat into Manchuria, without making a show-down battle against the Nationalists, as he previously announced he intended to. Japan threatens to assume a show-down with regard to her whole and oft-reiterated declaration of a “ special interest in Manchuria and Mongolia” as it is believed the submission to Chang Tsolin’s desires could not but weaken the Japanese position and might be only temporising with what the whole Empire considers a question vital to the national warfare. It is stated that Japan intends to abide by the spirit of the Washington Declaration with regard to China, but ■that any action necessary to preserve Manchurian peace should not be interpreted as violating this spirit. The general tenseness of the situation is indicated by the fact that the wives of both the Japanese Minister at Pekin and the Leeation Counsellor left Pekin to-day for Tokio, while the total Japanese evacuation since the Tsinan incident has reached five hundred.—United Service.