COMMUNISTS APPEAL TO SHANGHAI PEOPLE TO REMAIN AT WORK

Wanganui Chronicle, 30 May 1949, Page 5

COMMUNISTS APPEAL TO SHANGHAI PEOPLE TO REMAIN AT WORK

SHANGHAI, June 29 (Recd. Bpm). The Communist General Chen Yi look over the administrative control 01 Shanghai today and announced that the supreme governmental organ would be a newly-established Military Control Commission, says the United Press. The first act of the Commission was to outlaw Nationalist gold yuan currency. Legal tender now is jenminpiao notes of the People's Bank of China.

Two trains left Shanghai on Friday for Nanking and one arrived, and telephone communictions with other Communist-held cities has been resumed. The Custom House is again operating. Reuter’s correspondent in Shanghai says life has almost returned to normal, at least on the surface. There are the usual traffic jams, crowded streets, packed cinemas, and small craft are again moving on the Whangpoo River. General Chen Yi, in an address to an audience, including the acting Mayor and heads of nine municipal bureaux and six departments, exhorted city and Government employees to carry on normal duties with renewed effort. "The present change is historic and unprecedented in scale and thoroughness,” said Chen Yi. He said the revolution was a revolution of the people and purely for the people. He branded the flight of the Nationalist leaders as entirely unnecessary and useless, and said the People's Liberation Army was going to sweep the rest of China. Communists occupied Tungkwan, the eastern gateway to Shensi and a section of the Lunghai railway running west from Rungkwan to Siam, according to the Peiping radio. Communists are now said to control almost the entire length o. the Lunghai railway which girdles China. Quoting a Communist general headquarters communique, the Peiping rad», claimed that Nationalist losses since the outbreak of the civil war in 1946 totalled more than 5,200,000. The Nationalists lost more than 300,000 men during February, March and April this year, during which period the Communists occupied 94 cities and towns, including Nanking. The Hongkong Government today ordered a nightly curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. along the frontier of the territory with China. The Government also imposed prohibiiton on the movement of craft during the same hours in British waters adjacent to the Chinese coast, both east and west of the terriory. The curfew will be enforced for three months from June 1.

Land and sea restrictions apply in areas which were the scenes of recent murders of Hongkong British and Chinese police. Bandit gangs, over many years, have made frequent forays from Chinese territory into this region, where British military and police patrols are at present being greatly strengthened. Inhabitants along the Hongkong side of the frontier are being registered for security purposes. The cruiser Jamaica arrived in Hongkong today to reinforce the British naval forces. There are now three cruisers attached to the fleet based on Hongkong, the others being the London and the Belfast.