CHINESE "NOT TO YIELD AN INCH"

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 152, 15 July 1937, Page 5

CHINESE "NOT TO YIELD AN INCH"

(Received 15, 8.45 a.m.) SHANGHA1, July 14. Half-anJiour after miduiglit sharp fighting occurred, ineiuding artillery

and trench mortars, nearer the walls of Peking than hitherto. Nanking's instruQtions to the Chinese commander are to yield not an inch ol! territory and to sign no agreement. It is declared to be untrue that the Chinese hav© apOlogised and that a trnce has been arranged. A Tiehtsin message declares that negotiations have reached a deadlock. Japan angered the Chinese by prenleditated attacks and the violation of the first day's armistice was a rejoinder. Suggestions from Nanking and Paris indicate that Britain, America _ and France intend energetically to ihtervene in the dispute. The Japanese Foreign Office spokesman says Japan will not welcome such intervention. He deolared that the crisis has not abated and the future depends on China. Meanwhile Lieut.-General Katsuki has arrived to take over the Japanege command in North China and protect Japanese rights. „ The British Bnited Press in Shanghai says: "Even the Communists have joined in the patriotic ohorus that the Japanese must be driven out of China.' 1 General Li Chung Yen, coihmander, in-chief at Kwangsi, telegraphed to Marshal Chiang Kai Shek pledging his army's support to the national resistance of Japan. Japanese troops have begun a two days' march towards Peking from Tientsin with full war equipment in sweltering heat. The British United Press' Tokio^ correspondent says that the Chinese Charge d'Affaires has requested the evacuation of the areas recently occupied by the Japanese and the cessation of further advances. He received a firm refusal and was told that Japan held China responBible for the crisis.