CHINA AND THE SOVIET

Hokitika Guardian, 14 October 1929, Page 8

CHINA AND THE SOVIET

‘UNDERGROUND ’PARLEYS. ( From SIR, PERCIAL PHILLIPS.) MUKDEN (Manchuria), Aug. 26. While the frontier forces of China rtnd Russia continue to indulge in noisy demonstrations of definance to wards each other on both the eastern and the western borders of Manchuria—although not on the scale reported in Tecent telegrams from those areas —another 'attempt is being made b;> “underground conversations” between representatives of both sides to end the present impasse and remove the danger o>f hostilities on a serious scale

The Chinese refuse to admit that they are again participating in negotiations, and it is stated officially here that they will not recede a hair’s breadth from the position which they have maintained in the - face of the Soviet’s ultimatum

Nevertheless it is realised that the deadlock cannot continue indefinitely, and it is equally obvious that China is in no position to cope with military operations on a large scale.

Several considerations are giving them to think at this moment. The eagerness of Chiang Kai-shek, the President of the Nationalist-Govern-ment, to concentrate a large field army in Manchuria consisting largely of the trusted troops of the Nanking Government has awakened no enthusiasm in Mukden.

The habitual suspicion with which all such- manoeuvres are regarded has been given expression in the polite refusal of Chang Hsueh-liang, Manchuria’s Governor, to receive any further consignments of Southern armies, even though flattered by the assurance of the nominal President of China that they will be entirely under his command.

The young Marshal has moved a considerable maimer or his own men northward by the Chinese railway without touching the mam line controlled oy the Japanese as far as Chang-chun. There has been some friction near'the latter place between Japanese railway guards and Chinese reinforcements desiring to cross the line, but in every instance the former have tactfully held their ground ' and prevented any incursion. 1

The situation on both the Manchurian frontiers has been overcoloured ot late owing to the influence of various propagandists through their subsided news channels. There' has been a certain amount of wild rifle fire,at night wherein the Russians seem to have predominated, and idle latter have also exercised their field-guns at some points without, however, doing any material damage.

MUKDEN MOVING AHEAD. There is no outward sign here of any deep concern over the dispute with Russia. The principal activity in Mukden at the present time is architectural rather than military. Carpenters and masons are more important that the soldiers one sees Wandering about good-humouredly in dusty grey uniforms, many with pads of clot over their nose • and mouth as a protection against the poison dust which drifts in steady clouds above the choked streams of pony and motor traffic in the torn-up streets of the walled city. Mukden seems ( to have concentrated on a desperate effort against time to throw off its ancient Chinese dress, become a European city, and assert its equality with the clean, spacious, modern town erected within the Japanese area around the railway station. New buildings of European design, mostly of concrete, are rising on every hand, and motor-omnibuses, packed with native shoppers, hurry over the uneven thoroughfares, ruled with an imperious hand by traffic police in khaki and British-type service helmets.

A WORRIED WAR LORD. Chang Hsueh-liang himself ’pursues his normal routine of seclusion in his summer villa on the outskirts of the old city. The War Lord, according to all accounts, has been rendered rather morose by the expressions of sympathy with Russia which he has heard from foreign friends and read in the European Press in China, a sympathy based in technical grounds and involving the broken railway agreement, not on any real love of the Bolsheviks—a difference which Chang is beginning to perceive. He has , rendered himself secure against surprise attacks by a thick belt of barbed wire, worthy of the Western Front, wholly enclosing his house and fortified by cables sufficiently charged to electrocute any visitor attempting to enter in an irregular way. • .*