JAPANESE ATTACK

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 254, 24 September 1940, Page 8

JAPANESE ATTACK

INDO-CHINA POSITION

CONFLICTING REPORTS.

(United Press Association—Copyright.) (Ree. 12.20 p.m.) HANOI, teept. 23. The Japanese are reported to have attacked three outposts —Dongdang, Binhai, and Chinma. The French have issued the follow-, ing communique: “The Japanese forces attacked the French after receiving formal notification of the signing ot the agreement.” They added that the French had granted the Japanese special facilities in Indo-China in return for which Japan gave an assurance that she would respect France’s rights and interests in the Far East.

Major-General Nishihara is at present delaying carrying out the agreement and has postponed the landing of troops at Haiphong. • At Chungking the Chinese say the Japanese will be unable to attack from Indo-China for at least' a fortnight. They point out that the Chinese have destroyed Laokay bridge, also a section of the Haiphong-Kunming railway. CHINESE PROTEST.

The Chinese Foreign Office has strongly protested to the French authorities in Indo-China against the agreement with Japan and has asserted “China is entitled to the measures of self-defence deemed necessary.” It is added that the French must bear 'responsibility for the losses and consequences. At Washington the Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Hull) declared that the status quo of Indo-China had been upset through, duress. He reiterated the United States’s disapproval, but did not indicate possible United States steps to give concrete weight to the disapproval. The Hanoi correspondent ot the Associated Press says the Japanese resumed the attack on the l'reach positions near .Langson in the afternoon after Japanese war planes had bombed Langson aerodrome. Sec “French Yield” —Page 7