CHINESE IN PANIC

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24418, 2 October 1940, Page 7

CHINESE IN PANIC

SHANGHAI INCIDENT SHOOTING OF A JAPANESE REPRISALS POSSIBLE (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) SHANGHAI, Sept. 30. The Japanese have blocked all exits in the Japanese-controlled area north of Soochow Creek leading to the International Settlement, and would not permit any Chinese to cross the bridges after a Japanese, believed to be an army officer, was shot on the North Szechwan road, the main thoroughfare of Hongkew suburb Troops out a cordon round a huge area, conducting house-to-house searches and creating panic among the Chinese, due to a fear of oossible reprisals. It is learned that the American naval authorities have issued orders forbidding American naval men and their families to proceed to the Orient from the United States, although they are not yet evacuating the families now here. It is authoritatively stated that Major-general Hart protested to Vice-admiral Hantaro Shimada against the action of the Japanese gendarmes on September 29, in seizing an American sailor who was allegedly intoxicated, and dragging him to a gendarme office, where he was beaten before being released. It is reliably stated that the gendarmes man-handled him in an effort to obtain the location of certain United States warships.

It is reliably reported that another Japanese, believed to be a navy commander, was fatally shot in another section of Japanese-controlled Hongkew.

Socony and other American companies are forbidding their employees to bring dependents to the Orient. Several companies have received instructions from New’ York to keep their commitments to the lowest possible level. Shipping companies are flooded with applications, mainly for American women and children planning to return to the United States.

The Japanese-dominated Nanking Government has announced that it is not renewing Britain’s 10 years’ lease of port facilities in the Liukwang Islands,- near Weihaiwei, expiring to-day, but Chiang Kai-shek’s Government announced a 10-year renewal of the British China Squadron’s use of the islands for a summer station.

French Concession police in Tientsin seized the radio equipment and books of the American Radio Service from the custody of the United States marshal, who, under protest, handed them to Japanese gendarmes.