CHINESE CRISIS REVIEWED

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 40, 10 May 1927, Page 13

CHINESE CRISIS REVIEWED

NANKING OUTRAGE SPEECH BY CHAMBERLAIN

CHEN’S EVASIVENESS (British Official Wireless.) LONDON, Monday. Sir Austen Chamberlain, Foreign Secretary, made a statement in the House ot Commons on the present state of affairs regarding the Nanking outrages. He said the replies of Mr. Kugene Chen, Nationalist Foreign Minister, to the Notes of Great Britain, United States, Japan, France and Italy, which demanded the punishment of the offenders, apology and compensation, were "unsatisfactory in substance and detail.” The serious and immediate issues we re shirked and irrevelant matter, and the usual Nationalist propaganda, were introduced. The five Governments were already discussing further action to be taken in view of the unsatisfactory nature of Mr. Chen’s reply, when the events took place in the Yangtse region whicli have entirely changed the position. When the outrages occurred, and even when the Powers’ Notes were presented, China, south of the Yangtse, was apparently united under the Nationalist Government, whose seat was in Hankow. There was, therefore, a Government which was responsible for the outrages, and which could be made responsible for reparations. Within four days after the date of Mr. Chen’s reply that the United Government in South China no longer existed, and that Mr. Chen and his Notes represented little more than himself and his personal opinions. He no longer spoke for Nationalist China, or for the Kuomintang Party. SPLIT AMONG NATIONALISTS The Nanking affair had precipitated a long-impending split within the Nationalist ranks. Looting of foreign property at Nanking and the shooting of foreigners were the culmination of the continued policy of agitation, rapine, terrorism and murder. The tools of this policy were the unpaid soldiery of the Nationalist armies and the mobs of the great cities. This policy had failed to create the anti-British incident at Hankow in January, and it had been unable to seize Shanghai owing to protective presence of the defence force. By March it was becoming directed against the Nationalist Generalissimo, Chiang-Kai-Shek, of whose power Communists were jealous. The organised side of the Nanking outrages appears to have been an attempt to embroil Chiang-Kai-Shek with the foreign Powers. The outrages at Nanking have already reacted in China in a dramatic, and to their authors’, unwelcome manner. Not two months ago it seemed as if the Southern Party and Nationalist armies would sweep China from south to north. Nanking has already checked this victorious career. If it has not wrecked it altogether it has split the Communist wing from the Kuomintang Party, and, most important of all, it has deeply discredited the Communists • and their foreign advisers in the eyes of all China. ENTIRELY NEW ASPECT In view of this momentous development the question of punishment for the Nanking outrages has assumed an entirely new aspect. The Hankow Government, which was responsible for the outrages, no longer controls Nanking. All offenders and Communist agitators have been punished by the Chinese Nationalists them■elves with a severeness and effectiveness of which no foreign power was capable. In Canton and in other towns the extremist organisations have been broken up and their leaders executed. The Nationalist Government at Hankow has lost its dominating position and is at present little more than a shadow of a name. The embargo on silver is still being maintained by the local government in Hankow. Silver commandeered from Chinese houses and banks has been taken to Wuhang. Most Chinese merchants have either left the city or are hiding. The foreign banks remain closed. Sharp fighting is reported in several areas.

CURFEW CEASES

POSITION PEACEFUL Cable. — Press A ssociation.—Copyright SHANGHAI, Monday. The curfew is being cancelled tomorrow following a month’s enforcement, indicating the peacefulness of the local situation.—A. and N.Z.