CO129-567-5 Traffic of arms to China and Japanese air-raids on Kowloon-Canton railway 11-4-1938 - 19-1-1939 — Page 208

Company for the construction of a railway from Nanning,

the capital of Kwangsi to Yunnanfu and that another railway has been planned between Hanoi French Indo-China and the Province of Kwangsi, stated the Japanese Foreign Office

spokesmen.

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UNFRIENDLY ACT.

The spokesman added that the Japanese Government

likewise had been unofficially informed that in return

for French assistance, Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek had

consented to grant economic concessions to France.

The spokesman stressed that if France supplied war

material to Hankow this must beregarded as an unfriendly

act towards Japan.

Persistent reports that Japan shortly intends to

seize the strategically important island of Hainan - as part

of her South China campaign - have been followed by equally

persistent reports in Saigon that France is negotiating

with Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek for a protectorate over

Hainan, writes a Straits Times correspondent in Indo-China.

The French Ambassador to China, M. Naggiar, was last

week a passenger on the Messageries Maritimes lines Aramis

from Shanghai to Hong Kong.

The purpose of his voyage, it is believed in some

quarters in Saigon, was to enable him to proceed to Hankow

via Canton to negotiate with Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek

for the lease of Hainan Island.

TONS OF WAR MATERIAL.

Japanese occupation of Hainan would be a source of

great concern to Indo-China, it is contended. From Hainan,

bombers could menace the strategically important Haiphong-

Yunnanfu railway, only about 150 miles away.

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