Hongkong, Apr. 1.
O-OPEBATIOM with Japan was the "indispensable way" for China to maintain her existence and independence and bring about stability, in East Asia, instead of following the "common road to destruction" by carrying on hostilities, Mr. Wang Ching-wei, former Deputy General Executive of the Kuomintang, declared in a new peace statement issued here last night. There could oe no doubt, he said, that Japan and China must follow the: ame road to ce-existence and ce-prosperity.
"If resistance is for the sake of the existence and independence of the state, then it is quite a different question," he declared "but if resistance is resorted to as a means of bringing about.nternal unity, then I am absolutely against it," he declared. He gave details on peace parleys conducted through the German Ambassador, Dr. Oscar Trautmann.
His statement disclosed that Gen. Chiang Kai-shek and high military officers of the Kuomintang had expressed their willingness to accept peace terms offered by Dr. Trautmann, then German Ambassador to China, on November 28 and 29, 1937.
Gen. Chiang was willing to have Germany act as intermediary and Dr. Trautmann regarded his interview with the Generalissimo as a success, Mr. Wang's statement revealed.
Comparing the peace terms adenced by Dr. Trautmann in 1937 with ihe statement made by Prince Ayamaro Konoye when he was Prelier of Japan on December 22, 1938 Mr. Wang wondered why the terms of 937, which he said were more stringent than the views contained in ye's statement, were ac-
Chiang as a basis for on, while the Prince Konoye ent was not so regarded. Mr. Vang pointed out that at the time Dr. Trautmann approached Cen g and high military officers in a's military situation was not as unfavourable as when Prince ye's statement was made, Nanking, Hankow and numerous other ities had fallen to the Japanese in intervening year, he recalled Members of the Supreme National Defence Conference of the Kuomin-sang had expressed their approval of negotiations for peace at the time of Dr. Trautmann's intervention, Mr Wang's statement said, citing a re-ort of Mr. Hsu Mo, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Kuomintang Government.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.