War Minister Tells Diet Yangtze Region Withdrawal Unlikely Tokyo, Jan. 30.
Preparations for a prolonged stay of Japanese troops in China are being made by the Army, It-Gen. Seishiro Itagaki, Minister of War, declared here today in reply to an interpellation at a plenary session ai the Budgetary Committee of the House of Representatives.
Gen. Itagaki also emphatically denied that the Japanese Army intended to evacuate Central and South China areas now under occupation. Such rumours, he said, had been current since December 22 last year when Prince Ayamaro Konoye, former Premier, asserted that Japan did not harbour territorial ambitions in China.
The War Minister declared that the Army shared with the nation the view that the Yangtze River valley was "important."
The debate was initiated by Mr. Reikichi Kita, Minseito, who recalled that Japanese forces sent to Siberia in 1918 and those sent to Shanghai in 1932 had been withdrawn after a brief period.
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