Immediately after the Embassy spokesman's statement, a. military spokesman, referring to Sunday's incident in Nanking Road when shots were fired at a party of four Japanese (reported elsewhere), said that two employees of the Army Press Bureau and two Japanese women were fired at by an unidentified Chinese assailant when leaving the Kwangsenyuan restaurant.
From investigations made by the Japanese authorities, he added, it was evident that the attempt was carefully planned and it was a deliberate terroristic act directed against employees of the Japanese army. Consequently the outrage was held in a very grave light by the Japanese authorities.
Moreover, he continued, an attack on unarmed civilians was bad enough but when an attack was directed against women it was something which the Japanese army could not condone.
"Taxi Dancers"
A correspondent then asked if it was true that the motive for the attack had been a quarrel and that the Japanese women were "Taxi dancers" from a local Japanese cabaret. At this point the spokesman allowed the correspondent to go no further with the question, stating "We don't need to listen any more to that, Investigations by the Japanese Military Police show that it is an attempt to distort the facts. It is unnecessary to finish the question."
Asked if the SMP. had requested the Japanese Embassy to inform them when Japanese parties intended to visit the Settlement, the spokesman replied that there had been no such communication. He added that the Council's request made a week ago did not concern Japanese nationals.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.