It was further rumoured that in the event of the failure of the Japanese efforts to set up Mr. Wang Ching-wei as head of the proposed new government, an attempt would have been made to try to induce Marshal Wu Pei-fu to take this post.
Since the beginning of the year, it was stated, Marshal Wu had been repeatedly approached by the Japanese. On one occasion, Mr. Wang Keh-min, head of the "Provisional Government" of Peiping, Mr. Wang Ching-wei and a high Japanese officer were said to have called at Marshal Wu's house, but he refused one of the heads of the "Anti-Communist National Salvation Association," giving him an army of 400,000 Chinese, but his stock answer was said to have been: "First, Japanese troops must be withdrawn."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.