Chang Threatened

Despatches reported that Super-Tuchun Chang, who is reconsolidating his grip upon Manchuria (TIME, Jan. 4 et ante), has apparently incurred the active displeasure of the U. S. S. R.

The Soviet Foreign Minister, M. Georg Tchitcherin, officially charged that Chang's troops interfered last week with the Soviet-operated sector of the Chinese Eastern Railway south of Harbin. Allegedly M. Ivanoff, the Soviet general manager of this sector of the railway, was "arrested" by Chang's soldiers, who thought that they should be allowed to ride free. Certain rolling stock appears to have been smashed, a mail car looted, and two Soviet engineers forced to operate trains on which the Chinese soldiers rode.

On the basis of these charges M. Tchitcherin sent a threatening telegram to Super-Tuchun Chang demanding the release of M. Ivanoff "within three days" and observance of the Chino-U. S. S. R. treaties, which guarantee Chinese non-interference with the railway in question.

Thus far M. Tchitcherin appeared to have entered merely a "normal protest" against the sort of act which irresponsible Chinese soldiers are in the habit of committing now and then. He despatched another telegram, however, to Tuan Chi-jui, the impotent Chief Executive of the Chinese Republic, at Peking. M. Tchitcherin demanded that the Tuan Government force Super-Tuchun Chang to heed the demands made upon him or authorize the U. S. S. R. "to use its own efforts" in coercing Chang.

Since the Tuan Government is notoriously so weak that its pretense of representing "China" is a mockery, M. Tchitcherin's "impossible" demand that it coerce the powerful Chang was regarded as a warning that the U. S. S. R. is seriously considering the employment of the Red Army against the pro-Japanese, anti-Soviet "Manchurian War Lord."

Late and unsubstantiated despatches from Moscow reported that Chang's troops had seized "numerous additional Soviet workers and officials at Harbin." Allegedly Chang imposed a complete censorship upon the local Soviet newspapers, which appeared "with big blank white pages" in protest.