PEKING: China protested to Britain tonight [March 20] about visits of United States warships to Hong Kong, and accused Britain of allowing the US to use Hong Kong as a war base, reliable sources said.

The Chinese charge was contained in a Note handed over here tonight to Mr Donald Hopson British Charge d’Affaires.

The sources said Mr Hopson denied the Chinese allegations.

This is the first time since February 1966 that China has lodged a protest about the presence of American warships in Hong Kong. — Agencies

[Meanwhile, as reported by agencies in Washington,] The Senate majority leader and the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee both said on Sunday [March 19] they thought the current top-level Guam conference would be followed by increased US military pressure on North Viet-Nam.

Senator Mike Mansfield (Democrat) said some “very important military decision” that could intensify the Viet-Nam war may emerge from the conference.

And in another interview Senator J.W. Fulbright, (Democrat) expressed his personal view that US manpower and pressure would be increased in the near future with the aim of decimating the enemy and forcing a surrender.

Interviewed on a radio television news programme, Senator Fulbright said: “I think they will increase the manpower over there substantially in the near future, probably following this conference and the pressure will be increased and they will decimate these people until they do give up, and then they will begin reconstruction.

“...We’ll have Mr. Ky acting as President and we’ll go through all that rigmarole all over and we’ll be on the way to creating a new society.”

He questioned the wisdom of the United States attempting to direct the creation of a new society in an Asian nation with a culture alien to this country.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2017