The Birmingham Evening Mail has taken the bizarre step of printing its front page headline in Mandarin in a desparate attempt to get the new owners of MG Rover to break its silence on its plans for the Longbridge carmaker.

On Friday the paper's front page demanded 'No more Chinese whispers' in Mandarin.

The paper has compiled a list of what it sees are key questions regarding the MG Rover takeover by Nanjing Automobile Corporation. They have been faxed to its public affairs' director, with the promise that failure to respond will see the paper take them to the Chinese embassy.

The paper says today: "Vague plans to restore production of MG sports cars have surfaced in the weeks since Nanjing Automobile's successful swoop for Longbridge in July, including the possibility of up 2,000 jobs.

But no flesh has been put on the bones of these aspirations, and many in Birmingham and the motor industry are sceptical they can be delivered.

The atmosphere has been further tainted by claims that the Chinese operation was merely a 'lift and shift' exercise to take all the Longbridge production lines east."

There has been response to the questions or the front page article.

Nanjing has now paid its £53m purchase price for MG Rover to administrators from PricewaterhouseCoopers.