The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, AUGUST, 8, 1930. CHAOS IN CHINA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 186, 8 August 1930, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, AUGUST, 8, 1930. CHAOS IN CHINA.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the tciong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Since the end of last year events have moved rapidly in China. The attempt made by Chiang Kai-shek and his "family party" at Nanking to assert ascendancy over the whole of this vast region, with its four or five hundred million people, was foredoomed to failure, but its collapse has come more speedily than was anticipated. So far back as December, 1920, there were four separate wars in progress in China, of which the most formidable w 7 as caused by the revolt of the Governor of Shansi, who set himself up as a viceroy independent of Nanking. Chiang Kai-shek has used bribery and corruption generously, but without avail, and aS his funds have diminished his difficulties have naturally increased. But within the last six months the situation has been greatly complicated by the revival of the Communist movement and the aggressive policy adopted by the Kuominchun forces that follow its direction.

It must be remembered that both the theory and the practice of government introduced by I Chiang Kai-shek have all along been alien from Chinese traditions. Chiang was at least nominally a disciple of Sun Yat Sen, and he first attempted to carry into effect the principles set forth in Sun Yat Sen's last will and testament. But this extraordinary document, which, it has been well said, "epitomises all the day dreams of a man bereft of political sagacity," was hardly fitted for use as a handbook of practical politics. Chiang speedily degenerated into a typical "war lord," and his own views lent colour and gave assistance to the Bolshevik propaganda which for a brief space made Hankow the centre of authority in China and placed the destinies of many millions of its people under Bolshevik control. For his own sake, Chiang was compelled to crush the Hankow Communist movement. But the Bolsheviks have been working energetically and insidiously during the past twelve months, and as Chiang's own methods of government have brought neither prosperity nor peace nor safety to the country, the Chinese are naturally inclined to experiment, in some other direction once more. It must be understood that the Chiang Kai-shek regime has 110 firm foundation in the sympathy or confidence of the people. An influential Northern newspaper has lately declared that China has lost all faith in the present system, and that "the spirit of pessimism and disillusionment now prevailing is even more deplorable than the material losses that the people have suffered in the past four years." In such an atmosphere the seeds of revolution quickly germinate, and the rapid spread of the Communist upheaval throughout the Southern provinces is an evil-omen for Chiang. It is possible that the brutality which seems to be characteristic everywhere of Bolshevik methods may defeat its own ends, and that the looting and slaughtering at Changsha may produce such a revulsion of popular .feeling as followed on the atrocities at Hankow a year ago. But Chiang no longer has the situation in hand, and it is at least probable that the dangers to which foreign residents, merchants as well as missionaries, are now exposed may force the Powers to intervene for the purpose of restoring order in the districts most accessible to foreign trade.