SHANGHAI TENSION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 26, 1 February 1932, Page 8

SHANGHAI TENSION.

CHINESE PATRIOTISM.

THE BOYCOTT AT WORK,

A NEW ZEALANDER'S IMPRESSIONS.

(By WILLIS AIEEY, Lecturer . ill History at. Auckland University College, who recently returned from a. visit to the East.)

In the crowded Nanking Road of Shanghai, where progress is always somewhat elow and buffeted through the infinite variety of the throngs on the pavement, one is suddenly impeded by a more dense and stationary knot. After all it is only some mechanical puppet device in a shop-window, which will draw a crowd in any city. Further on -is another knot. But this is different and I, too, became a gazer. In a window a large poster depicts China sheltering under the umbrella of the League of Nations, with the leading League Powers and America in attendance. But through the thin umbrella rains a shower of Japanese shells and bombs; China should seek salvation elsewhere. This is a new poster. Further along is another in similar vein, with its attendant crowd. I have seen none like them till now. They smack of Communist propaganda, which is reported to be again active in Shanghai. If so, the obvious appeal to nationalism, which Communism repudiates, is characteristic enough; for in China nationalism is a •rood stick with which to beat capitalist nnperialism, to further which, say the Soviet publicists, America is co-operating with the League in the Manehurian affair. But propagandist posters are nothing new, and one hardly notices, most of them except out of an academic curiosity as to their particular mode of appeal. Mostly they are frankly anti-Japanese, and one looks for no subtlety behind their call to Chinese nationalism against the aggressive enemy Japan. A iiuge bullying figure tramples, with the wooden "geta" that Japanese wear on their feet, on small inoffensive Chinese. Or a black ogre, Japan, spears P u "y Chinese on his bayonet against a background of red ruin. Again, a incp or North China streams red from a dozen Japanese daggers. Occasionally heroic youth, under the Chinese Nationalist banner of the white sun in a olue sky, marches against the barbarous invader. A Strict Boycott. A more organised manifestation of Chinese feeling is the very strict boycott against the importation or sale 01 Japanese goods. A New Zealander goes into a shop to buy a paint brtish. He selects one, inquires the price, and the boy serving him goes off to ask a superior. On returning, instead of Col *~ tinuing the deal, lie replaces the brush in its box and puts it away. "No can sell. He Japanee." Behind this are such organisations as the Kuomintang or Nationalist Party Organisation, the Chamber of Commerce, the Anti-Japanese and National Salvation Association, and the students. These unofficial bodies have sent pickets to inspect shops for Japanese goods, which are promptly sealed, so that they cannot be sold. Merchants, if they have not entirely approved, have generally submitted with a good grace. The Chamber of Commerce has taken on itself to fine and even imprison offenders. In an old temple which adjoins their building, and which by some past arrangement is not under the jurisdiction of the International Settlement Municipal Council, they have kept shut up numbers of merchants — even a dozen, it is said —until they chose to pay fines of a thousand or so silver dollars into the boycott funds. Protests and negotiations were for long unable to release the subjects of this illegal and unofficial imprisonment. Excitable Students. In the schools and colleges posters and notices proclaim the perfervid spirit— often a serious embarrassment to the more sober-minded principals and staff, much as they, too, may feel about Japanese policy. The students seem a rather excitable lot, rather undisciplined and half-baked, though earnest —a force to be reckoned with in Chinese politics. They strike, they demonstrate, they go in deputations of thousands to the Government at Nanking to demand war against Japan or warlike preparations, they start military training in their own institutions and demand arms. Literally they nearly killed Mr. C. T. i Wang, the very able Foreign Minister at ! the time, whom they accused of being too weak-kneed; and then his son wa*= forced to withdraw from his university by a strike. Such is the ferment of nationalism that one sees in China, distracting attention from such problems as famine, flood relief and prevention, and the whole task of internal construction and stabilisation. One sees nationalism very strong, too, in Japan, less hysterical, more dignified, but scarcely less blind or disturbing. In both countries it was there before. In China the anti-Japanese feeling has been strong since 1915. The boycott has gone on with varying intensity for years, especally since tho Tsinan incident of 1928. But the events in Manchuria of September 18 and since have fanned feeling to white-heat. That is probably the most disturbing feature of the whole business. Even a reasonable settlement will leave hot memories and smouldering suspicions that are dangerous to the peaceful development of the East, on which the world's future may so easily turn. Western Responsibility. All Chinese patriotism is not of the excitable variety. Many who feel deeply the critical days through which their country is passing and are unwilling to see her submit to what they consider a ggressive action are exercising a constructive influence. Moreover, it is surprising how little violent molestation of the Japanese there has been throughout China. One feels sorely for the people, such as college principals, who see this crisis endangering years of work to loster the spirit of peace and international co-operation. Rather than findnig disillusionment in the situation, we jot the West should seek by the policies |we support to help the constructive eitorts of these patient workers. Let us remember, too, that it is from us tnat nationalism has been learnt. Japan s imperialism, which she claims to be benevolent, is but a reflex of the Jiuropean imperialism of 1870-1911-China's nationalism is the stronger an-'l more passionate because it was largelv born of the resistance to foreign domination established in the nineteenth cenUiy. Much depends on the international psychology that develops in the East; but this in turn is going to be largely tile reaction, responsive or antagonistic, to the psychology and conduct of. the the -3^€fitern_Powers and peoples. . •