GROWING UNITY IN CHINA

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21580, 17 September 1935, Page 12

GROWING UNITY IN CHINA

Effect of Japanese Tactics VIEWS OF EMINENT PHILOSOPHER NEW YORK, August 12. Japan's latest activities in North China have had the incidental but important effect of revealing China's growing strength and national unity, in the opinion of Dr. Hu Shih, one of the world's greatest living philosophers and leader of the Chinese literary renaissance. This opinion carries additional weight because Dr Hu Shih has for long been ranked as the foremost candid and fearless critic of the Nanking Government, writes Hallett Abend, in a message from Shanghai to the "New York Times."

Pointing out in an interview the concessions which the Chinese have made in response to Japanese "wishes" backed by the "mailed fist," Dr. Hu Shih asked: "Now what have the Japanese military achieved by their acts, their demands?" He then proceeded to answer as follows: "They have certainly succeeded in making the Japanese concession in Tientsin and probably many other places in the province of Hopei the safest refuge for Chinese political offenders and reactionary leaders, who will continue to plot all kinds of separatist movements against the State and Government of China. They have also succeeded in practically demilitarising Peiping and Tientsin and a vast region around, leaving undefended frontier cities at the mercy of any possible invasion. And they have .certainly succeeded in concretely demonstrating to China and the world, that # is the military caste which has dictated the policy of Japan. "Deep Resentment Left" "Above all, they have wrung from the Chinese Government an official decree forbidding all anti-Japanese utterances and action in China. In fact, all overt action and publication of this kind, which can be prohibited by law and police work, have long since disappeared. What remains is a deep-rooted resentment which no Government can ever suppress, and which the show of the mailed fist on the part of a 'friendly power' can only strengthen and deepen, if not perpetuate. This resentment is all the more formidable when it is not given vent in the cheaper but less dangerous forms of posters, speeches, and demonstrations. "The only effective antidote for this inward resentment is a miracle. '.The miracle of truly great,_ far- ! sighted statesmanship wiil remove | at" the roots all causes of friction, i r.uspicion, and hatred between two peoDles whom geographic proximity ind" 2000 years of close cultural relationship should not permit to remain at odds. Will Jaoan's Foreign Minister, Mr Hirota, and the first Japanese Ambassador to China, Mr Ariyoshi, be permitted to perform or hasten the coming of the miracle? Time alone can tell.

Order Maintained "I wish to point out that even during these most humiliating and annoying days in North China the careful observer cannot fail to perceive certain signs indicating the rise of a new and united China. Under the most trying conditions the government has been able to maintain order and the population has remained calm. Without the slightest act to embarrass the Government, Chinese armies have been moved about, and powerful commanders have been removed from important offices at Japanese behest. The Government has been able to make tremendous concessions to the Japanese—concessions which three years ago no government in Nanking could have dared to make without inviting serious internal dissensions and revolts. "All these are signs of growing strength and national unity. Only a united nation with a strong government can afford to be weak—a truism which the Japanese militarists, in their complaints against China, simply cannot understand.''