The Press TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1942. China’s Internal Differences

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23809, 1 December 1942, Page 4

The Press TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1942. China’s Internal Differences

General Chiang Kai-shek’s statement at the tenth plenary session of the Kuomintang that “the “ Communist Party will be treated “ like any other civil or military organisation if it minds its own “ business and does not attempt to “ usurp the Government’s func- “ lions, and if it does not organise “ its own army or attempt to under“minc the national morale” shows that, as always happens when the war against Japan is going well, China’s internal unity has begun to wear thin. For the sake of bievity, but at the expense of accuracy, the periodic outbursts of internal dissension in China are usually spoken of as conflicts between the Kuomintang and the Communists. In fact, the recurring quarrels between the Kuomintang and the Communists arc only one aspect of a much wider conflict between those elements in Chinese political life which are reactionary and oligarchic in tempei and those which are radical and democratic. Moreover, in China as elsewhere reactionaries habitually fasten the label Communist to anyone and everyone who opposes them. Thus, the attack on the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives which led to the resignation of Rcwi Alley was excused by Chungking officialdom on the ground that the movement was falling under Communist influences, although the veal motive behind the attack was that the banking interests now so strongly entrenched in the Kuomintang feared the implications of the new system of democratic control in industry which is the basis of co-operative organisation. The Communist movement proper in China is not as large as is commonly supposed by those who have taken literally propaganda accounts of the exploits of the “ Communist ar- “ mies.” Its influence is confined to a few areas, and its doctrines and practice in the political and economic fields are a long way from orthodox Communism. There are three main reasons why Chinese Communism has acquired an importance out of proportion to its numerical strength. The first is that Chungking knows well enough that another attempt to exterminate Communism comparable to that of 1935-36 would bring an immediate breach with Russia —and since the beginning of the Sino-Japanese war China has had greater material assistance from Russia than from Britain and the United States together. There is always a fear in Chungking that Russia may one day send military supplies direct to the Communist organisations instead of to the National Government. The second reason is that the Communists, although a small minority of China’s population, are often, in their protests against reactionary tendencies in the Kuomintang, spokesmen for millions of Chinese who are nearer to liberalism than to any other political creed. The third reason why China’s Communists are important is that the organisation of resistance to Japan in North China is mainly their achievement. North of the Yellow river, the only large Chinese military force is the so-called Bth Route Army, consisting of some 120,000 regulars and possibly 500,000 guerrillas; and in the same area the only Chinese civil authority (apart from Japan’s puppet governments) is the Border Government of Hopei, Shansi, and Chahar, which is the creation of the Bth Route Army. The great achievement of the Border Government, and the reason for its survival, is that it has put through a programme of agrarian reform. Chungking therefore regards it with suspicion and would gladly disown it, but for the fact that to do so would be to hand over a strategically important area to Japan. Here at least the Communist movement in China is sponsoring the only sort of revolution which will shake the Chinese peasant out of his political apathy and make him a fighter with something worth defending—tire revolution of the small proprietor against usurers and oppressive landlords.