THE REMAKING OF CHINA

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 79, 27 December 1928, Page 16

THE REMAKING OF CHINA

TASK FOR NEXT PRESIDENT CHIANG KAI-SHEK’S SELECTION UNREST IN CENTRAL ASIA The Nationalist government which inaugurated Chiang Kai-Shek as its first President borrowed much from the orgauisation of modern Russia, but it has nothing like the internal strength which enabled the Soviets Io beat off the formidable coalition which beset it in 1918. Chiang Kai-shek is no Lenin, and the Chinese as yet lack the capacity of the Russians for organising in the manner required by the modern state.

On their own lines of course, the Chinese are wonderful organisers, or we hould never have had so .. many novels and movies about their sinister secret societies. But from time • immemorial they organised in a fashion which has little to do with politics or with public welfare. Families : are tied together with prodigious ramifications; business contacts lead to elaborate far-reaching organisations; great secret societies have their own system of retributive justice which has nothing to do with the law or the police. ■ The Chinese Not Violent. It is generally agreed by those who know them best, that the Chinese are not a violent or lawless race; only a rather docile and tractable, people, indeed, could have tolerated for so long such inequitable and demoralising conditions as they ; have had ;to contend with. Some .of their national . traits suggest that if they should be able to . work out a legal and governmental system that fits them they may become a . rather exceptionally law-abiding nation. Chinese merchants have an excellent name for probity, but the same man who will make any sacrifice, not to be less than his word in a private undertaking will regard the public purse as fair game for spoliation. Of course China is not unique in this respect. But in China the government has usually been both corrupt and extortionate, and it has corrupted the nation’s, morals in whatever pertains to public affairs. Lack of Public Spirit. This," and not lack of business ability, is what has made the Chinese in general approve of the administration vf the customs by a foreign expert. The Nutioniallsts. feel it as a humiliation, but are willing to continue the practice for the present, partly to assure the success of the service, and partly to avoid the friction with the powers

which refusal to go on with the arrangement would cause. It is rightly felt that nationalising the administration of the customs Is less Important than regaining control of the tariffs, which is one of the points on which the new government is most strongly bent. Even here, however, China is showing more moderation than some Nationalist utterances would lead one to expect, and under Chiang Kai-shek It is likely to-continue the policy of claiming a lot, but not pressing claims to the point of break. How much actual power will be in his hands is still to be seen, but from his record it may be a good deal. Even in old and well-established republics the powers of the President may be great and in times of stress almost unlimited. China, although a republic was declared there after the downfall of the Manchu empire in 1911, is even yet hardly a republic as the term is understood in western countries. Chiang Kai-shek, for example, was not elected president on the principle of majority rule, but was chosen for the office by the council which plays much the part of a cabinet.

Chiang Kai-shek as President.

This, however, gives him a stronger moral position than he would have had, for example, if he had arrested the council and proclaimed himself dictator with the help of his troops. If not a full-fledged democracy, China is nearer to being a truly self-governing nation than Italy, Spain. Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, or Albania, to stick to European countries. And whatever the President’s constitutional powers, it may be assumed that, he will be strongly influenced by the party organisation which put him in office. How the rank and file of the Kuomintang regard his appointment has not been made clear, but it is significant that he has.put much emphasis on his ruling as a civilian and not as a military dictator. Dread of a military dictatorship was the chief cause for the opposition which wrecked one of his campaigns two years or so ago and compelled him to retire for a time from pul ’.c life. It will be recalled that in the early days of his success he was distrusted by the psychologists of Moscow because he seemed to have, in him the makings of a Napoleon, and the Russian advisers: of the Kuomintang discouraged the drive on Shanghai because: they, feared that he would become embroiled with the British and bring on intervention unfavourabe to the progress of the revolution. Effects of Break with Moscow. This danger in fact did exist, but a hostile collision was averted, and the British began to Took more favourably on Chiang Kai-shek after his break with the left wing which had tried to curb his powers. Whether or not Nanking’s quarrel with Moscow was intended to win favour in London and Washington, no doubt the expulsion of - the Russians and the harsh treatment of Chinese Communists did much to inspire confidence in foreign countries. The powers, it is plain, now take a benevolent view of the Nationalist regime, and the accession of Chiang Kai-shek to the presidency inspired congratulations from President Coolidge which doubtless were more sincere than the formal compliments which he had extended a littleearlier to Zogu I. when he made himself king of Albania. To some extent western imperialism has broken down in its dealings with China. There is nothing like the "consortium” which before the war was trying to put the country more hopelessly in bondage by compelling it to accept n great international loan. Still less is there the disposition to carve up China into concessions, zones and spheres of interest, which began in the later 19th century and continued until the World War upset things in the Far East. Even the inequitable status quo has fewer defenders than formerly, and there is a general disposition to meet the just demands of China, or such part of them as cannot 1h) refused without bringing on a crisis.

This more friendly attitude is reflected in the diplomacy, of Japan,

Which has ■ modified . somewhat the sharpness of its tone of a few months ago when it was threatening to annex Manchuria. That province still presents serious dangers because of the greatness of Japanese , interests there, but both Tokio and Nanking at present, are showing a more conciliatory temper.

, How far the more favourable picture ' now presented by China is marred by i the recent obscure disturbances in the , Northwest may be doubtful for some i time to come. Kansu, where 200,000 people were lately said to have been ' massacred, is an extremely remote part of the country so remote that when some years a?o the scientists inferred from their instruments that a great earthquake must have centred there it was months before vague news came of a catastrophe in which thousands had perished. What is going on there now is mysterious, and a “Mahammedan rising” resulting in the massacre of 200,000 people sounds ominous, Hit the case is probably both exaggerated and wrongly stated. None the less, all that goes on in the mysterious interior of Asia is of great interest just now, not only because this is a reg.on from which in the past movements have spread which have had a shattering effect upon the world, but because this region is becoming once more a no-mau’s land of hostile empires. As a move against Russia, Great Britain seized Tibet, detaching it from the Chinese Empire and bringing it within the British sphere. No long ago there were reports of a Russian mission to Tibet, and in that remote land beyond the Himalayas there is much room for intrigue. Czarist Russia annexed Outer Mongolia during the war, detaching it from the Chinese Empire and, while the Soviet Government repudiates that conquest, it has set up a Mongolian Soviet republic which keeps that region within the Russian sphere, Russia and England face each other, along the long frontier of empire which runs through Asia, in a spirit as hohtile as in the days when Kipling wrote of the “bear that walks like a man.” The weapons are different, but Soviet propaganda may be Us dangerous us the armies of the Czar. Only in part is the hostility of the British imperialists to Moscow a question of Bolshevism, but antipathy to Bolshevism of course only intensifies the feud, and aids the British Government in its efforts to build up a coalition against Russia. How far these efforts have gone can only be guessed, but at times guesses may be as damaging as revealed fact, and Moscow lust now is not a little excited over a rumour that as a result of the Anglo-French entente France is to join tlib anti-Rus.'inn bloc. This feud is serious in itself and it is menacing to the hopeful beginnings of a new order in the backward countries of Asia. It would be tragic if efforts to adopt western civilisation were to be wrecked in the collision of two western empires