WHO’S WHO IN CHINA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3381, 4 July 1927, Page 2

WHO’S WHO IN CHINA.

Hyphenated names of great similarity befuddle the reader who tries to understand China, borne writers have attempted to simplify by abbreviation. They speak of “Feng," for example, iiu do, they mean General Feng YuUsiang or President Peng Quo-chang? “Chang,” they say when they mean Marshal Chang Tso-Un, but they have no formula for General Chang Chungcliang. Chang and Chiang—a single letter is the only difference, yet Chang is the great war lord of the north and Chiang Ahe brilliant crusader of the south. V '

Quite obviously the leaders of China to-day are not civil governors, duly elected by the people, who have attained distinction by constructive or efficient administrations. They are military chieftains, in some cases glorified bandits, who have won local recognition or been placed in authority by some one still more powerful in a nearby province. Whenever there is a strong central government at Peking it means that one of the northern war lords is dominant, and he proceeds to maintain his position by placing a favorite in charge of each province under his thumb. There the satellite remains supreme until ejected by a rival, or until, sooner or later, he himself conspires against the old " leader or makes overtures to a new one whose prospects are brighter. In such fashion have leaders been made in the North. In the South, pen and 1 tongue have proved mightier than the sword, and the leader there is likely to be the one who paints the best picture of a new China for the Chinese. Sun Yat-sen, though two years dead, is to-day the great man of China. He was born in Hawaii in 1870, and when lie visited the United States late in life lie was admitted 1 as an American citizen. Not long after Sun was born, the family moved back to China; his father was a missionary convert and he himself early became attached to a mission hospital at Canton. This determined his career, and we find him the first graduate of the College of Medicine at Hongkong, in 1894. He was a leader ;n- the uprising against the monarchy of the Manchus, a reformer in many spheres; and when the revolutionists in the South in 1911 looked around for a successor to the Emperor they had dethroned, they chose Dr Sun Yat-sen. Later he withdrew in favor of the powerful Viceroy, Yuan Shih-kai, who first accepted and then betrayed Republicanism.

With his wife, educated in an American college, Dr Sun preached the doctrines of political liberty and equality over all Soutnern China, and personally sought aid from abroad. Four times he came to the United States. He received the warmest welcome in Russia. A series of lectures by Dr Sun, “Three Principles of the People,” has had wide circulation in book form, the principles l icing Nationalism, Democracy, Socialism ; he once likened his theories to our own conception of government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” Sun Yat-sen died in March, 1925, at a moment when his prestige in China as low. The fact that the great leader died at Peking throws a sidelight upon revolutions and provincial war lords, for Sun and Chang Tso-lin were then in friendly co-operation. Now, two years later, Chang is the principle obstacle to Sus\s revolutionary movement. The- anniversary of Dr SunV death, a few weeks ago, was observed as a national holiday in South China, and once a week in every Nationalist Government bureau there is a service in his memory. All his life Sun professed Christianity.

General Cilia no; Kai-shek, leader of tlie triumphant Southern Army in its steady march northward’ from Canton to Shanghai, is the military head ol the Nationalist movement, at present the popular successor of Dr Sun. Bub even lie depends more upon propaganda than upon gunfire. His military strategy makes the most of sieges, and his spies and advance agents spread disaffection in the armies of his oppo ncnts. Chang is in His fortieth year. He attended a military school in Northern China under the monarchy and completed his education at the Imperial Military College in .Japan 20 years ago. He joined the revolutionary movement in 1911 and years later came to the attention of Sun Yat-sen by proposing and successfully carrying out an assault upon an almost impregnable walled city held by a traitorous wing of the revolutionists. We find him in Moscow with Dr Sun in 1922, and since then he has had a small but efficient group of Russian military advisers. Unlike war lords in the north, Chiang Kaishek, though a world hero, is merely a subordinate, subject to orders from politicians at the Nationalist capital. His attempt in April to assert dominance may save or wreck the whole cause. The third figure that looms large in the Nationalist movement is Eugene Chen, a most active occupant of the post of Foreign Minister in the South China Government. His most conspicuous charactertistic is a violent hatred or Great Britain, under whose flag he was born —in Trinidad, near our own West Indies, abot 45 years ago. His mother is believed to have been South American, and it is certain that his parents were not poor. Chen was educated in law in England (at Oxford it i.s said), and has travelled extensively in England, France, and Russia. Ho was a member of a special mission to Washington, some years ago, and at tiie Versailles Peace Conference he drafted important documents supporting China’s case against Japan. As owner and editor of the Peking Gazette he never hesitated to criticise the Northern Government, with the result that during several months in the early part of 1920 he rested quietly in gaol. Afterwards lie became Foreign Minister of the Southern Government.

Marshal Chang Tso-lin stands foremost among the military leaders of the old regime in China. He controls Peking, and therefore the Northern , Government, operating at times from Peking and at others from Mukden in Manchuria, Jus home-town. Chang is understood to bear the Japanese stamp of approval: in fact he fought for the Japanese in the war against Russia. As recently as December he expressed his opinion that immediate abolition of foreign treaties is impractical and unwise. Opposed to the Nationalists for the good reason that they are fighting him, ho is also convinced that the Bolshevist element represents a menace. Chang in his youth was a. bandit leader. He is now probably a little more than <3O years old. Defeated in 1922, victorious in 1921, deserted! by an ally in 1923, he was again master of Northern China in 1926.

Marshal Wu Pei-fu, War Lord of Chih-li Province, is a military graduate, 54 years old, at the height of his career in 1917 and then without a rival, 'a 1924 lie was severely defeated by Chang Tso-lin in a battle near Tientsin. He is now being importuned by Chang to come out of Hiding and join in a move to crush the South. It was his supporters who unsuccessfully defended Wuchang and Hankow against the Nationalists last October. Wu is understood to bear the British stamp oi approval. At present he is down and nearly out and appeals ineffectively to Chang for financial aid. Wu and 1 Chang have been alternately in alliance and at war with each other. Wu has literary inclinations and writes good Chinese

poetry. His philosophy is that Nationalists who oppose him are young and under wrong influences, and therefore do not know any better. He believes that foreigners are necessary for the business development of China. There remains to be discussed one Chinese military leader who is the most fascinating of all and whose present sympathies are not positively known. General Feng Yu-hsiang, known as the Christian General, is in the hills of Shensi Province, northwest of Peking,, with a compact, efficient army. He became prom nent in 1924, when, as a subordinate of Wu in authority at Peking, he set»out for himself, abandbned his chief, deposed the President, and formed a provisional government.Aboufc a year ago he was driven out of Peking by a new alliance of Wu and Chang. Feng receives equipment from Russia, overland across Siberia. He is shrewd, and while his sympathies should be with the Southern Nationalists some observers believe that he may take the field alone against Chang and Wu and himself seize Peking before the Nationalists get there. General Feng believes in education, good roads and railroads, irrigation to avoid famine, andl financial aid for farmers. He adopted Christianity and practised it among his troops, prohibiting opiumsmoking and gambling. His soldiers work unceasingly on public improvements He recruits his army from the peasants, and teaches them to read and write and to learn a trade —he makes citizens as well as soldiers. In February it was reported, with some confirmation, that Feng is not Chinese but Hungarian, named Fengya, and that he served as an officer in the United States Army during the Filipino insurrection. He has a well-trained army, and while the whole world watches to see which way he will jump, the Southern leaders have no hesitation in calling him their ally.