BROKEN CHINA

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 19, 24 January 1927, Page 9

BROKEN CHINA

SOME dF THE PIECES

BORODIN, THE SOVIET AGENT

(Written for "The Poßt" vby an old

China Hand.")

Here is what Putnam Weale says of Borodin and of his predecessor Joffe (Weale has lived long in the inside of things in China). In 1923 Sun Vat Sen had many deep conversations with the Bussian Soviet Emissary, Joffe, a man of great force, prematurely lined and aged through suffering and privation in Tsarist prisons. He captured Sun, who admitted a Chinese Communist Party into tho councils of the Kuomintang— Sun's radical southern Chiaa party The Committee System seemed to him a yery agreeable one, particularly as it left all power in the hands of whosoever was at once theimost voluble and the most ingenious. ; Sun saw at once that this Bussian doctrine was primarily a weapon for what was essential to human success— force. He thought it out and acted on it. He died, worn out, in the spring of 1925, but under his inspiration it became a sacred duty to all his disciples to ensure the apotheosis of one who claimed Lenin as his spiritual guide, by bolshevising Canton as no other place in China.

In one agent at the head of the Canton Soviet, Borodin by name; Moscow had a treasure (and still has). The man was logical and daring, and supplied what is always lacking in China,' the technique of leadership. Bed military instructors were sent to Canton, and a Soviet Institute arose in a Cadets' College which, because it. had European discipline, was inevitably better than other corps. This system has been worked on, and it is this college which has lately been; moved'to Wuchang, along with the headquarters of ! the Southerners, and this is the Borodin whose name crops up all too frequently in our cable news. SUN VAT SEN—BEFORE THE BOLSHEVIKS. , Sun is dead—it may be that history will give him an undying place in the Valhalla of high endeavour. ,He Tightly hated the Manchu regimen, and rightly hated the North for its long inertness in throwing it off, and for its corruption and ineptitude. At the beginning of his last and grpatest effort in revolution, in 1911-12, this was the tenor of his manifesto'to the world at large, and the expression of his political intentions: All treaties entered into by the Manchu Government, before the date of. the Revolution, will be effective up to the time of their termination.. All foreign loans •or indemnities up to' the Bevolution will be acknowledged without alteration of terms. < ' All concessions granted to foreign nations or their nationals by the Manchu Government will be similarly respected. All persons and property of foreign nations within the jurisdiction. of the Bepublic will be respected^ and protected.

About the same time,. the military leader of the Revolution, Li Yuan Hung, is credited by his admirer and friend, one Dingle, an American, with the following, which sounds well, and is not to be despised:—

We will have no further Manehu rule, China must be a Republic founded on lines laid down by the United States of America, The United States of China must be opened up with all speed, and.for this purpose there must be a combined effort made with Chinese and foreign capital, and Chinese and foreign labour. Confucianism will probably become the national religion, but I, personally, prefer the doctrine of Christianity being proclaimed far and wide in China, and of . encouraging

missionaries to come in greater numbers to our country. YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY. This of Sun and Li was said yester: day. There followed the fighting and the misery. The Manchus were overturned. Parliament was created, the sorriest travesty of things. The Soviet wormed and bluffed its way into the turmoil. To-day, that is, a couple, of months ago, we have this from the Southern armies now around Hankow: A new book, in catechism form,, has recently been issued to Cantonese officers and non-coms., the contents of which must be taught to the troops. The following are examples of questions and answers:— Who are you?—A soldier of the I people's army, fighting for freedom and for the three principles of Sun Vat Sen. • Who are your chief enemies?— Britain and Japan. ' Why?— Because they finance and encourage militarists oppressing the people. What are your objects?—To recover the Concessions and to drivq out foreign imperialists and capital^ ists who exploit the people. One would guess the catechism is bound in good Russia leather. At the same date the Chinese merchants of Hankow are reported as complaining of constant strikes, the hindrances to trade, and the. Political Bureau took up the matter. Eeuter adds: Though heretofore fomenting anti-Imperialism behind the scenes, the bureau has now come out, for the first time, into the open, and a meeting is being held to-day between the union (trades union) heads and the bureau to establish a society which will be called the "Overthrow the British Society."' It did not succeed. ' Whatever one may think of Sun, one thinks he may have seen enough of the to-morrow of his revolution. THE WEST IN THE EAST. An old and experienced Scotsman who lived long in China once told the writer that the, West would never change China, but that the longer the Westerner lived there the more Chinese he would become. Looking up some authorities on the question:! of our being there at all, and the conclusions to be drawn from our continued presence in any guise ~ whatever, one gets these prize answers. . The first authority says, in effect, go to China and stay there. He was a missionary of over twenty years' experience. ."In order to reform China, the springs of character must lie reached and purified, conscience must be practically entKVoned, and no longer imprisoned in its own palace, like the long line of ■ Japanese Mikados. . . . What China needs is righteousness, and in order to attain it it is absolutely necessary that. she have a knowledge of God, and a new conception of man, as well as of the relation of man to God. She needs a new life in every individual soul, in the family, and in society. The manifold needs of China we find, then, to be a single imperative need. It will be met permanently completely, only by Christian civilisation."

Says another ■writer, a man of much, travel and large culture: "One of the shrewdest English- observers 1 who ever passed many years in the Far East gave it as his sober judgment that white men were fatal to Asiatics; that the good they could do was'practically nil; that the evil .they wrought was incalculable; and that no Eastern State, if it considered the well-being of its people, would allow the settlement ofwhite men in its midst. Once there, itwas impossible to deal with them effectively except by complete destruction —and to this rule there could be no exception. Sooner or later the white man must be crushed, if wholesale calamities were to be averted." He fortifies this with the opinion of a former President of the Banque Busso-Chinoise, a cultured Frenchman, "fie.had lived in China continuously for twenty years; could read, write, and speak Chinese well; had visited many parts of the empire, with the consent and help of the Government; and was intimately acquainted with Chinese public and domestic life. He had personally the highest regard for the Chinese as a people, and his interests were, of course, bound up with the development and trade of China. He expressed the opinion that the Boxer movement could not •be successful at that time, but added that ho doubted whether, in twentyyears' time, any Europeans would remain in China. They are not suited to the country, said he. This applies to' white men of every race and creed." These men ought to know. But now comes the judgment on the judges, those whom we .call Sinologues, from their long and deep study of the Chinese. "You will not find anyone knowing less about China than the Sinologues. They are alMpst in the mists and fogs of the Chinese language, and the poetry of 3000 B.C. Something ■ queer- comes over the best of men when they get very farm ihe language .and its classical literature. They become impersonal, detached, dissociated from the living world, from the white-skinned, red-blooded human races of the' West. Something-iii the climate, some mental microbe, gets into all of us here in China. • .The longer we stay here the less we see; the less we are fitted to judge." . ■ ' *'■ ■

It would seem that the answer to all questions 'as to China: is, therefore, Yes-No. If we answer so every time, we are bound, after such opinions as we have read above, to be right every time. These extracts are from' pre-war and pre-revolution. times but they—the Chinese—have not changed beneath their skins and a sound and convinced Yes-No is still a suitable reply on all 1 points of policy. ' NORTH AND SOUTH. We have spoken of East and West. Here is a word now on north vis-a-vis south. The Cantonese, or Nationalists, are rapidly moving their capital and centre of activities from Canton to Wuchang. Now, Wuchang is one of the three great cities that cluster round the entry of the Han River into the waters of tho Yangtse Kiang; tho other two are Haukow and Hanyang. That they are able to mako effective headquarters here means that China .is now practically divided-into its northern and southern halves, and one is inclined to think that the south is to prevail over. Pekin. In tho farthest north, Tchang tso Lin appoarsto be the strong man still. To him the Soviet is as a red rag to the bull. Also he has an unsilent contempt for many of the northerner? of his own country. He rules Manchuria, as most Orientals neod ruling—with a rod of iron, but held in the hand'of worldly-wisdojn. He knows his people as well as they know themselves. It appears that southern advances have somewhat consolidated tho wavering and distrustful north. He now offerl to lead them all if they really unite and mo.ye. However, a few weeks aco, the north was in difficulties over three points. One general was guilty of defection from the cause, leaving his troops in the air; another was deposedanother had a sore log, and was likely to remain in Tientsin for treatment. „?" 2£ mi c? W. cro thu* also handicapped. That is, the north in general, and

the SoTMtuation of things has produo' ed its comedy as well, as tragedy? With w? f °Vlnf, °£ the Government to Wuchang, tie guilds and trades unions are having their little day out. The «ffwfngT ty haa SPW "lto Hffht

The weapon of trade and labour boycott has been turned against their own people. Every man and boy is first a trade unionist, then a politician, then an agitator, then a patriot. Nino banks closed in Canton a few weeks since. .-Tig chauffeurs of hired motors E§3! fiu*> _ SfeS rickafaa. j^Um jrara

threatening; the fowl and duck dealers ditto j the silk weavers were enjoying faction .fights; the waterside coolies were in ferment. Perhaps M. Borodin has misjudged the material he got his dupes to work upon, forgetting they were quite other than his own cowed fellow-countrymen. JAPAN LOOKS ON. Tho speech, of Baron Shidehara, a few days ago, leaves us with the picture of Japan kissing Russia on both cheeks, and hugging China to her bosom; one loving arm round the north and the other round the south. A recent issue of a great Tokio paper says: "The fact that military and political leaders in the north are now sitting in conference in Tientsin as to their policy towards the south clearly shows that the influence of the southern forces has virtually extended to wider circle. In case the Canton Government is removed to "Wuchang, it naturally f ollows that the unification of the provinces in the south, which is a cherished object of the Kuomintang party, may be realised, though-nominal-ly, and that the northern and southern Governments on an equal footing will come into existence. In that case, the relations between China and the Powers will become more complicated than ever. . Japan, therefore, should be very careful, at this juncture, not to make any mistake in her policy towards China."

Japan will smile, but one would like to read her Oriental thoughts if a strong and finally united China emerges from ,this turmoil, able to make Japan keep .her meddling and untrusted fingers out of the pie. It is hard to gauge tue final effect of Russia's dose of Soviet poison. This is to prove, also, one of the dangerous factors in the complicated relations referred to in the Japanes.e paper.

At all costs we have to stand by our treaties, and our rights' under them. At present we seem to be in the unhappy position of not finding a China to discuss them with effectually. One of the greatest reunifying factors for China would be for us to drop them. After that—for us the deluge over the whole Far East. We would gladly see China reunited, but not at the cost of our moral, political, and commercial degradation in half the world. The north, undaring and unable, would love to Bee the south kick the foreigners from their posts, but neither side yet foresees the . enormous, quite incalculable damage to their own unfortunate country ensuing—the killing of her commerce, and the inevitable lapse into political corruption unspeakable, and the. suffering brought upon the millions of the ignorant population.