CHANGES IN CHINA

Evening Star, Issue 17957, 2 May 1922, Page 6

CHANGES IN CHINA

EMPIRE WILL BE WEBTERHIBED. VIEWS OF LOCAL RESIDENT. Will China become Westernised? A prominent local Chinese resident says ‘Yes,” and at ,no distant date. Dr Sun Yat Sen’s vigorous military campaign against the conservative Manchurians in the North is to be the means to that end. The resident referred to points to the fact that it took America twenty-one years to become a Republic, and. Sun Yat Sen’s activities .have already extended over eleven years. And the reformer, a student himself, educated in America, and a .world-wide traveller, has the strong student element of China at the back of him. What that means may be gathered from the determination and the indifference to death which the student body showed in former revolutionary attempts. Dr Sun is, .in the opinion of a Chinese merchant, an altruist. He docs not greatly desire to bo tbo bead of the Utopia when it is founded, so long as his ideals are adopted. He wants to see the Manchurian policy of the locked, door and suppression of any attempt at progress smashed onco and for all. And it cannot bo denied that Dr Sun has achieved much in this direction. In Canton he has launched a system of free education ; ho has widened and generally improved the ancient streets; ho has installed an electric tramway system ; ho has levelled the old ci'tv wall, and ho lias lot light in on other dark places. These methods he wishes to f-ee adopted through the vast empire, and the particular plough thatjie has' set his hand to appears to be doing the work of turning up very thoroughly. And so, says our Chinese merchant, big things are in dtore for China. The changes already brought about have come with startling rapidity, and he thinks thev have not only come to stay, but to spread. umiwumni mm