CHINESE PARADOXES

Evening Star, Issue 19533, 14 April 1927, Page 3

CHINESE PARADOXES

SUN YAT SEN'S IDEALS In the current issue of the ‘ Nineteenth Century and After,’ Mr B. M. Gull, formerly secretary to the Associated British Chambers of Commerce in China and Hong Kong, writes ol ‘Paradox and Principle in China.’ iJo reduces the paradoxes to three. The first is that, while all the accepted Chinese constitutions make Parliament the solo law-making body, few of the laws enforced by the courts were over passed by Parliament. The second is that the Nationalist movement is being directed by anti-Xationalists, who believe that it is China’s destiny with Russia in the west to prepare the way for internationalism. The third is that the “ unequal treaties ” include only a few of the rights that China is anxious to recover.

Mr Gull believes that the Cantonese are alone among Chinese parties fighting for principles. They nave worked out a form of government by committee which suits the Chinese temperament, providing for fear of individual responsibility and preference for action through societies. The Chinese have a great capacity for this, developed through the submission of the individual to the family with its patriarchial head. “Certainly the system has been working very successfully in Canton, which ; as many writers have recently testified, Ims been modernised almost out of recognition.” Mr Gull says: “To-day it is in some ways, though, of course, not in nil, as modern as Hong Kong or European Shanghai.” There is not a representative system of government in the popular sense, hut the city is governed by a council of eighteen members, appointed by the provisional government from merchants, peasants, laborers, educationists, professional men, and industrialists; and five bureaux, finance, public safety, public works, public health, and education. Sun Yat-sen outlined this scheme in his will—which is used by the Nationalists as a kind of political testament. The scheme of Government-appointed committees is intended as an intermediate stage toward democracy. Yuan Shih-kai, who succeeded Sun as President, and tried to overthrow his Constitution, raised a reorganisation loan from the European Powers, and this subsidising of Sun’s enemies, together with the refusal of the British to support Sun while he lived, is made much of in southern propaganda to-day. Sun Yat-sen’s book, ‘ The Three People’s Principles,’ which is the text book of the Nationalist Party, is analysed by Mr Ivan Ross, of the Central China University, Wuchang. Mr Ross thinks that herein is the clue for the Kuomintang mentality. Ho says: “It is not quite accurate to call the Cantones© Bolshevik, or to dub their armies ‘ Red.’ In their political principles, it is true, they have much in common with Bolshevism. Their professed dislike of ‘imperialism,’ their deadly

hatred of Great Britain, and their suspicion and distrust of foreign Powers, are derived from Soviet Russia, but in their social programme they are by no means prepared for _ a wholesale adoption of the Soviet ideal. They realise that a thorough-going Communistic system can never bo forced upon the Chinese people. They think that they can work out a social policy more suited to tho needs of China than any form of Marxism. Sun Yat-sen insists that China, despite its 10,000,001) Manchus and Mongols, is overwhelmingly united in race. It must never submit to being dominated by a foreign Power. Hong Kong ho gives as a terrible example of the danger. But Hong Kong was a barren, almost uninhabited island when Great Britain went there, and the population has come as the result of British rule, as Mr Ross points out. In China corporate spirit is undeveloped beyond the family. Hun appealed to the people to widen their sons© of corporate spirit fro in the family to the clan, of which there are about 400 in nil China, and from the dan to the nation.

Commercial penetration has proved a more subtle moans of subjection than conquest. To Sun’s excited imagination even the organisation of foreign residents for iamine relief was an indication of China’s subjection. The control of tho Customs, through which, it is complained, China’s hand-made products arc undersold by the_ machinemade products of tho west, is another grievance. But the bitterest of all is perhaps the fact that Chinese prefer foreign hanks to their own, even though those offer higher interest. Again, the lack of a mercantile marine places China at the mercy of foreign shipping. In all these ways vast tribute is being levied on China, Sun proclaims. It is tho destiny of China’s 400 millions to unite with tho 150 millions of Russia to abolish racial inequality. In his feverish estimation, oven tlio Washington Conference with its limitation of armaments _ was an. agreement to dismember China. Ho affirmed that China’s doctrines and philosophies wore as good as those_ of other nations. She must practise them. Foreigners had set up schools and hospitals in order to _ carry out their doctrine of love. Chinese must do the same. She must make the most of her virtues, filial loyalty, honesty, benevolence, peacefulness, and overcome weaknesses such as lack of personal cleanliness.