JAPAN’S VICTIM

Evening Star, Issue 23175, 26 January 1939, Page 1

JAPAN’S VICTIM

CAN THE NEW CHINA SAVE HERSELF?

Born and bred in China and speaking Chinese from infancy, Lady Hosio writes with intimate knowledge and understanding of a people she knows and loves (says E. O. Lorimcr in ‘ John o’ London's Weekly ’). After an absence of ‘JO years she went back in ] 936 to revisit the “ Bravo New China,” which was awaking to the new life tinder the leadership of Marshal Chiang Kai-shek and performing miracles of reorganisation and reform. Roads, hospitals, schools, and universities were springing up everywhere in oast and west, in north and south; and even steel and concrete had been invested by Chinese genius with a charm and dignity that made the now buildings not unworthy to rank with the glorious monuments of ancient Chinese architecture.

The young men and women of the New China were flinging themselves heart and soul into the work of education and reform, attacking problems of hygiene, transport, agriculture, and of the unification of their vast country, and were campaigning against social evils with courage, ardour, and success. TWO YEARS AGO,

And now ? . . . Amid ihe fire and devastation, rape and slaughter of 1938, tho writer has found it a hard and heart-breaking task to draw this moving and inspiring picture of what sho saw being attempted and achieved but two short years ago. She has brilliantly succeeded, and has dono well to remind us of what it is that Nazified Japan is seeking to annihilate and to bid us hope that the spirit of China, still faithful to Confucius, quickened anew by Sun Yat Sen and fired by the indomitable Chiang Ivaishek, may in the end triumph over the doctrines of Prussia, reincarnate in present-day Japan. Lady Hosie’s great book gives tho human and spiritual background to China’s suffering of to-day, while Sir Eric Teichman, who for 30 years gave devoted and loving service to China as consul and consul-general, supplies tho factual background needed for an understanding of Sino-Japaneso politics. His ‘ Affairs of China ’ is a most valuable and lucid study of tho relations of the Chinese Republic with foreign Powers since 1911, the year of its foundation. It explains authoritatively and yet simply enough for the ordinary reader, tho origin of the Unequal Treatrhy..-' end Ex tra-territori-ality, th \ ■'/<(■ flayed vf Vyermany,' Britain, Amenta, and dapan‘ thc influ; enco of Russia and Communism, tho Kuomintang’s patriotic rallying to tho sole cause of China. IF THE CHINESE RESIST. Sir Eric handles questions of loans, concessions, railways, aviation, currency, wireless, mining, and tho like, and finally sketches the life of the foreign, mainly British, communities—mercantile and diplomatic-consular.—■ and the far-flung activities of Roman Catholic and Protestant Missions. He prophesies that “ if China’s newfound unity will stand the strain, and if tho Chinese continue to resist, no military victories will in the long run avail tho Japanese.” These two books, each in its own way an outstanding contribution to tho understanding of China, each admirably complementary to the other, are Indispensable to all who would intelligently follow the terrible drama being played out in tho Ear East.