CHANGING CHINA

Evening Star, Issue 23729, 9 November 1940, Page 20

CHANGING CHINA

PEOPLE TENACIOUS AND RESOURCEFUL WILL NEVER BE CONQUERED SOCIAL WORKER’S IMPRESSIONS The amazing resourcefulness and perseverance of the Chinese people as a nation constitute the main reasons why they must ultimately rise victorious in their present struggle, is the expressed opinion of Miss A. M. Monerieff, a prominent Y.W.C.A. worker who has recently returned from China after eight years’ sojourn. “ There are no problems which arise that the Chinese do not surmount,” she said in an interview with the ‘ Star ’ to-day.. “ China, 1 believe, is one of the coming nations of the world, and possibly many of the problems which face the world to-day may be solved by that country.”

A significant thing in the changing life of China to-dav was the mingling of the more sophisticated coastal people with their conservative brothers of western inland China. This intermingling was not without its discord, but boro the Y.W. and Y.M.C.A. groups throughout the country were doing a wonderful work. All the \ r .A. organisations in China were wholly Chinese, in that they were governed and controlled by a Chinese board of directors. There were one English, 11 American, and 80 Chinese secretaries, and periodically, as in her own case, outside officials were loancdto the Chinese organisation, by whom they wore controlled. Such officials were required possibly for various phases of specialised social work. A WONDERFUL PEOPLE. Miss Monerieff returns to this country with a remarkable insight into the life and customs of the Chinese people, and a wonderful knowledge of their changing life. She has seen a great deal of the country, both before and after the Japanese invasion and speaks with an intimate knowledge of its people. Making her point that the Chinese were a truly remarkable people who would never be subdued, she instanced a recent speech by the Chinese leader, General Chiang Kai-shek, who stated that while there would be troubles ahead the first three years of war there had been no great difficulties to overcome. He had been quite sincere in this statement, Miss Monerieff said, and a nation, which could face a migration of 30,000,000 of its people with equanimity was not to be taken lightly. Miss Monerieff spoke of the great city of Shanghai. Since the French capitulation that country’s concession had been policed largely by Japanese. In the International Settlement there had been British, American, and Italian control, and when Italy entered the war the situation was a trifle tense, the troops of both countries being confined to barracks for some days. Until the British withdrew their forces from the city, however, like the Americans they had to co-opernte with the Italians in the control of the settlement —a rather anomalous position. The Japanese, she wont on, were keen to get control of the big down-town section of the settlement, which contained all the newspapers and big business houses. Things would become very difficult if they did, both for the newspapers and the universities. At the latter there were over 20,000 Chinese students from all parts of the great republic. Instancing what happened to students whose only crime was sympathy for their own country. Miss Monerieff said that in Peiping 52 students were arrested. All were tortured, and 30 of them were ultimately shot by the Japanese. THE MIGHTY YANGTZE.

The great barrier to the unconquered China—the China that had accepted the challenge of the invader —was the great Yangtze Iliver, the name meaning “ son of the sea.” Chungking, the capital, some 1,800 miles up the river, was barricaded by the huge gorges. Gradually the Japanese had taken the cities leading up the river, and •■the last to fall into their hands was Ichang, but from there on the gorges barred the way. Principally over this huge waterway the new China had been forced to take what machinery she could into the interior to commence again something of her industrial life and to make munitions and materials to keep her armies and peoples going. In this great free China hundreds, of co-operatives had been formed. C.l.C.’s, they were called. Miss Moncrieff said, and they were the talk of the country. They were doing a tremendous amount of work, she said. Operating on the lines of our co-operative dairy companies, they were forming all over the country, manufacturing goods and materials, and endeavouring to take the place of the mills and factories lost to them in the coastal cities upon their seizure by the Japanese. i . A prominent figure in this work was a young engineer graduate of Canterbury College, Rewi Alley, who was doing a very significant work in China. He had supplied the initiative for the movement. With others he made an initial survey of a district, of its resources and requirements, and then the co-operatives were formed to commence manufacture. BACK-FLOW OF PEOPLES. The Chinese showed remarkable strategy in getting goods into the country, Miss Moncrieff continued. Vital materials even filtered through the Japanese lines. Principally, however, the war materials came in by the overland routes. There had been a tremendous back-flow of population, sbe said, cities swelling to treble their size when another nearer the coast fell into enemy hands. In Chungking, for instance, she said, there were huge evacuee camps, but now one bad to get a permit to live there. Most of the schools and institutions had been evacuated out of the city to outlying districts. Chungking bad been bombed very severely, and fonr-fiftbs of it was simply battered buildings, blit if the Japanese were able to bomb it from the air they eonld not get their armies in because of the huge mountain ranges and the Yangtze gorges. Illustrating the tenacity of purpose of the Chinese, Miss Moncrieff said that when Nanking fell the Chinese took the huge “ blue train ” ferry up river to Hankow. When in turn, it, too, fell, they again moved it up stream to Ichang.' and then through the first gorge. Here it is locked a prisoner for all time, she said. for. no matter what happens, this ferry is too big to he mamenvml back out of the gorges again. However, the Chinese bad the satisfaction of not letting it fall into tlm bands of the Japanese, i Miss Moncrieff was stationed for a time at Kunming, at the head of the Burma Rond. It was also the rail terminal "from Indn-Cbina. This was the point at which she thought the

Japanese would drive. She flew by plane from Kunming to Ghengtu, 300 miles west of Chunking. It was one of the most memorable trips in her life, Miss Moncrieff ' stated, for 'Kunming is 6,500 ft above sea and the flight took one over the roof of China,, as it were, with the snow-covered mountain? of Tibet in the distance, and giving one a panoramic view of the magnificent mountains and river gorges, while here and there, far below or on some flat atop a gorge, were tiny village^. Chengtu was now recognised as the great university city of China, the traveller said, who went on to state that she was in Hankow in 1937-38, the seat of the Chinese Government, just before its fall. It was a memorable city then, for it was alive with all manner of officials, military advisers, and war correspondents. It was known as the Chicago of China.