CHINA AND COMMUNISM

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXII, Issue 4717, 16 November 1938, Page 2

CHINA AND COMMUNISM

EFFECT OF JAPANESE INVASION. JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER SPEAKS. The Prime Minister, Prince Konoye, said Japan would not give up the conflict in China until it had crushed the anti-Japanese and proCommunist policy. For some time the Communists and the Kuomintang worked in opposition. But in 1923 Joffe, the Russian representative in China, and Sun Yat Sen worked out terms of alliance, under which the Communists were to enter the Kuomintang (Chinese National People's Party), while

retaining their own party organisation. / Sun declared against the immediate introduction of Communism into China, and Joffe accepted this, guaranteeing Russian help for the firm establishment of Chinese national independence under a unified Government. Chiang Kai-shek was placed at the head of the Military Academy, from which were to emerge the leaders of the new force. Politically, the Kuomintang was organised, at Borodin's instance, largely on Communist lines. The power of the Kuomintang and the Communists was at this stage limited to the south. The north and most of the Yangtse valley was still held by contending military leaders. Sun Yat Sen went north to Peking to try and arrange a compromise, and there died in 1925.

There ensued a struggle for power from which Chiang Kai-shek emerged as leader, with Borodin's support. After serious trouble, Chiang turned round, and, strongly financed by Chinese bankers and merchants, and encouraged by foreign interests, formed a strong anti-Communist Government of his own, and proceeded to drive the Russians and their adherents out of the movement. After 1927 Chiang Kai-shek, now backed by the right wing in China and by foreign Governments, which regarded him as their saviour from Chinese Communism, ruled in Nanking. Foreign money was lent to China to enable Chiang to establish a strong Government. But Chiang's writ did not run effectively over a large part of the country, and it has taken the invasion by Japan to unify the Chinese as never before.