CHINA'S RESISTANCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25204, 17 May 1945, Page 3

CHINA'S RESISTANCE

RECENT CRITIC By the REV. H.

The-author of this article has scent 32 years in China. Ho is now in London as secretary for China and Hurma of the Methodist Missionary Society. If you are puzzled with China sometimes, don't imagine the puzzles are all on one side. I went through many i>arts of China in 1940. She had been at war with Japan for two and a-half years then. She had lost such famous cities as Peiping and Tientsin in the north, Shanghai and Hankow in the centre, and Canton in the south. I found, wherever I went, complete misunderstanding on the part of the ordinary man as to the meaning of British and American democracy. In their newspapers the Chinese read the speeches of our famous men, and they knew Britain was fighting, and America supporting, a war against aggression. At the same time, they had tangible evidence that our merchants were selling aeroplanes and bombs and oil to China's enemy. They examined bomb fragments and the planes that crashed and found on some of them American markings. As to oil, British, American and Dutch flags were flying above the business houses the Japanese invaders dealt with. When We Were Neutrals We were neutrals, as you know, right up to December 8, 1911, and Pearl Harbour. We were selling to both sides, as neutral merchants always have sold in wartime ; but, in the circumstances, the Japanese were benefiting much more than the Chinese. What sort of democracy was this, they said, when the nation's leaders denounced aggression and even fought it, but allowed their merchants to aid the aggressors 1

They had never heard of Milt-on. They did not realise that liberty to do good meant licence to do evil. Chinese were left gasping at what they thought were enlightened Governments which could allow their ideals and their purposes to be contradicted openly by their own merchants. There is, of course, an explanation, and I suppose even a justification for those things, but I never found the Chinese that could understand it. Nature of China's Democracy Now the boot is on the other foot. It is Chinese democracy that is being called in question in the West. What sort of a democracy is this, we have been saying, in which the Nationalist Government acts so dictatorially ? Freedom to do good and evil, which is democracy as America and Britain understand it, does not seem to be there in China, so they tell us. There are restrictions, censorships, controls that, even in wartime, seem to be severe and harmful, to national unity and thrf Allied war effort.

This word "democracy" has been bandied about as though China were America or Britain. The mistake is in making any such comparison. Thirtyfour years ago the Chinese were still living in the age of Caesar. And then on October 10, 1911, bombs exploded which blew Chinese imperialism of thousands of years to pieces. That was followed from 1911 to 1925 by a Hepublican China with President, Premier, Parliament and Cabinet all complete; but it was a period which came to be loathed by alt self-respecting Chinese. National Election Difficulty

It was a complete failure and it ended in war-lords and chaos. This chaos was cleared up in the Revolution of 1926. That revolution overthrew the parliament and the war-lords who flourished in the republican period. It overcame all opposition except the Communists. You cannot say one-party government was "adopted" by China. There was no one to adopt it. What sort of national elections could there be in a land where 90 per cent of the people could neither read nor write, as was the case 20 years ago? There had been elections, but the electoral roll was bound to be confined to the scholars and the leading merchants —a mere fraction of the people. The masses of the people were never consulted, arid it is difficult to see how they could have been consulted. The Nationalists just seized the country by force of arms in the interests of the people, and that is where China still is today. It was not democratic in the American or British sense, and it never claimed to be. The Common Foe

When the war-lords had been overthrown, the stuggle went on-~a struggle for power between the nationalists headed by Chiang Kai-shek, and his Communist opponents. Both wore pledged to racial alterations in the country, but Chiang won, and if one party was to govern the countrv his opponents became inevitably counterrevolutionary. This they remained until the eve of the Japanese war. Then there was some sort of reconciliation in face of the common foe.

Some of the Communist leaders of those days showed themselves publicspirited. Certainly they were clearheaded in their conviction that Chiang Kai-shek was the one man to lead the entire country if there was to be anv hope of resistance to Japan. When Chiang was captured in 1936 it was generally believed that it was the Communists who saved his life. No other leader was conceivable. "A Chinese Situation"

Through the nearly eight years of war there has been some sort "of common front, but as time has passed divergencies have shown themselves between the Right and the Left as in other countries. Chiang has been watchful of the growing independence and power of his comrades of the Left. They have feared lest the revolution should turn back from Us true aims.

And now the plain fact is that to all intents and purposes there 'are two Governments in China todav backed by two armed forces, although the Communist forces are relatively small. Well, that is the situation. It is a Chinese situation. In America or Britain it would be intolerable. We find it difficult. to understand, and there has i>een a good deal of criticism lately—American and British—about China's halfhearted war effort.

Alone Against Japan A responsible American puts it this way: "Our boys," lie save, "at great cost put down airfields "at strategic places in China from which to bomb Japan, and suddenly thev lost nearly the lot. It was somebody's fault. They were sure it wasn't theirs. If only that half-million troops, they said, with which Chiang Kai-shek was watching the Communists had been available those airfields would not have heen lost. Anyway they were not prepared for the medieval conditions they found in Central China, ixiok at the graft,' they said, 'it's worse than Chicago.' " But there is mnclu to be said, too, for the Chinese reply® "We were alone in 1940," they say, "quite alone against a strong and ruthless enemy. " You Americans and British democracies were selling planes and bombs and oil to our enemy. Even so, we said, yoti are Ixrand

IMPORTANCE TO ALLIED CAUSE

SMS ANSWERED 3. BATTENBURY

to join us. By what you say and by your own needs you must become our allies. Wh ,i that happens Japan will be finished in no time."

It wan the reverse that happened. Japan's triumphs in the East were tar greater than Hitler's in the West. The Japanese conquered one-filth of the peoples of the world. And in 1942, when things went badly for the Allies in the Pacific, China was seriously tempted to give in. The Burma Road was closed. All iter doors were closed. But in spite of all her disappointments China kept her head and went on resisting, and today the road is open again, in spite of the setback in central China she lias turned the Japanese out of Yunnan and military stores are rolling along from India to Chungking.

present internal troubles must not blind us to the truth. The world war began in the Pacific, in Manchuria in 1931, and not as we are apt to think in China in 1937 or in Poland in 1939. Where the world would have been now but for the battle of China and her long years of resistance I don't care to think. The four foundations of the world to be, our statesmen have declared, are America, Britain, China and Russia. There mav be others now, but not the last or tlie least of them all is China. She is not just a market, she is a great nation. Great Gifts to Offer World There can be no hope of a settlement in the Pacific, or in the world, without her goodwill and her co-operation. 1 myself believe America, Britain and Russia can never of themselves or together establish the new order. We made that sort of mistake last time; don't let us make it again. The other dav a man who had just arrived in England fresh from China said to me: "fn China there were interesting and living people to talk to. Here in Britain the people seem so apathetic by comparison." That is just how I felt when I returned from revolutionary China. In spite of all the chaos, dirt and disorder, it was good to live in China. .She is alive. I believe in the sincerity of the Communists. I believe in the integrity of China's leader, Chiang Kai-shek. I believe in China. She has been the mother of an unparalleled civilisation. When the struggles of her revolution are complete I believe she will have great gifts to offer the world. Yes. I believe in China; but it may matter more for the future of the world if China believes in us.