THE NEW CHINA.

Southland Times, Issue 19346, 11 September 1924, Page 6

THE NEW CHINA.

On the playing fields, New Zealand and China can meet in friendly rivalry and emerge from the contest each with a respect for the other's sportsmanship; but those who watch these games from the sidelines should not overlook the important fact that these sturdy, young men who are acquitting themselves so sturdily in what is a purely Western game, represent the new China which is rising in spite of the quarrels of the puchuns and the predatory achievements of the bandits in their disturbed country. These footballers are but a small section of a large body of young Chinese who are absorbing Western ideas, and are preparing to take their part in the modernisation of the great nation that takes its history back further than that of any European community. China, to-day, is torn by civil wars, and the confusion that results from the breakdown of internal government, but every year the numbers of the Chinese who have a knowledge of Western systems are increasing, and it will not be many years before the Young China movements will be powerful enough to set in motion effective modernising influences for the regeneration of the people. The team which played at Rugby Park yesterday probably occasioned some surprise by reason of its physique, and from this surprise the spectators should move to a re-casting of their ideas about the race these visitors represent. As a nation interested in the future of the Pacific, China is of special interest to ourselves, and we must be ready to look forward to closer relations in commerce with the Chinese, who as they assimilate Western ideas will undoubtedly develop the trading instincts which were their’s so many centuries ago. There is a deep significance in the appearance of this Chinese University team of footballers, and we must recognise in them the advance-guard of the new China as well as a band of true sportsmen.