CHIANG KAI-SHEK'S HELPERS IN CHINA

Southland Times, Issue 23828, 27 May 1939, Page 13

CHIANG KAI-SHEK'S HELPERS IN CHINA

Men Who Rule One-Fifth Of The World's Population

By

A. L. BRIENT

TT is not easy to define the form of Government in China. How could it be, when you are trying to envisage as a whole some 440,000,000 people—not including Sinkiang, Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet —spread over an area of 2,000,000 square miles. In the centuries before 1911 you could detach from this human swarm the actual ruler—the head of the reigning dynasty. Today, forgetting for the moment that the Japanese invasion has brought large areas temporarily under foreign control, there are three spheres of political influence, the north, the centre, and the south, each exercised with more or less effectiveness according to the directions and strengths of the prevailing political currents.

Australia in the late 20’s—or was it the early 30’s—and is personally known to some of us. But, estimable though he is, he must yield in the popular estimation to the man who is fighting the Japanese invader, the man whose efforts have met with success far beyond the expectations of everybody, and that includes the Japanese themselves.

Roughly, the Government at present existing is a Committee Government, representing the Kuomintang, or Nationalist, party, which by successive stages has been driven under Japanese pressure from Nanking to Hankow, and finally to Chungking, in the remote western mountains.

Chiang Kai-shek, tall and straightbacked, good-looking—he and his wife, the beautiful May Ling Soong that was, make a handsome couple when they go out together—was bom 52 years ago. His folk were well-to-do farmers. He rarely wears medals or any sort of decoration. A man of few words, when asked by some American reporters for an outline of his dazzling career, he wrote, “Born in Chekiang Province, educated at Boating Academy and in Japan; with Sun Yat-sen since the revolution.” In a more garrulous mood on one occasion, and speaking of the “Father of the Republic,” he said: “Dr Sun Yatsen, our late leader, told us to be wise and brave, and to work for the good of the public. To be wise is not to be opportunist, and to be brave is not to deprive others of their rights and privileges. All our endeavours, therefore, should be for the, good of the country and the masses.” Like Hitler and Mussolini, he does not smoke, and drinks little, but unlike them, he is deeply religious. His mother-in-law once gave him a Chinese edition of the Bible, and at her home in Shanghai in 1930 he was baptised into the Christian Church as a Baptist. Later —it was on Good Fitday, of 1937—he declared:—“Without religious faith there can be no real understanding of life . . . Without faitn human affairs, both great and small, are difficult of achievement.”

Authority is in the hands of five Yuans or councils—Executive, Legislative, Judicial, Examining and Controlling—which are distinct from the Cabinet of Ministers, whose members serve as presidents and vice-presidents of the councils, as well as heads of the various departments of State.

Training In Japan

Wide Representation TO a politically-minded people like ourselves, this "Fivefold System” on which the Constitution of China theoretically rests is interesting. Taking them in their order of importance, the Executive Council is the supreme authority, seeing that it sets up the Ministries and supervises their work. It also submits to the Legislative Council, the chief law-making body, drafts of bills and treaties, and the annual Budget, which the Council, the nearest approach to a Parliament ip the Constitution, although a nominee body, can amend or reject. The Judicial Council, as its name implies, controls the courts, and for several years has been responsible for codifying the country’s laws. The Examining and Controlling councils have to do with the vast public service, its selection —a very strict process, by the way—and its administration.

As all the Councils are nominee bodies—popular elections would be out of the question in a country with so many illiterates and such vast distances —it might be thought that there is very little difference between China and the one-party States like Germany and Italy. In fact, however, the Kuomintang, which is the nominating authority, is the most heterogeneous political body in the world. In its ranks are bankers, merchants, westernized intellectuals and doctrinaires, peasants, workers, and even military leaders. In effect, every element in the population except the communists, and lately they, too, have been co-operating with the Government’s armies in making common cause against the enemy, Japan.

Chiang Kai-Shek WHEN you think of China these days you think of its war leader, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. You are apt to forget altogether that there is such a person as Lin Sen, who has been President of the Republic for eight years. True he paid a long visit to

BUT it was to his own mother—he was her child by her third husband—that he owed most, both by heredity and example. She it was who, when he was 19, paid his fare to Japan and his fees and upkeep at the Paoting Military Academy. At one time it was said of him that his years in Nippon had made him pro-Japanese. How false this is is now seen to be. Two things are reported of him in Japan. The general under whom he served in the Takada Regiment described him as “a commonplace cadet, ’ and his battalion commander afterwards confessed that “he never thought that Chiang would become an historical figure.” On the other hand, after talking to him at their first introduction in 1911, Sun Yat-sen said, “That young man is the kind we need in the movement. He may yet be the hero of the revolution.” Truly a kindly.

prophetic tribute. China’s “Man of Destiny” has rallied every political and military faction around him. The verdict of history may well be that the Japanese militarists have brought about the very thing that they feared most, a united China, under the leadership of a man fitted by nature and training to guide the Chinese people to a happier and a fuller life. Other Leaders

NUMEROUS attempts have been made to assassinate Chiang Kaishek, and in 1936 occurred the famous, but still mysterious, kidnapping by the notorious rebel, Chang Hsueh-liang, who held him prisoner at Siang, while inviting him to change his policy in return for his liberty. The coup failed. Through the efforts of Madame Chiang he was released, and the repentant Chang Hsueh-liang escaped with a purely nominal sentence for his folly. Today he is actively associated with his former “prisoner” in the resistance to the Japanese invasion.

Dr H. H. Kung, the President of the Executive Council, is, like Chiang, a member of the, famous Soong dynasty through his marriage to Madame Chiang’s eldest sister, Ai Ling. Besides, he is a descendant of Confucius. A Christian leader, he is also a wealthy merchant, owning banks and shops galore. He has a special penchant for governmental problems of commerce and labour. In fact they say in China that he is “in everything.” And that embraces the public charities, which come within his orbit of authority Dr Sun Fo claims distinction, first of all for being the only son of Sun Yat-sen. But he has recommendations in his own right. A graduate of two American universities —one of them Harvard—he has filled many posts, including that of Premier. At one tune, too, he was Mayor of Canton City. I am not prepared to say exactly what effect his Cantonese associations have had on his relations with Chiang Kaishek. At one time they were strained. Now, however, they appear, to be working together in perfect amity. Dr Wang Chung-hui, as Foreign Minister, ought to be much in the public eye, whereas he is rarely heard of. A distinguished jurist, he was considered worthy of being chairman of an international commission which sat in Peking 13 years ago. He is also largely responsible for the governmental structure adopted in the Kuomintang Constitution. It would be easy, no doubt, to add others scarcely less important than the foregoing, but publicity is as yet an undeveloped Chinese art. But it stands to reason that it takes more than a few to handle the affairs of a. fifth of the world’s population.