DICTATOR CHANG

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17133, 21 June 1927, Page 6

DICTATOR CHANG

Readers who have followed the course of events in China may \%el! wonder why a long cable message is sent to tell that Marshal Chang Tso-lin, the Manchurian dictator, . has proclaimed himself Generalissimo of the North. He has claimed to hold that position for several years past, and in that capacity was able, about two years ago, to get c'ontrol of the eastern provinces as far south as Shanghai. Nor is there anything new in Chang’s declaration that it is his aim to unite the opponents of Bolshevism in. China. In this he is doubtless sincere, for lie lias made no secret of his tear of Russia, and, though he accepted the establishment of the Republic when it became inevitable, he is regarded _as essentially a Monarchist, and conducts his own court with a pomp of an Oriental despot of the old style. However, lie is not at all loth to use the hostility of others to Bolshevism to gain moral —and, if possible, material—support for his campaign against the Southerners. Arthur, Ransome, the wellknown correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, considers that in this Chang is far from sincere. He says: “The idea that the- Nationalist movement in China is something created by Russia with the object of damaging England is an idea with an object. It is sedulously propagated by those who think their interests stand lo suffer by the advance of the Nationalists, and arc anxious to give a dog a bad name and hang him. Those Chinese war-lords who stand to lose by the Nationalist advance curry favour with England, and disguise their own purely selfish motives by following the example of English and American business men, proclaiming that tiicir warfare against the Nationalists is not inspired by a desire to retain their present powers of absorbing so much of the income of the country that even high civilian Stale officials are unable to obtain their salaries, but by a desire to fight ‘Bolshevism.’ The propaganda of business men and war-lords, aided by that of embittered While Russian refugees, lias obscured the real issue in China by continually directing foreign opinion away from that real issue to an extraordinary phantasmagoria in which a faubulously rich Russia pours millions of money into the coffers of the South, pays (in Russian roubles, which arc useless in China) mobs of coolies to do .desperate deeds, sends thousands of agents (miraculously become Sinologues) throughout the country, supplies the officers for an army of half a million men, and holds in the jhollow of its hand the leaders of a movement which impoverished countries ■ like England and America have been unable to buy. This idea is dangerous, because, as it is meant to do, it prepares the way for an unnecessary war. It is dangerous because it warps judgment on a matter of the greatest import. We are faced with a problem in China that affects our whole future in the East. And at this moment Russia, like a red herring, is trailed across the scent.”

The only really new thing in the cable message is that an attempt is being made to reunite the Manchurian and Shantung forces under Chang Tsolin’s command. They worked together in the campaign of two years ago, but seem to have drifted apart since Chang Tso-lin was forced to retreat, and almost met annihilation during the rebellion of bis own General Kuo Sung-lin late in 1925. The position of the North China Daily News, the Conservative British newspaper of Shanghai, on whose authority the latnews is sent, is somewhat puzzling It has in recent months denounced the Shantung troops which occupied Shanghai as utterly undisciplined and savage, so much so that the arrival of the Southern General Chiang Kai-shek, with his disciplined army, was welcomed in Shanghai. Moreover, that paper has been making much oi uoneral Chiang Kai-shek’s breach with the Cantonese Communists, and has bjon holding him up as a new champion, of the anti-Bolshevilc cause. Apparently the paper is now not so sure about the gravity of the breach in the Cantonese ranks, and is prepared to welcome a reinforcement of the recently denounced Shanlungese to oppose Chiang. Amid these confusing reports it stands out clear that Marshal Chang Tso-lin is making a now bid to establish himself as dictator ol’ Northern China, and to drive back the Southern armies, and also that the Conservative element among the foreigners of Shanghai desires to get support for him. Those who are conducting this propaganda seem to have no realisation that llm policy of intervention would not only embitter the civil war in China, but would involve serious danger of an international war.