The Waikato Times SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1945 CHINA’S OPPORTUNITY—AND DANGER

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 22690, 18 August 1945, Page 4

The Waikato Times SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1945 CHINA’S OPPORTUNITY—AND DANGER

First to fall a victim to aggression, China seems likely to be the last country to enjoy the restoration of peace. It is tragic that politics should still divide the nation after many years of war. Communists in the north are still at loggerheads with Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists, and China will not know peace until a settlement is reached between the two sections. Russia is a new influence upon the scene and all the great Powers have become interested in the peacemaking. Surely with the experience of the past few years the nations in cooperation can find a way out of the tangle. China unhappily has been subjected to schisms in all recent history, but she has never had an opportunity for national greatness equal to this. Through all the present century and much of the last she has been under the menace of a Japan constantly growing in strength and aggressiveness. Japan was united and had a definite objective. China was split into factions and knew she was heading for disaster. All that has been changed. China has been given the opportunity to replace Jaj-an as the leading Power in the Far East, and it will be a national and international tragedy if divided counsel robs her of the great chance. Political antipathies can become monstrously stupid when they extend to the lengths of civil warfare. China is approaching the settlement with Japan with two voices, though one may be fainter than the other. Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek has called for a conference of the two parties with a view to achieving unity, but such overtures in the past have failed. Whether the great Powers in their several conferences have arrived at a method of assisting China has not yet been disclosed. The difficulty is that Russia has some sort of affinity with the Chinese Communists while the Western Allies have throughout the war acted in co-operation with the Nationalists. Whole nations united in their political beliefs can amicably agree to differ. The real difficulty is when a single nation is split in two. It is true, of course, that politically in almost every country there is a Left and a Right wing, but most of them agree to allow the majority to rule and the problem more or less solves itself. Bu/" in this respect democracy has not succeeded in China, nor in India tor a somewhat different reason. Co-operative effort by the United Nations has .opened for China the most alluring prospect in her long history. She has to decide in the immediate future whether she will take the road to greatness or fail dismally in the hour of possible triumph. She will find the great Powers sympathetic and helpful but the real regenerative effort must come from her own people.