POLITICAL FORCES IN CHINA: A SECOND POINT OF VIEW

Korero (AEWS), Volume 3, Issue 6, 23 April 1945, Page 16-17

POLITICAL FORCES IN CHINA: A SECOND POINT OF VIEW

the Japanese and gained invaluable time for the mobilization of her Allies’ resources. Even to-day she is holding down 2,000,000 Japanese troops (according to the U.S. War Department), half,of the mobilized strength of Japan, and her troops' are 1 fighting heroically in Burma. It is because of this contribution that China participated as an equal at the Cairo Conference. But since then China has suffered a series of setbacks, and it is clear that, although there is certainly plenty of reason for war weariness, including three years’ virtual isolation from her Allies due to complete blockade, the main cause of a weakened

Reports of present deficiencies in China’s war effort must be evaluated in relation to her enormous contribution, past and present, to the United Nations’ war effort. First, there is the remarkable unity, achieved in the first years under General Chiang Kai-shek that has enabled her Io bear more than seven years of unremitting struggle. Though China has suffered fearful losses (over 4,000,000 army casualties ; 45,000,000 refugees and immense material destruction, in-' eluding the loss of 80 per cent, of her industrial capacity), she has in turn inflicted nearly 3,000,000 casualties on

This article, reprinted from The Fortnightly for January, 1945, is by Jack Chen, son of the late Eugene Chen, former Foreign Minister of China. He is the author of many publications, notably “Japan and the Pacific Theatre of War,” and is one of China’s leading political cartoonists. His article follows one by Professor G. W. Keeton, published in our last issue.

war effort is subjective. It is an internal political conflict. It is an ill that is not unknown farther west. It is the conflict between those who believe that China’s war effort can be increased by the wartime extension of democratic mobilization and those who repudiate this belief. In any assessment of political forces it is essential to realize that the Kuomintang is not a homogeneous party. Difference between Right and Left are extreme, though both wings publicly avow support of the San Min Chu I, the “ Three Peoples’ Principles ” of the official programme.

It is the Left Kuomintang, led by the Founder’s widow, Madam Sun, and his son, Sun Fo, that is the most consistent supporter of the original policies, and the twenty years since his death have shown that those policies are no wit less actual, realistic, and national in their appeal to-day than when he first announced them. They call for a nationally free China (a universal demand) and a democratic China in which democratic control will be exerted over key branches of economy for the common good. This programme enlists the support of the middle classes, the artisans,

small traders, intellectuals, and the working classes. The- programme of agrarian reform appeals directly to the ■BO per cent, of Chineese who are peasant farmers. These are the social groups who support the Left Kuomintang. The Chinese Communist Party, far more energetic and better organized, also draws its support from these sources. It is the only serious rival of the Kuomintang. To-day it gives 100 per cent, backing to the San Min policies because they are realistic policies of national unity in the face of aggression and because in the present state of China’s economic and social development the realization of such a bourgeois democratic programme is an essential preliminary for the further advance towards socialism and then communism.

The industrial and financial businessman’s 'wing of the Kuomintang centre (a typical representative of which is Mr. T. V. Soong) supports the general democratic demands of the San Min principles for the same reason as their couterparts in Britain or America support liberal democracy as the system best conducive to their interests. In the mild socialist proposals of the Third Principle they see merely that element of state or democratic control over laissez fairs capitalism that is now universally regarded as essential to maintain national economic health.

The military wing of the Kuomintang centre supports the San Min Cha I because, like its leader, General Chiang Kai-shek, they are, as it were, “ married ” to modern industry and finance. Without such collaboration they cannot maintain a modern Government, national economy, or military machine. Madame Chiang Kai-shek, be it noted, is the sister of Mr. T. V. Soong and sister-in-law of Dr. H. H. Kung, China’s two leading financiers. But it is characteristic that, militarary-minded as they are —and the General’s book, China’s Destiny, clearly reveals thisthey cannot w-holly renounce their predilection for authoritarianism. General Chiang and the Whampao Cadet Group, led by his new War Minister General Cheng Chen, do not repudiate democracy : they consider that more immediately effective

results can be achieved by Kuomintang authoritarian rule in a period of "tutelage,” while the people are prepared for democracy. This dual nature of the Centre is the reason for its vacillations between Left and Right.

The Right Wing is composed of the landed gentry and old militaristic Provincial Governments which joined the Kuomintang after 1927, when it seemed that their interests could be better protected by joining the revolutionary party rather than by openly opposing it. This gentry is not a landlord class in the modern Western meaning of the words. At its worst it is a sort of lord of the manor with tenants paying up to 60 per cent, of the land’s produce as rent and often in debt-bondage. The landlord is frequently the local usurer and Magistrate as well, and either directly or through his friends, controls the local party organization and Min Tuan or Peace Preservation Corps, which number about 3,000,000 to-day. These gentry rule whole provinces and exert direct influence on the central Government through the Political Science Group, of which Ho Ing-ching, the late War Minister (described by the Soviet press as a Fascist), is a leader. Closely allied to them is the C.C. clique of Kuomintang official bureaucrats, led by Chen Li-fu and Chen Kuo-fu, who are leading exponents of “ thought control.” These are the lineal descendants of the old Mandarin authoritarian bureaucracy. They are closely seconded by the “ Blue Shirt ” Fascist wing of the Whampao Group. At the beginning of the war the Centre supported the Left Wing programme of democratic national unity. Most of the pro-Japanese were eliminated from the Government. There was extensive freedom of speech, press, and association. Agreement was reached with the Communists. They liquidated their Soviet Government, against which General Chiang had fought unsuccessfully for ten years, and put their armies and talent at his disposal. No longer afraid that the General would try to exert dictatorial rule over them, all the remaining old war lords and more modern Kuomintang commanders, such as Li Chung-jen and Pai Chung-hsi who ruled Kwangsi, pooled

their forces under General Chiang’s command. It was thanks to this new democratic unity that China found strength to resist Japan. It was then that the General gave the Communists instructions to penetrate the Japanese lines and organize guerrilla resistance. He spoke of a Peoples’ war. A Peoples’ Political Council, including representatives of all parties, was formed—China’s first embryo parliament.

In 1937-38 there were high hopes of a speedy democratization of China. But Kuomintang China in 1944 presents a very different spectacle. Not a single official is an elected representative of the

people. The Peoples’ Political Council has been reduced to a cipher. Many brilliant writers, educationists, and social workers have been hounded from their posts. Official corruption, speculation, and inflation have been due to the fact that Dr. H. H. Kung, the late Finance Minister, was too lenient with reactionary groups who refused to be “ controlled.” The Kuomintang centre and the Government has been veering sharply Right. The reasons are to be found in the facts that all the big cities and industrial centres have been lost to Japan ; the blockade has stopped the import-export

trade ; and, with speculative finance at the helm, urban middle-class influence has declined in some places to vanishingpoint. General Chiang unsuccessfully appealed for substantial help from abroad then sought financial support from the —amidst whom his government now found itself in far-away Chungking in the most backward province in the country. The gentry also supplies him with conscripts who are often in chains for bribery, and favouritism, and press gang methods govern their choice. It is not difficult to see why with such a political background and the physical difficulties of administering a vast country from isolated Chungking, lacking petrol, lorries, planes, and post, military and State efficiency have declined.

The Communist Party and Left Kuomintang in the guerrilla areas have, on the contrary, attempted to make up for lack of industry and allied support by carrying out the mass mobilization inherent in the Kuomintang programme. This is of the type that 1 myself was able to study on a visit to the Border regions in 1938. I found these areas to be the most democratic and fully mobilized in China. As in Marshal Tito’s Yugoslavia, a national front of all classes has been formed on a basis of real collaboration. “He who has money— money ; he who has strengthgives strength ! ” Only the land of proved traitors is confiscated. But exorbitant rents have been substantially reduced, and, although trade is in private hands, prices are controlled. All officials are elected, and the administration is led by a bloc of the Communist Party and Left Kuomintang with many progressive young officers of the centre and even some of the older military leaders.

It is clear that the 80,000,000 people of these areas will never willingly renounce the democratic rights they have gained and defend with such sacrifice, ability, and heroism, nor will they accept any Right Wing- Kuomintang authoritarian regime. Furthermore, their experience disproves the contention that the Chinese need a long period of tutelage before they can rule themselves, or that wartime democratic changes hamper or dislocate the war effort. On the con-

trary, the official Communist Party spokesman, Chou En-lai, states that volunteers to the Eighth Route Army (it takes no conscripts) have raised it to a force of 500,000 men, while the number of guerrillas is 12,000,000. Unfortunately, this is a poorly armed force without the offensive weapons needed to reduce modern “ hedgehog ” positions ; nevertheless, it has held down up to half of the total Japanese forces in China. There is no doubt as to how much more effective this force could become if freed from blockade and, suitably armed, made an integral part of the United Nations’ striking force against Japan.

The Kuomintang Right Wing leaves no doubt as to its attitude towards this guerrilla democracy. They know that if it is extended throughout China it will make an end of their unjust privileges. In post-war China, unless it is liquidated, it will remain an area of dangerous “ democratic infection.” It was in deference to the Right Wing that General Chiang permitted his War Minister Ho Ing-ching to attack, massacre, and disarm a large group of the New Fourth Army in 1940, and throw a cordon sanitaire around these areas, in the hope that the Japanese would wipe them out or at least so weaken them as to make a Kuomintang coup de grace possible. There has been a violent purge of the Communist Party and, indeed, of all real democratic activity throughout Kuomintang China. There has been a ruinous wave of inflation and resultant widespread starvation. More than half a million Kuomintang troops are blockading the guerrillas in North China. The result of this “ strategy ” has been the loss of the U.S. airfields, built at enormous cost in South China, while the Japanese have gained full control of the northsouth railways from Hankow to Canton, Indo-China, and Malaya, thus • relieving their badly mauled sea transport. They threaten the Burma Road deep inside China. To wipe out these gams will cost the lives of many United Nations soldiers.

It is clear that a sharp reversal of policy is needed in Chungking if a major military crisis in China is to be averted and the country prepared to play its full share in the final offensives that are approaching

—but what are the probabilities of a settlement ? It is clear why the Communist Party, the leaders of guerrilla China, and the Left Kuomintang are calling for a reconstitution of national unity on the 1937-39 model, but with more concrete democratic safeguards and recognition of their hard-won rights. The Right Wing demand for the liquidation of the Communist Party and the reduction of the Bth Route Army is an impossible demand and calculated only to solace the Japanese.

Again, as in 1937, the casting vote is with Chiang Kai-shek. His recent dismissal of Ho Ing-ching, the demotion of H. H. Kung and Chen Li-fu, and other Cabinet changes would seem to show that he is making' approaches to the Left in view of the catastrophic results of the Right policy. Conversations continue with the Communist Party. But Izvestia, the official Soviet organ, characterizes these changes as a “ re-shuffle rather than a new deal.”

This is the suitation in which the United Nations have to decide on their military and political strategy in preparing the offensive against Japan. It seems clear that the common interests would be best served by the reconstitution of the united national front under General Chiang Kaishek with such a democratization of the Kuomintang areas as would give the necessary assurance to the Communist Party and guerrilla resistance forces that they would not lose their freedom when they pool their forces under General Chiang’s re-organized Government. This would clear up inefficiency in the Army and Government administration by exposing them to public scrutiny. It would activate all patriotic forces and neutralize the Right, who, noting the imminent defeat of Germany and Japan and the death of Wang Ching-wei, will doubtless see the wisdom of honest collaboration with the popular forces. Chiang Kai-shek would immediately be able to bring an army of nearly a million into operational use, as well as the Min Tuan levies who are now set to watching the peasants.

Such a rebirth of democratic unity will not only revitalize the war effort, but

facilitate speedy post-war reconstruction. The intricate and delicate agrarian problem in particular demands the utmost development of a national co-operative spirit. Self-reliant peasant and workingclass organizations are needed to protect their members from becoming sweated labour to the detriment of all international labour standards.

Unless a settlement is reached on some such lines we may yet witness the tragedy of allied troops marching to fight Japan through guerrilla China, marching side by side with Kuomintang Armies whom the people regarded not as liberators but as new enslavers. In such an event civil war in China would be inevitable.

America seems to be cognizant of these facts and possibilities. The appointment of Mr. Nelson to advise Chungking on economic affairs is not unconnected with the demotion of Mr. H. H. Kung and the appointment of Harvard-educated Mr. T V. Soong to the post of DeputyPremier. The United States have also realistically sent the first military mission to Yen an to make direct contact with the Communist Party leadership and the guerrilla authorities. On the other hand, British diplomacy in China seems to have slipped back from the eminent position it attained when represented by Sir Archibald Clark-Kerr. British public opinion, too, is far less well informed than American. Was it an error of judgment or misinformation that caused General Chiang’s appeals for assistance to go unanswered at a critical time ? What was the advice given him that caused him to decide to throw in his lot with the Right Wing ?

The lives of hundreds of thousands of British and United Nations’ troops depend on the effectiveness of China’s preparation to participate in the final blows against . Japan. No time should be lost in seeing that everything possible is done to eliminate all drawbacks and devise a policy towards China that, based on the vital interests of international democracy, will command the undivided support of all the United Nations and obviate future conflicts not only in, but around China.