THE REBELLION IN CHINA

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2711, 4 March 1916, Page 15

THE REBELLION IN CHINA

ITS LEADER AND HIS AMBITIONS

(By H. Wilson Harris, in the "Daily Noivs.") . With China at the critical point of the transition from republic tc monarchy, the revolt in Yunnan will need watching. We are as yet without derailed information on the rising, but it ; is clear that exiled revolutionaries iii Japan have played, a part in the outbreak, and that the leadership of the dissidents is in the capable hands of General Tsai Ao-han. Both those facts aro significant, the latter on account of General 'l'sai's rccord in the revolution, of 1911, the : former because it gives tlio rising a more than local importance. Not much is known of the movements of Dr. Siui Yet-sen, General Huang-flsing, and other revolutionary leaders who fled the country after tho abortive rising of 1913, but it is certain that they are strongly represented in Japan, their proximity to China being not unnaturally a source of constant anxiety to the Peking authorities. . That-, however, has only an indirect bearing on the Yunnan revolt. The importance of the outbreak is to bo gauged not by its probablo origin, but by tho conditions prevailing in the districts aifectcd. Yunnan is tho remotest outpost of China proper. Situated at t'lio far south-west of the Empire, bordering: on Upper Burniali on 0110 side and French liido-China on another, ij; is one of the permanent perplexities of those statesmen who realise that increased centralisation is essential to the welfare of China-. The Detachment of Yunnan. Every relevant factor conspires to accentuate the detachment of Yunnan. To a large extent it is inhabited by aboriginal tribes—the Lolo, the Miaotse, and the Nanohao are the least unfamiliar—of whose origin practically nothing is known except that it is absolutely diverso from that of the Chinese. • Economically the outlet for Yunnan trade is not through China at all, but down.the valley of the Yuan-kipng to Hanoi and Haiphong in lndo-China. Hence it comes that in any. discussion of a possible partitioning of China (happily such sinister proposals aro receding daily further into tho background) Yunnan has always been assigned as a matter of course to Franco.' The witness of history tells the same tale. It was in Yunnan associated with the Chinese Empire by the far-famed Kubla, Khan five hundred years ago) that tho survivors of tho great Ming dynasty made their last stand against the ooiKjuoring Manchus after the dynastic upheaval of 1644. The indications, therefore do not point ' to a wide extension of, the Yunnan revolutionary movement. The report that Kwangsi has hoisted tho same banner of revolt remains unconfirmed, and is not inherently probable, for Yunnan's immediate affinity is not with Kwangsi, but with Kweichan, with which, nnder the old regime, it was united in a single vice-royalty. Nothing, on the other hand, is more likely than a vigorous attempt by the outlying province to throw off altogether the looso rein of Peking domination, and with something like twelve hundred miles separating the capital of Ynnnan from tho capital <vf China tho subjugation of even a localised revolt may well prove a sufficiently troublesome undertaking. President—or Emperor—Yuan Shili-kai has an adequate force of efficient troops available, but this is not a moment when 110 would chooso to send them off to a remote corner of China weeks out of touch with tho nearest railway. Character of Tsai Ao-han, In view of the prospect of a protracted little campaign in Yunnan the personality of the revolutionary'leader assumes a certain importance. Tsai Aohan first came into prominenco in the revolution of 1911. Like most of the authors of that 'successful coup dc main, he was trained in Japan; like most of them, again, he was youthful and quixotic; and, like a much smaller proportion, he exhibited in a high degree firmness, resource, and statesman, ship. It was on.. October 10 that the revolution broke out at AVuchang. Exactly a month later tho rebel leader, Li. Yuan-hung, received a- telegram from the self-constituted dictator of Yunnan pledging the adhesion of the southwestern province to the revolutionary standard. The message bore the signature Tsai Ao-han. By a fortunate chance a well-known French sociologist, SI. Fernand Farjenel, travelling liorthward into Yunnan from lndo-China, was in the capital, Yunnan-fu, at the moment of the revolutionary outbreak, aud liis estimate of tho persdnality of Tsai Ao-han is of peculiar interest to-day. In Yunnan, as everywhere else, the danger of a general massacre of supporters of tho aid order at the hands of turbulent and undisciplined revolutionaries was grave, and nothing but the resolution of General Tsai, who assumed supreme command of the rebel forces, could have saved the situation. He secured the escape off the, Manchu Viceroy in spite of the threatening murmurs of'his own followers, and summarily beheaded a soldier guilty of bayoneting the daughter of another Imperial official. Thanks to such measures,. Yunnan enjoyed a | practically bloodless transition from monarchy to republio. Alms and Ambitions, In view of present developments, a conversation between M. Farjenel and General Tsai (whom he describes a 6 being about thirty years old, but altogether unmilitary in appearance, ivith smooth, beardless face) may be more important than it then seoitied. Tho young commander avowed himself a whole-hearted : republican, but with qualifications that do considerable credit to his judgment and breadth of vision. China, ho held, must have a strong Central Government, organised on republican principles, but in tho distant provinces—Yunnan, for example—a military dictatorship should be retained for 1 a time. He believed the country was not ready for universal suffrage, but advocated the immediate nationalisation of mines and railways. His first administrative action was to proclaim Ynnnan an independent republic with • a provisional Government till such time as the rest of China should fall into lino and be prepared to federate on the same basis. Since that day Tsai 'Ao-han lias giywi proof of his capacity as tutuh, or civil and military governor, of Yunnan under tho Republic. His ideals are evidently unchanged, and tlioy aro sufficiently practical and far-sighted to inspire the liopo that his rebellion may be suppressed without involving him in personal ruin. It is not easy to form a sound estimate of a politician of an alien race 011 the strength of tlio scanty information we possess, but so far as it is possible to appreciato the personality of Tsai Ao-han, ho appears to bo essentially 0110 of the men whom China has need to-day.