CHINA'S MAN OF THE HOUR

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 172, 7 August 1937, Page 8

CHINA'S MAN OF THE HOUR

Chiang ' Kai-shek's Rise ! to Power A FRAGILE DICTATOR General Chiang Kai-shek, the President of the Chinese Republie, is a gaunt, almost emaciated, man of fiftyone years of age, says a writer in the Sydney Morning Herald. In appearance, especially when clad in his favourite long Chineso robes, ho suggests anything rather than a professional soldier or a diptator of five hundred million people. His face is almost wistful in appearance, and his thonghtful eyes and slightly stooping figure give him the air of a'student. He seems incredibly fragile for the martial role in which he is cast. Indeed, he is far from strong. At the moment he is suffering froxn the •pinal injuries which he obtained at flke time of his imprisonment in Sian provinee last winter. Chiang 's story is almost ineredible." Born in a tiny country village in Chekiang, he was forced to work as a boy in a merchant's shop. Not liking the humdrum life, the young apprentice ran away and joined the provincial army as a private, illiterate and unknown. Self-educated by an arduous proeess, he won a military scholarship and gradnated from his college with honours. The Manehu Government of tho time sent him to the Imperial Military College in Tolcyo, and, after five years in Japan, he returned to China just in time for the revolntion that overthrew the dragon throne. 8 Learned from Russia. The young olficer toclc part in the first and second revolutions under Sun Yat-sen, and secured much notice by eapturing the eity of Waichowy which had been deemed impregnable until lie applied Japanese tactics to it. In 1920, he became head of the Whampoa Military Academy, largcly* under the control of the Soviet. Then ensued a period in which he was under Kussian infiuence. His military genius'and skilled diplomacy, ("a silver bullet leaves less trace than a leaden one,", he once said) soon made him the outstanding soldier of tlie Republie, and, when the southern armies launched their tempestuous attack on the north in 392G, General Chiang was placed in supreme charge. Without him the march to the Yangtze could never liave taken place; with him in control, Nanldng became the eapital of a new China. Chiang, however, was aiready restive under the Russian advice. He had no wish to be "a leader on a leash," and, very astutely, freed himself of his Soviet controllers, even General Galen, his former chief-of-staff. But he en•countered various checks, and, in 1927, retired to Japan for a year, returning in time to coinplete the Nationalist victory by eapturing Peldn ifcself. Becoming president of the Government, he was compelled to spend the next few years fighting various rebel war lords, and, between the campaigns, attempting to eonsolidate the country. Intrigues forced him out of office for a time at the end of 1931, but once again he retnrned at the erueial moment, in time to defend Shanghai against the Japanese and quell the Communists in the northern prcvinces. A Clever Wife. He has been helped in his struggle by his family connections through mar: riage. He married a chgrming young Chinese girl who had graduated at Wellesley College, America, and who, as May Long Soong, had delightfully translated certain Chinese poems into English. Chiang had aiready obtained a liking for the traditional Chinese culture; now his wife strengtliened that leaning; and, in addition, directed his onergies into social and economic directions; The soldier-diplomat became a many-sided chaTacter; the war lord developed into a statesman of the first order. Moreover, his wife was a sister of T. V. Soong and of Sun# Yat-sen 's widow, and was thus a member of the most powerful family in China. In the past much infiuence has been attributed to the Soong family— or dynasty, as it is called — in inoulding Chiang 's character and in providing the financial backifig for his regime, but nowadays we are not quite so certain about this, and it almost appears as if T. V. Soong 's financial genius was greatly exaggerated. Indeed, it is likely that Soong and Chiang came close to being rivals in the later days. ■ However, this may be, there is no doubt at all that tho regeneration of China in the last five or six years has been mainly, due to Chiang; Nothing escaped his notice, from quarantine services to control of the narcotic trade, from higher education to iudicial reforms. "The. New Life." He paid especial attention to the changing social fabric of China. In these days China was facing West, and Chiang saw that the only alternative to a deadenmg disruption was to raise a counter-movement based on what was best in the old Chinese tradition. So he took np the New Life movement that started in Kiangsi, and tried by its means to arouse a fealing of the responsibilities of citizenship in all Chinese. He wanted to combine the morality of tho remote past with the changing needs of the present. To do so he tried to raise tho standards of the depressed classes and remove the corruption amongst the ofiicials. The movement spread surprisingly far afield. "Avoid wine, women, and gambling," ran one of Chiang's exhortations. "Kill rats and flies," said another. The whole gamut of social life was to be covered. Beggars were to button up their coats, motorists were not to run down peasants — there was no limit to the reforms. But Chiang's main intorest has always been in the struggle for nationalAt times his methods have beon

harsh and his devices .devious, but vs« must remember that Chinese politics are ru non crude lines. Chiang wanted a united China, and, as one of the old proverbs says, "A muddy pool will not clear while it is being stirred." Prail, Pierce Pighter. So this frail man ranged from the Yeilow River to Szeehuan, always fighting, always ref orming. Pierce in tho field and passionate as an orator, he likes his retiremeht best of all. He surrounds himself with purely Chinese furnishings and dreams of tho path that he has built between the China that was and. the China that is to be. He dislikes Western ideas as such. Whenever he can, he discards his simple uniform for his robes and slippers and will not wear Western clothes. He is no linguist. He has a few words of English, but his only foreign language is Japanese. He is really a traditionalist, and that is Avhere he differs from Sun Yat-sen. Sun had to be a destroyer, and his own exuberance led him to grandiose scliemes that could never be realised; whereas the self-mado Chiang is a builder, and, through building, gets back to the China of the past. No less an idealist than Sun Yat-sen, he is far more practical and has learned so much from hard experience that he prefers to bnild his ultimate structure brick by brick.