POLITICS IN CHINA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1634, 7 November 1916, Page 4

POLITICS IN CHINA.

The new President of China, Li Yuan-Hung, opened the Parliament on August 2nd, and,in the presence of the members declared his intention of doing his duty as President according to the terms of the Constitution. The Parliament thus reopened after an interval of nearly three years. It has in "'reality no constitutional existence, Imion by Yuan Shih-Kai. It has in reality no constitutional existence, and its reincarnation is merely a concession, in the interests of peace, to the demands of the noisiest party in the Slate, the revolutionaries, or, more particularly, the Kuomintang. The most tangible thing in China at the present moment is military force 1 , and although there is now a Parliament and a democratic President, and all the appearances of a constitutional regime, nothing alters the fact that the whole situation is at the mercy of the generals who control large bodies of troops. Certain of these generals, including the Premier, Tuan Shijui, are believed to be in agreement. They arc 1 willing to give Parliament an opport unity to establish itself as a useful institution. It is supposed that if the resuscitated Parliament fails to conduct itself with sense and propriety they will immediately dissolve it and summon another on a greatly restricted basis. The generals in question are believed to have the patriotic intention to do their best for the country. But there are other generals whose motives are not so clear, and whose actions at the present time appear the reverse of patriotic. Thus military intervention would be liable to have disastrous consequences, for it could not be foretold how far it might go; or whom it might involve. Military intervention, in fact, might result in the loosing of the winds and the creation of indescribable chaos.