THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CHINA.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 221, 26 January 1928, Page 3

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CHINA.

THE KUOMINTANG FAILURE. There must be many of our readers who are wondering what has happened to China, seeing that only a year ago the affairs of that distracted country were the concern and the bewilderment of the whole world. Weary sub-editors puzzled nightly. , over the doings of generals with im- | probable names in localities with | even more improbable names still, diplomats pondered over the problem of negotiating with a country that had two and even three independent Governments, British “ Tommies,” French poilus and American marines paraded in the streets of Shanghai, J and even in New Zealand a retired army officer offered to settle the whole business with a detachment of the League of Frontiersmen. Much was heard of the “ awakening of China,” and it did seem then (at least to some people) that out of the ] turmoil might emerge a new China, j united under the Kuomintang—the j Nationalist movement started by Dr. j Sun Yat-sen. But the Kuomintang, ' having conquered the whole of South- j em China in one of the most remarkable military achievements of the century, suddenly disintegrated when the conquest of the whole country j seemed easily possible. The clear- j cut issue between the South and the North dissolved into a series of meaningless struggles between independent war lords, and the situation became too complicated even for the war correspondents. The latest issue of Current History contains one of the first coherent accounts of the collapse of the Kuomintang and with it of the modernist movement in China. According to this journal, the problem of the Kuomintang has always been “ to steer a safe course between the Seylla of militarism and the Charybdis of Communism.” The civilian leaders of the movement— Mr. Eugene Chen, Mrs. Sun Yat-sen and the rest—had for the most part irreproachable motives and considerable personal attainments, but they were political theorists rather than I politicians. Their first mistake was in allowing Chinese Communists to acquire too much influence in the organisation of labour and peasant unions ; their second and irretrievable mistake was their failure to set any

bounds to the reaction that started under the guise of anti-Communism, and was in reality a bid by the militarists for control of the party. Marshal Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the victorious Kuomintang armies, who began the reaction with a roundup of Communists in Hankow, finished by setting up a military dictatorship, disbanding labour and peasant organisations, and blocking even the mildest reform of the mediaeval Chinese land system. Other Nationalist generals followed suit, with the result that the Kuomintang has ceased for the time to be an active force in Chinese affairs. For the enlightened few in China who look to the day when their country will take its place as a nation there is a lesson in this sorry collapse of the Kuomintang, and it is that the obstacle in the way of Chinese nationalism is not “ foreign Imperialism ” but domestic militarism. Declaiming against the foreign oppressor has proved easier and more spectacular than effecting internal reforms.