CHINA: TWO POINTS OF VIEW.-I

Korero (AEWS), Volume 3, Issue 5, 9 April 1945, Page 9

CHINA: TWO POINTS OF VIEW.-I

By

G. W. Keeton.

in The Fortnightly, January, 1945

Professor Keeton was formerly Reader in Law and Politics at Hong Kong University, and his books include “ The Development of Extra Territoriality in China” (1928) and “China, the Far East and the Future” (1942). The second article, by Jack Chen, will be published in our next issue.

?~riHE termination of General Stilwell’s I command, and of General Stilwell’s command, and the ensuing state-

ments in the United States, and China, have emphasized that all is not well with Chinese Nationalism. After seven and a • half years of war, fought under every imaginable difficulty, it would be miraculous if everything was going smoothly. The fact that China is still maintaining some kind of resistance to Japan is in itself, in the circumstances, a notable achievement, yet the recent difficulties have led to a disturbing crop of rumours that the Nationalists are finished, that no considerable effort is being made to resist the Japanese, and that Chinese Nationalism is really Fascism in disguise. Such wild exaggerations are essentially mischievous, and they are a poor tribute to the political sagacity of Mr. Churchill and President Roosevelt, both of whom have persistently addressed General Chiang Kai-shek as the leader of a world Power.

For all that, it is clear that China is to-day facing a major crisis which requires prolonged study and bold treatment. For that reason, it is unfortunate that our news from Chungking is necessarily scanty and that it only filters to us through the medium of two censorships and in such a form that its significance is in danger of being lost in transit. In spite of these difficulties, however, it is essential to reach some conclusion upon such questions as : Is China a democracy ? Is she a world Power ? Is she really one State, or two States, or a collection of autonomous regions ?—if for no other reason than that China’s continued and increasingly effective collaboration in the Far Eastern war is a necessary condition of an allied victory within a reasonable space of time.

The end of one important era in Chinese history came with the outbreak of the Revolution in 1911, for it was at that date that the rule of the Manchus dissolved. Since then, China has been struggling to re-establish unity and stability. Judged by Chinese standards, thirty-three years is not a long time for such a struggle to continue. When dynasties have collapsed in the past, the ensuing disintegration has often continued for half a century, and sometimes for as long as nearly two. Yet always in the past, unity has been eventually regained. Failure to recover it would have involved not only China, but much of the Far East, in chaos, for until the nineteenth century China was the centre of an international system which lasted for many centuries, a system for which Japan is now crudely attempting to substitute her own “ co-prosperity sphere,” thus defying at once geography and history. One of the main sources of political instability in the Far East during the past century has been the steady decay of Chinese strength, thereby exposing wide contiguous areas to foreign domination. For that reason, the best hope of prolonged peace in the Far East after the defeat of Japan is to be found in a China which is once more prosperous and unified.

Unfortunately, it is now plain that China is going to need a good deal of foreign assistance before she can hope to be either. Have we, then, perhaps been a little premature in saluting Nationalist China as one of the “ Big Four ? ” When asked the question some time ago, President Roosevelt replied that China was undoubtedly potentially a great Power, as well as being a major factor in any Far Eastern peace system, and this is the exact truth.

Unlike Japan, China has very considerable mineral resources, as well as oil ; she grows practically all the valuable crops, especially cotton, rice, and tea ; and she has a population which is second to none in its capacity for endurance and hard work. Yet none of these things is of considerable value unless political stability returns and until sufficient capital is forthcoming to build factories and mills, open new mines, and, above all, to construct a vast network of roads and railways, for lack of which China even to-day hardly feels herself to be a nation at all.

As in a number of other Asiatic areas, there is a serious population problem, but it is not one which requires the drastic remedy of large-scale migration, and, even if it did, there are wide areas of China which are sparsely populated. On the other hand, industrialization and improved methods of agriculture will remove the population stresses which China is feeling to-day.

There is, however, a major agrarian problem which inevitably affects political developments, including the conduct of the war. The pressure of China’s farming population upon the soil is unparalleled elsewhere in the world. For centuries a vast population has been extracting every available ounce of foodstuffs from it, so that to-day the soil is impoverished. The situation has been made worse by the destruction of forests over wide areas to supply fuel. New methods of farming, preferably on a larger scale than are generally practised, are required, but so long as things remain as they are the impoverished peasantry must continue to till their 2,3, or 4 acres with archaic implements. In some parts of China the small farmer owns his farm, but more commonly he is only a tenant, and the landlord and the money-lender between them exact such a heavy toll from his scanty earnings that it is difficult for him to support his family even in settled times, whilst as a purchaser of manufactured goods he scarcely exists. It is upon the agrarian question that the Chinese Nationalists have been most sharply criticized, both in China and abroad. In the decade between their accession to power and the outbreak of

the present war with Japan a serious attempt was made to grapple with it by way of loans, limitation of interest-rates, and other means ; but even at that time they were regarded as inadequate measures by many, and recently the effort to improve things for the farmer appears to have been abandoned altogether. On the contrary, he suffers under a load of wartime taxation, often collected in kind, with periodic requisitions for labour service and allied evils. Apart from the fact that the • difficulties of pursuing agrarian reform when a substantial part of the country is in Japanese occupation are obvious, it is nevertheless true that the Chinese Nationalist Party (the Kuomintang) includes practically the whole of the landlord class within its ranks, and these have gained in power as a result of the loss of the ports and the dissipation of much of the wealth of those who engaged in the foreign trade. In Chungking the importance of the farmer class is much more evident than it ever was in Nanking.

Contrasted with this irresolution, the policy of the Chinese Communists is vigorous and easily understood. Before the present war they were insistent that the peasantry should enjoy the ownership of their holdings. This would involve the expropriation of the landlords, virtually without compensation. It may possibly be that they will revert to this policy when the war is over, but at present, in the areas under their control, they are content to reduce rents and taxes and to put an end to the depredations of the money-lenders. This policy has won them the enthusiastic support of the peasantry, without alienating the more progressive landlords, as a correspondent recently pointed out in two special articles in The Times. Bearing this in mind, therefore, it is not difficult to see how Chinese Nationalism may be losing ground with the rank-and-file, or why the term “ reactionary ” is being increasingly used to describe some of its leaders. That may be a justified criticism, but it does not in • itself warrant the use of fiercer descriptions, any more than the influence of big business in the American Republican party or in our own Conservative party does. The basic assumptiQn of

the Kuomintang is that it is a federation of many varying interests for a common purpose. Inevitably, therefore, there is some variation in emphasis at different periods, and China is not the only member of the United Nations to be experiencing a Conservative reaction at the moment.

In considering the relations of the Kuomintang and the Communists it is essential to remember their origin and history. Originally, both formed part of the Nationalist movement. The split came at the end of 1927 when the Nationalists expelled their Soviet advisers and instructors and launched an attack upon the Communists within the party. The Communists seceded, and organized themselves independently, in bitter hostility to their former colleagues. Following Chiang Kai-shek’s defeat of the rebel war lords, he attacked the Communists. Neither side gave much quarter, and

eventually the Communists were compelled to undertake their famous march to Shensi, where they have been established ever since. Fighting between the two wings of the Chinese Revolution continued intermittently until 1937, when the imminence of war with Japan led to a truce, and collaboration for national defence. After seven and a half years of war, however, enthusiasm for collaboration is wearing thin on both sides, and neither party has so far abated its pretensions to be the sole architect of China’s future. This is more than a matter of prestige: It is the direct consequence of the doctrines to which each party adheres. It is important that Western critics should appreciate this. The issue is not, as it was in Great Britain in 1940, whether the Left Wing party will join the Government, but which of two rival

philosophies is to prevail, with the accompanying possibility of a complete exclusion of the other from China..

Even the limited collaboration for prosecution of the war against Japan has created new problems. The Communists are based upon Yehan, but most of their activities are prosecuted by guerrilla warfare far behind the Japanese lines. The Nationalists complain that in these activities the Communists have excluded Nationalist influence, so that as China is progressively liberated increasing areas will come under Communist control. The Communists retort that Nationalist China has not paid their armies the promised subsidies, has withheld practically all supplies, and maintains a large and well-equipped army on the borders of Communist territory for the purpose not of fighting the Japanese, but of observing and checking the Communists. This is an explosive situation which has more than once led to outbreaks of warfare. It has 'further implications, also. If the Communists were responsible for the liberation of Chaharp Jehol, and Manchuria, they would possess wide and productive territories adjoining those of the Soviet and of Soviet-controlled Outer Mongolia. All parties are conscious of the possibilities of this situation. In the past the attitude of the Soviet to Nationalist China has been a helpful one. It was to the Nationalists that supplies were formerly sent overland. It does not necessarily follow, however, that the Soviet will be as friendly to the Nationalists in the future as she has been in the past.

What can be said of the structure and political outlook of the Kuomintang ? It is not the least of the ironies of recent history that a party which, in the early days of its development, was regarded in the West as dangerously Left in its orientation (even after the departure of the Soviet advisers) should now be suspect for asserted Right Wing, or even Fascist, tendencies. Of course, it may be that the party has shifted to this extent during the last sixteen years, but the probabilities are against it, having regard to the fact that the party’s programme is based on Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s Three People’s Principles.

In the first place, it is worth while remembering that so far China has not experienced anything remotely resembling Western democratic government. When the early reformers attempted to establish such a Government after the collapse of the Empire, it dissolved almost without trace. When the Kuomintang came to power, therefore, it declared that democracy (social as well as political) would be achieved in three stages. The first was a purely temporary party dictatorship, which ended almost immediately after the close of the Civil War. The second period was described as the period of political tutelage, during which the State would be governed by a single party — the Kuomintang — and during which certain essential reforms would be achieved, and the people would be progressively prepared and educated for democratic government. It would close with the promulgation of a complete and democratic constitution.

It should be observed (1) that Kuomintang doctrine itself has always freely conceded that the achievement of democracy is one of its main aims, following which the Kuomintang will abdicate its monopolist position and become simply one of several parties operating the constitution ; and (2) that a Draft Constitution had been prepared and would in all probability have been put into operation in 1937 but for the war with Japan.

This constitution itself has been criticized as an undemocratic document. It divides government into five sections—legislative, judicial, executive, examination, and control. By the latter term the Chinese understands supervision of other Departments of government, including the duties of audit and impeachment. It is contemplated that the organs discharging each of these functions should be staffed by experts. Above them all will be a People’s Political Congress of 2,000 representatives which will meet for about a month every three years.

It is true that this does not look overwhelmingly democratic, but China’s experience since 19 u has been a bitter one, and it is worth while comparing that constitutional draft with, say, the present government of India. It can scarcely be

challenged that under this draft real power would be with the executive, but so it is to-day in most democracies; and it is at least arguable that increasing experience would induce the Chinese to extend the sessions of their People’s Congress, and possibly also to institute a smaller standing committee meeting at frequent intervals.

Other criticisms, however, attack the Nationalists not for their Draft Constitution, but for the dictatorial regime which now exists.' It is perfectly true that today the executive, closely allied with the army, wields dictatorial powers. It is perhaps not unexpected, in view of the Idngth of tlie war and the fact that the Japanese are still advancing. In our own emergency in 1940 we conceded to the Government powers as absolute as those enjoyed by General Chiang Kai-shek’s Government, and we are only cautiously withdrawing them. The test is not how much is necessary for the successful conduct of the war, but what may be expected to remain when the war is over. The Draft Constitution furnishes some evidence upon the latter point, and if it contains some provisions strange to the Western eye, China is to be congratulated that she has at last ceased to construct faithful replicas of Western constitutions quite unsuited to Chinese habits of thought. Some of these abortive Chinese constitutions may be found within the pages of scientific journals.

A different, and weightier, criticism is that the Chinese Government does not always use its powers effectively. It is said that corruption, inflation, and military inefficiency abound, and the attitude to foreign officials has become unco-operative. The latter charge is serious, and was directly alleged in the United States at the time of General Stilwell’s withdrawal. It is plain evidence that isolation, brought about by Japanese successes, is doing a good deal of harm. Japanese propaganda has fanned racial prejudice and revived the old sense of Chinese superiority, about which the foreigner complained so bitterly last century. Both have been accentuated by the humiliating defeats which Great Britain and the United States suffered in their early encounters with Japan. More re-

cently there has been irritation at the slow progress of operations in Burma, and magnitude of Anglo-American successes, both in Europe and the Far East, has not yet been assessed. When the Western expert talks of Chinese inefficiency and corruption, his Chinese colleague is apt to retort that these are not completely unknown in the west either ; although argument of this kind is profitless to either side, and will change nothing in the Sino-Japan-ese War until supplies are pouring into Chungking either through a port or by a land route. That will at one and the same time allow China for the first time to fight on more equal terms and dissipate the pessimism and discontent which has recently been growing.

China is to-day as much the testingpoint of the diplomacy of Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union as Poland is. Divergent policies would lead to internal disorder, an irreparable weakness in the Far Eastern security system, and almost certainly another Pacific war. Conversely, an agreed policy in respect of China cannot assist China to compose her own feuds, and to resume her struggle for prosperity, which was interrupted in 1937, but will make it possible to regard China as the pivot of any Far Eastern security system. Conducting an internal political and social revolution, as well as a long-drawn-out war against an invader, has put a strain even upon China’s capacity to endure and remain cheerful, and some of the recent pronouncements of her spokesmen show some evidence of frayed tempers. . Can anything be done to improve the position.

The only thing which is likely to be decisive is an extension of the recent successes in the Pacific to the Chinese mainland and the opening-up of direct communications with Chungking. The next would be the preparation and initiation of large-scale measures of industrial development with the very greatest speed. In such a framework there would be far better chances of composing the differences between Nationalists and Communists than there are to-dav. However much other allied nations may suggest, only the Chinese can compose their differences, and it might be . possible for them to do so if the Draft Constitution

with some amendments in favour of additional powers for the People’s Congress, could be put into force as soon as China is cleared of the Japanese. It is very doubtful to-day whether Nationalists and Communists can be brought to collaborate more enthusiastically in the political field, but it is not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility to think of China governed by a coalition of groups, some of the elements in which changed from time to time. But no Government which is not prepared to initiate a programme of far-reaching agrarian reforms can hope to command public confidence very long in China when the war is brought to a successful finish. Meanwhile, even independently of the political and military changes which have followed the termination of General Stilwell’s command, Chinese opinion has expressed itself consistently upon the need for considerable political and military progress. Even under the present political system there exists a People’s Political Council which, though possessing only limited functions, nevertheless expresses the main currents of Chinese opinion.

This Council has consistently declared the necessity of finding means of achieving closer collaboration with the Chinese Communists. Moreover, the Political Council which is now on the eve of meeting will comprise 290 members, an increase of 50 as compared with previous Councils, and, of the new members, 35 will be elected by the Provisional People’s Assemblies of twenty-nine provinces and municipalities. Further, the new Council will exercise the power of scrutiny over the Budget. These are . cautious but encouraging steps forward, and they are evidence of the ultimate intentions of the Kuomintang. Additional measures in the direction of devolution of responsibility could well be taken as the Japanese are driven back. But an analysis of China’s present position reveals very clearly that China needs, even more than poltical democracy, far-reaching measures of economic recovery and development before her major discontents can be removed; and it is here that both Great Britain and the United States can render an enduring service not only to China, but to a lasting peace in the Pacific.

First Patrol, by S/Sgt. L. J. Ferguson, N.Z.T.S. This drawing won second prize in the recent Korero competition