IVA Political Upheaval in ChinaEvenin America we have heard of one Chinese revolution, that which thrust the Manchu dynasty from the throne. The visitor in China gets used to casual references to the second revolution, that which frustrated Yuan Shi Kai’s aspirations to be emperor, and the third, the defeat in 1917 of the abortive attempt to put the Manchu boy emperor back into power. And within the last few weeks the (September 1920) fourth upheaval has taken place. It may not be dignified by the name of the fourth revolution, for the head of the state has not been changed by it. But as a manifestation of the forces that shape Chinese political events, for evil and for good, perhaps this last disturbance surpasses the last two “revolutions” in significance.Chinese politics in detail are highly complicated, a mess of personalities and factions whose oscillations no one can follow who does not know a multitude of personal, family and provincial histories. But occasionally something happens which simplifies the tangle. Definite outlines frame themselves out of the swirling criss-cross of strife, intrigue and ambition. So,at present, the complete collapse of the Anfu clique which owned the central government for two years marks the end of that union of internal militarism and Japanese foreign influence which was, for China, the most marked fruit of the war. When China entered the war a “War Participation” army was formed. It never participated; probably it was never meant to. But its formation threw power wholly into the hands of the military clique, as against the civilian constitutionalists. And in return for concessions, secret agreements relating to Manchuria, Shantung, new railways, etc., Japan supplied money, munitions, instructors for the army and a benevolent supervision of foreign and domestic politics. The war came to an unexpected and untimely end, but by this time the offspring of the marriage of the militarism of Yuan Shi Kai and Japanese money and influence was a lusty youth. Bolshevism was induced to take the place of Germany as a menace requiring the keeping up of the army, and loans and teachers. Mongolia was persuaded to cut her strenuous ties with Russia, to renounce her independence and come again under Chinese sovereignty.The army and its Japanese support and instruction was, accordingly, continued. In place of the “War Participation” army appeared the “Frontier Defense” army. Marshal Tuan, the head of the military party, remained the nominal political power behind the presidential chair, and General Hsu (commonly known as little Hsu, in distinction from old Hsu, the president) was the energetic manager of the Mongolian adventure which, by a happy coincidence, required a bank, land development companies and railway schemes, as well as an army. About this military centre as a nucleus gathered the vultures who fed on the carrion. This flock took the name of the Anfu Club. It did not control the entire cabinet, but to it belonged the Minister of Justice, who manipulated the police and the courts, persecuted the students, suppressed liberal journals and imprisoned inconvenient critics. And the Club owned the ministers of finance and communications, the two cabinet places that dispense revenues, give out jobs and make loans. It also regulated the distribution of intelligence by mail and telegraph. The reign of corruption and despotic inefficiency, tempered only by the student revolt, set in. In two years the Anfu Club got away with two hundred millions ofpublic funds directly, to say nothing of what was wasted by incompetency and upon the army. The Allies had set out to get China into the war. They succeeded in getting Japan into control of Peking and getting China, politically speaking, into a seemingly hopeless state of corruption and confusion.The militaristic or Pei-Yang party was, however, divided into two factions, each called after a province. The Anwhei party gathered about little Hsu and was almost identical with the Anfus. The Chili faction had been obliged, so far as Peking was concerned, to content itself with such leavings as the Anfu Club tossed to it. Apparently it was hopelessly weaker than its rival, although Tuan, who was personally honest and above financial scandal, was supported by both factions and was the head of both. About three months ago there were a few signs that, while the Anfu Club had been entrenching itself in Peking, the rival faction had been quietly establishing itself in the provinces. A league of Eight Tuchuns (military governors of the provinces) came to the assistance of the president against some unusually strong pressure from the Anfu Club. In spite of the fact that the military governor of the three Manchurian provinces, Chang Tso Lin, popularly known as the Emperor of Manchuria, lined up with this league, practically nobody expected anything except some manœuvering to get a larger share of the spoils.But late in June the president invited Chang Tso Lin to Peking. The latter saw Tuan, told him that he was surrounded by evil advisers, demanded that he cut loose from little Hsu and the Anfu Club, and declared open war upon little Hsu—the two had long and notoriously been bitter enemies. Even then people had great difficulty in believing that anything would happen except another Chinese compromise. The president was known to be sympathetic upon the whole with the Chili faction, but the president, if not a typical Chinese, is at least typical of a certain kind of Chinese mandarin, non-resistant, compromising, conciliating, procrastinating, covering up, evading issues, face-saving. But finally something happened. A mandate was issued dismissing little Hsu from office, military and civil, dissolving the frontier defense corps as such, and bringing it under the control of the Ministry of War (usually armies in China belong to some general or Tuchun, not to thecountry). For almost forty-eight hours it was thought that Tuan had consented to sacrifice little Hsu and that the latter would submit at least temporarily. Then with equally sensational abruptness Tuan brought pressure to bear on the president. The latter was appointed head of a national defense army, and rewards were issued for the heads of the chiefs of the Chili faction, nothing, however, being said about Chang Tso Lin, who had meanwhile returned to Mukden and who still professed allegiance to Tuan. Troops were mobilized; there was a rush of officials and of the wealthy to the concessions of Tientsin and to the hotels of the legation quarter.This sketch is not meant as history, but simply as an indication of the forces at work. Hence it is enough to say that two weeks after Tuan and little Hsu had intimidated the president and proclaimed themselves the saviors of the Republic, they were in hiding, their enemies of the Chili party were in complete control of Peking, and rewards from fifty thousand dollars down were offered for the arrest of little Hsu, the ex-ministers of justice, finance and communications, and other leaders of the Anfu Club. The political turnover was as complete as it was sensational. The seemingly impregnable masters of China were impotent fugitives. The carefully built up Anfu Club, with its military, financial and foreign support, had crumbled and fallen. No country at any time has ever seen a political upheaval more sudden and more thoroughgoing. It was not so much a defeat as a dissolution like that of death, a total disappearance, an evaporation.Corruption had worked inward, as it has a way of doing. Japanese-bought munitions would not explode; quartermasters vanished with the funds with which stores were to be bought; troops went without anything to eat for two or three days; large numbers, including the larger part of one division, went over to the enemy en masse; those who did not desert had no heart for fighting and ran away or surrendered on the slightest provocation, saying they were willing to fight for their country but saw no reason why they should fight for a faction, especially a faction that had been selling the country to a foreign nation. In the manner of the defeat of the Anfu clique at the height of its supremacy, rather than in the mere fact of its defeat, lies the credit side of the Chinese political balance sheet. It is a strikingexhibition of the oldest and best faith of the Chinese—the power of moral considerations. Public opinion, even that of the coolie on the street, was wholly against the Anfu party. It went down not so much because of the strength of the other side as because of its own rottenness.So far the results are to all appearances negative. The most marked is the disappearance of Japanese prestige. As one of the leading men in the War Office said: “For over a year now the people have been strongly opposed to the Japanese government on account of Shantung. But now even the generals do not care for Japan any more.” It is hardly logical to take the easy collapse of the Japanese-supported Anfu party as a proof of the weakness of Japan, but prestige is always a matter of feeling rather than of logic. Many who were intimidated to the point of hypnotism by the idea of the irresistible power of Japan are now freely laughing at the inefficiency of Japanese leadership. It would not be safe to predict that Japan will not come back as a force to be reckoned with in the internal as well as external politics of China, but it is safe to say that never again will Japan figure as superman to China. And such a negation is after all a positive result.And so in its way is the overthrow of the Anwhei faction of the militarist party. The Chinese liberals do not feel very optimistic about the immediate outcome. They have mostly given up the idea that the country can be reformed by political means. They are sceptical about the possibility of reforming even politics until a new generation comes on the scene. They are now putting their faith in education and in social changes which will take some years to consummate themselves visibly. The self-styled southern republican constitutional party has not shown itself in much better light than the northern militarist party. In fact, its old leader Sun Yat Sen now cuts one of the most ridiculous figures in China, as shortly before this upheaval he had definitely aligned himself with Tuan and little Hsu.2This does not mean, however, that democratic opinion thinks nothing has been gained. The demonstration of the inherent weakness of corrupt militarism will itself prevent the development of any militarism as complete as that of the Anfus. As one Chinese gentleman said to me: “When Yuan Shi Kai was overthrown, the tiger killed the lion. Now a snake has killed the tiger. No matter how vicious the snake may become, some smaller animal will be able to kill him, and his life will be shorter than that of either lion or tiger.” In short, each successive upheaval brings nearer the day when civilian supremacy will be established. This result will be achieved partly because of the repeated demonstrations of the uncongeniality of military despotism to the Chinese spirit, and partly because with every passing year education will have done its work. Suppressed liberal papers are coming to life, while over twenty Anfu subsidized newspapers and two subsidized news agencies have gone out of being. The soldiers, including many officers in the Anwhei army, clearly show the effects of student propaganda. And it is worth while to note down the name of one of the leaders on the victorious side, the only one whose troops did any particular fighting, and that against great odds in numbers. The name is Wu Pei Fu. He at least has not fought for the Chili faction against the Anwhei faction. He has proclaimed from the first that he was fighting to rid the country of military control of civil government, and against traitors who would sell their country to foreigners. He has come out strongly for a new popular assembly, to form a new constitution and to unite the country. And although Chang Tso Lin has remarked that Wu Pei Fu as a military subordinate could not be expected to intervene in politics, he has not as yet found it convenient to oppose the demand for a popular assembly. Meanwhile the liberals are organizing their forces, hardly expecting to win a victory, but resolved, win or lose, to take advantage of the opportunity to carry further the education of the Chinese people in the meaning of democracy.August, 1920.
Evenin America we have heard of one Chinese revolution, that which thrust the Manchu dynasty from the throne. The visitor in China gets used to casual references to the second revolution, that which frustrated Yuan Shi Kai’s aspirations to be emperor, and the third, the defeat in 1917 of the abortive attempt to put the Manchu boy emperor back into power. And within the last few weeks the (September 1920) fourth upheaval has taken place. It may not be dignified by the name of the fourth revolution, for the head of the state has not been changed by it. But as a manifestation of the forces that shape Chinese political events, for evil and for good, perhaps this last disturbance surpasses the last two “revolutions” in significance.
Chinese politics in detail are highly complicated, a mess of personalities and factions whose oscillations no one can follow who does not know a multitude of personal, family and provincial histories. But occasionally something happens which simplifies the tangle. Definite outlines frame themselves out of the swirling criss-cross of strife, intrigue and ambition. So,at present, the complete collapse of the Anfu clique which owned the central government for two years marks the end of that union of internal militarism and Japanese foreign influence which was, for China, the most marked fruit of the war. When China entered the war a “War Participation” army was formed. It never participated; probably it was never meant to. But its formation threw power wholly into the hands of the military clique, as against the civilian constitutionalists. And in return for concessions, secret agreements relating to Manchuria, Shantung, new railways, etc., Japan supplied money, munitions, instructors for the army and a benevolent supervision of foreign and domestic politics. The war came to an unexpected and untimely end, but by this time the offspring of the marriage of the militarism of Yuan Shi Kai and Japanese money and influence was a lusty youth. Bolshevism was induced to take the place of Germany as a menace requiring the keeping up of the army, and loans and teachers. Mongolia was persuaded to cut her strenuous ties with Russia, to renounce her independence and come again under Chinese sovereignty.
The army and its Japanese support and instruction was, accordingly, continued. In place of the “War Participation” army appeared the “Frontier Defense” army. Marshal Tuan, the head of the military party, remained the nominal political power behind the presidential chair, and General Hsu (commonly known as little Hsu, in distinction from old Hsu, the president) was the energetic manager of the Mongolian adventure which, by a happy coincidence, required a bank, land development companies and railway schemes, as well as an army. About this military centre as a nucleus gathered the vultures who fed on the carrion. This flock took the name of the Anfu Club. It did not control the entire cabinet, but to it belonged the Minister of Justice, who manipulated the police and the courts, persecuted the students, suppressed liberal journals and imprisoned inconvenient critics. And the Club owned the ministers of finance and communications, the two cabinet places that dispense revenues, give out jobs and make loans. It also regulated the distribution of intelligence by mail and telegraph. The reign of corruption and despotic inefficiency, tempered only by the student revolt, set in. In two years the Anfu Club got away with two hundred millions ofpublic funds directly, to say nothing of what was wasted by incompetency and upon the army. The Allies had set out to get China into the war. They succeeded in getting Japan into control of Peking and getting China, politically speaking, into a seemingly hopeless state of corruption and confusion.
The militaristic or Pei-Yang party was, however, divided into two factions, each called after a province. The Anwhei party gathered about little Hsu and was almost identical with the Anfus. The Chili faction had been obliged, so far as Peking was concerned, to content itself with such leavings as the Anfu Club tossed to it. Apparently it was hopelessly weaker than its rival, although Tuan, who was personally honest and above financial scandal, was supported by both factions and was the head of both. About three months ago there were a few signs that, while the Anfu Club had been entrenching itself in Peking, the rival faction had been quietly establishing itself in the provinces. A league of Eight Tuchuns (military governors of the provinces) came to the assistance of the president against some unusually strong pressure from the Anfu Club. In spite of the fact that the military governor of the three Manchurian provinces, Chang Tso Lin, popularly known as the Emperor of Manchuria, lined up with this league, practically nobody expected anything except some manœuvering to get a larger share of the spoils.
But late in June the president invited Chang Tso Lin to Peking. The latter saw Tuan, told him that he was surrounded by evil advisers, demanded that he cut loose from little Hsu and the Anfu Club, and declared open war upon little Hsu—the two had long and notoriously been bitter enemies. Even then people had great difficulty in believing that anything would happen except another Chinese compromise. The president was known to be sympathetic upon the whole with the Chili faction, but the president, if not a typical Chinese, is at least typical of a certain kind of Chinese mandarin, non-resistant, compromising, conciliating, procrastinating, covering up, evading issues, face-saving. But finally something happened. A mandate was issued dismissing little Hsu from office, military and civil, dissolving the frontier defense corps as such, and bringing it under the control of the Ministry of War (usually armies in China belong to some general or Tuchun, not to thecountry). For almost forty-eight hours it was thought that Tuan had consented to sacrifice little Hsu and that the latter would submit at least temporarily. Then with equally sensational abruptness Tuan brought pressure to bear on the president. The latter was appointed head of a national defense army, and rewards were issued for the heads of the chiefs of the Chili faction, nothing, however, being said about Chang Tso Lin, who had meanwhile returned to Mukden and who still professed allegiance to Tuan. Troops were mobilized; there was a rush of officials and of the wealthy to the concessions of Tientsin and to the hotels of the legation quarter.
This sketch is not meant as history, but simply as an indication of the forces at work. Hence it is enough to say that two weeks after Tuan and little Hsu had intimidated the president and proclaimed themselves the saviors of the Republic, they were in hiding, their enemies of the Chili party were in complete control of Peking, and rewards from fifty thousand dollars down were offered for the arrest of little Hsu, the ex-ministers of justice, finance and communications, and other leaders of the Anfu Club. The political turnover was as complete as it was sensational. The seemingly impregnable masters of China were impotent fugitives. The carefully built up Anfu Club, with its military, financial and foreign support, had crumbled and fallen. No country at any time has ever seen a political upheaval more sudden and more thoroughgoing. It was not so much a defeat as a dissolution like that of death, a total disappearance, an evaporation.
Corruption had worked inward, as it has a way of doing. Japanese-bought munitions would not explode; quartermasters vanished with the funds with which stores were to be bought; troops went without anything to eat for two or three days; large numbers, including the larger part of one division, went over to the enemy en masse; those who did not desert had no heart for fighting and ran away or surrendered on the slightest provocation, saying they were willing to fight for their country but saw no reason why they should fight for a faction, especially a faction that had been selling the country to a foreign nation. In the manner of the defeat of the Anfu clique at the height of its supremacy, rather than in the mere fact of its defeat, lies the credit side of the Chinese political balance sheet. It is a strikingexhibition of the oldest and best faith of the Chinese—the power of moral considerations. Public opinion, even that of the coolie on the street, was wholly against the Anfu party. It went down not so much because of the strength of the other side as because of its own rottenness.
So far the results are to all appearances negative. The most marked is the disappearance of Japanese prestige. As one of the leading men in the War Office said: “For over a year now the people have been strongly opposed to the Japanese government on account of Shantung. But now even the generals do not care for Japan any more.” It is hardly logical to take the easy collapse of the Japanese-supported Anfu party as a proof of the weakness of Japan, but prestige is always a matter of feeling rather than of logic. Many who were intimidated to the point of hypnotism by the idea of the irresistible power of Japan are now freely laughing at the inefficiency of Japanese leadership. It would not be safe to predict that Japan will not come back as a force to be reckoned with in the internal as well as external politics of China, but it is safe to say that never again will Japan figure as superman to China. And such a negation is after all a positive result.
And so in its way is the overthrow of the Anwhei faction of the militarist party. The Chinese liberals do not feel very optimistic about the immediate outcome. They have mostly given up the idea that the country can be reformed by political means. They are sceptical about the possibility of reforming even politics until a new generation comes on the scene. They are now putting their faith in education and in social changes which will take some years to consummate themselves visibly. The self-styled southern republican constitutional party has not shown itself in much better light than the northern militarist party. In fact, its old leader Sun Yat Sen now cuts one of the most ridiculous figures in China, as shortly before this upheaval he had definitely aligned himself with Tuan and little Hsu.2
This does not mean, however, that democratic opinion thinks nothing has been gained. The demonstration of the inherent weakness of corrupt militarism will itself prevent the development of any militarism as complete as that of the Anfus. As one Chinese gentleman said to me: “When Yuan Shi Kai was overthrown, the tiger killed the lion. Now a snake has killed the tiger. No matter how vicious the snake may become, some smaller animal will be able to kill him, and his life will be shorter than that of either lion or tiger.” In short, each successive upheaval brings nearer the day when civilian supremacy will be established. This result will be achieved partly because of the repeated demonstrations of the uncongeniality of military despotism to the Chinese spirit, and partly because with every passing year education will have done its work. Suppressed liberal papers are coming to life, while over twenty Anfu subsidized newspapers and two subsidized news agencies have gone out of being. The soldiers, including many officers in the Anwhei army, clearly show the effects of student propaganda. And it is worth while to note down the name of one of the leaders on the victorious side, the only one whose troops did any particular fighting, and that against great odds in numbers. The name is Wu Pei Fu. He at least has not fought for the Chili faction against the Anwhei faction. He has proclaimed from the first that he was fighting to rid the country of military control of civil government, and against traitors who would sell their country to foreigners. He has come out strongly for a new popular assembly, to form a new constitution and to unite the country. And although Chang Tso Lin has remarked that Wu Pei Fu as a military subordinate could not be expected to intervene in politics, he has not as yet found it convenient to oppose the demand for a popular assembly. Meanwhile the liberals are organizing their forces, hardly expecting to win a victory, but resolved, win or lose, to take advantage of the opportunity to carry further the education of the Chinese people in the meaning of democracy.
August, 1920.
VDivided China1.InJanuary 1920 the Peking government issued an edict proclaiming the unification of China. On May 5th Sun Yat Sen was formally inaugurated in Canton as president of all China. Thus China has within six months been twice unified, once from the northern standpoint and once from the southern. Each act of “unification” is in fact a symbol of the division of China, a division expressing differences of language, temperament, history, and political policy as well as of geography, persons and factions. This division has been one of the outstanding facts of Chinese history since the overthrow of the Manchus ten years ago and it has manifested itself in intermittent civil war. Yet there are two other statements which are equally true, although they flatly contradict each other and the one just made. One statement is that so far as the people of China are concerned there is no real division on geographical lines, but only the common division occurring everywhere between conservatives and progressives. The other is that instead of two divisions in China, there are at least five, two parties in both the north and south, and another in the central or Yangtse region,3each one of the five splitting up again more or less on factional and provincial lines. And so far as the future is concerned, probably this last statement is the most significant of the three. That all three statements are true is what makes Chinese politics so difficult to understand even in their larger features.By the good fortune of circumstances we were in Canton when the inauguration occurred. Peking and Canton are a long way apart in more than distance. There is little exchange of actual news between the two places; what filters through into either city and gets published consists mostly of rumorstending to discredit the other city. In Canton, the monarchy is constantly being restored in Peking; and in Peking, Canton is Bolshevized at least once a week, while every other week open war breaks out between the adherents of Sun Yat Sen, and General Chen Kwang Ming, the civil governor of the province. There is nothing to give the impression—even in circles which accept the Peking government only as an evil necessity—that the pretensions of Sun Yat Sen represent anything more than the desires of a small and discredited group to get some slight power for themselves at the expense of national unity. Even in Fukien, the province next north of Kwantung, one found little but gossip whose effect was to minimize the importance of the southern government. In foreign circles in the north as well as in liberal Chinese circles upon the whole, the feeling is general that bad as the de facto Peking government may be, it represents the cause of national unity, while the southern government represents a perpetuation of that division of China which makes her weak and which offers the standing invitation to foreign intrigue and aggression. Only occasionally during the last few months has some returned traveller timidly advanced the opinion that we had the “wrong dope” on the south, and that they were really trying “to do something down there.”Consequently there was little preparation on my part for the spectacle afforded in Canton during the week of May 5th. This was the only demonstration I have seen in China during the last two years which gave any evidence of being a spontaneous popular movement. New Yorkers are accustomed to crowds, processions, street decorations and accompanying enthusiasm. I doubt if New York has ever seen a demonstration which surpassed that of Canton in size, noise, color or spontaneity—in spite of tropical rains. The country people flocked in in such masses, that, being unable to find accommodation even in the river boats, they kept up a parade all night. Guilds and localities which were not able to get a place in the regular procession organized minor ones on their own account on the day before and after the official demonstration. Making all possible allowance for the intensity of Cantonese local loyalty and the fact that they might be celebrating a Cantonese affair rather than a principle, the scene was sufficiently impressive to revise one’s preconceived ideas and to make one try to find out whatit is that gives the southern movement its vitality.A demonstration may be popular and still be superficial in significance. However one found foreigners on the ground—at least Americans—saying that in the last few months the men in power in Canton were the only officials in China who were actually doing something for the people instead of filling their own pockets and magnifying their personal power. Even the northern newspapers had not entirely omitted reference to the suppression of licensed gambling. On the spot one learned that this suppression was not only genuine and thorough, but that it meant a renunciation of an annual revenue of nearly ten million dollars on the part of a government whose chief difficulty is financial, and where—apart from motives of personal squeeze—it would have been easy to argue that at least temporarily the end justified the means in retaining this source of revenue. English papers throughout China have given much praise to the government of Hong Kong because it has cut down its opium revenue from eight to four millions annually with the plan for ultimate extinction. Yet Hong Kong is prosperous, it has not been touched by civil war, and it only needs revenue for ordinary civil purposes, not as a means of maintaining its existence in a crisis.Under the circumstances, the action of the southern government was hardly less than heroic. This renunciation is the most sensational act of the Canton government, but one soon learns that it is the accompaniment of a considerable number of constructive administrative undertakings. Among the most notable are attempts to reform the local magistracies throughout the province, the establishment of municipal government in Canton—something new in China where local officials are all centrally appointed and controlled—based upon the American Commission plan, and directed by graduates of schools of political science in the United States; plans for introducing local self-government throughout the province; a scheme for introduction of universal primary education in Canton to be completed in three steps.These reforms are provincial and local. They are part of a general movement against centralization and toward local autonomy which is gaining headway all over China, a protest against the appointment of officials from Peking and the managementof local affairs in the interests of factions—and pocketbooks—whose chief interest in local affairs is what can be extracted in the way of profit. For the only analogue of provincial government in China at the present time is the carpet bag government of the south in the days following our civil war. These things explain the restiveness of the country, including central as well as southern provinces, under Peking domination. But they do not explain the setting up of a new national, or federal government, with the election of Mr. Sun Yat Sen as its president. To understand this event it is necessary to go back into history.In June, 1917, the parliament in Peking was about to adopt a constitution. The parliament was controlled by leaders of the old revolutionary party who had been at loggerheads with Yuan and with the executive generally. The latter accused them of being obstructionists, wasting time in discussing and theorizing when the country needed action. Japan had changed her tactics regarding the participation of China in the war, and having got her position established through the Twenty-one Demands, saw a way of controlling Chinese arsenals and virtually amalgamating the Chinese armies with her own through supervising China’s entrance into the war. The British and French were pressing desperately for the same end. Parliament was slow to act, and Tang Shao Yi, Sun Yat Sen and other southern leaders were averse, since they regarded the war as none of China’s business and were upon the whole more anti-British than anti-German—a fact which partly accounts for the share of British journals in the present press propaganda against the Canton government. But what brought matters to a head was the fact that the constitution which was about to be adopted eliminated the military governors or tuchuns of the provinces, and restored the supremacy of civil authority which had been destroyed by Yuan Shi Kai, in addition to introducing a policy of decentralization. Coached by members of the so-called progressive party which claimed to be constitutionalist and which had a factionalist interest in overthrowing the revolutionaries who controlled the legislative branch if not the executive, the military governors demanded that the president suspend parliament and dismiss the legislators. This demand was more than passively supported by all the Allied diplomats in Peking with the honorable exceptionof the American legation. The president weakly yielded and issued an edict dispelling parliament, virtually admitting in the document the illegality of his action. Less than a month afterwards he was a refugee in the Dutch legation on account of the farce of monarchical restoration staged by Chang Shun—who at the present time is again coming to the front in the north as adjutant to the plans of Chang Tso Lin, the present “strong man” of China. Later, elections were held and a new parliament elected. This parliament has been functioning as the legislature of China at Peking and elected the president, Hsu Shi Chang, the head of the government recognized by the foreign Powers—in short it is the Chinese government from an international standpoint, the Peking government from a domestic standpoint.The revolutionary members of the old parliament never recognized the legality of their dispersal, and consequently refused to admit the legal status of the new parliament, called by them the bogus parliament, and of the president elected by it, especially as the new legislative body was not elected according to the rules laid down by the constitution. Under the lead of some of the old members, the old parliament, called by its opponents the defunct parliament, has led an intermittent existence ever since. Claiming to be the sole authentic constitutional body of China, it finally elected Dr. Sun president of China and thus prepared the act of the fifth of May, already reported.Such is the technical and formal background of the present southern government. Its attack upon the legality of the Peking government is doubtless technically justified. But for various reasons its own positive status is open to equally grave doubts. The terms “bogus” and “defunct,” so freely cast at each other, both seem to an outsider to be justified. It is less necessary to go into the reasons which appear to invalidate the position of the southern parliament because of the belated character of its final action. A protest which waits four years to assert itself in positive action is confronted not with legal technicalities but with accomplished facts. In my opinion, legality for legality, the southern government has a bare shade the better of the technical argument. But in the face of a government which has foreign recognition and which has maintained itself after a fashion for four years, a legal shadow is a precarious political basis. It iswiser to regard the southern government as a revolutionary government, which in addition to the prestige of continuing the revolutionary movement of ten years ago has also a considerable sentimental asset as a protest of constitutionalism against the military usurpations of the Peking government.It is an open secret that the southern movement has not received the undivided support of all the forces present in Canton which are opposed to the northern government. Tang Shao Yi, for example, was notable for his absence at the time of the inauguration, having found it convenient to visit the graves of his ancestors at that time. The provincial governor, General Chen Kwang Ming, was in favor of confining efforts to the establishment of provincial autonomy and the encouragement of similar movements in other provinces, looking forward to an eventual federal, or confederated, government of at least all the provinces south of the Yangtse. Many of his generals wanted to postpone action until Kwantung province had made a military alliance with the generals in the other southwestern provinces, so as to be able to resist the north should the latter undertake a military expedition. Others thought the technical legal argument for the new move was being overworked, and while having no objections to an out and out revolutionary movement against Peking, thought that the time for it had not yet come. They are counting on Chang Tso Lin’s attempting a monarchical restoration and think that the popular revulsion against that move would create the opportune time for such a movement as has now been prematurely undertaken. However in spite of reports of open strife freely circulated by British and Peking government newspapers, most of the opposition elements are now loyally suppressing their opposition and supporting the government of Sun Yat Sen. A compromise has been arranged by which the federal government will confine its attention to foreign affairs, leaving provincial matters wholly in the hands of Governor Chen and his adherents. There is still room for friction however, especially as to the control of revenues, since at present there are hardly enough funds for one administration, let alone two.2.The members of the new southern government are strikingly different in type from those one meets elsewhere whether in Peking or the provincial capitals. The latter men are literally mediaeval when they are not late Roman Empire, though most of them have learned a little modern patter to hand out to foreigners. The former are educated men, not only in the school sense and in the sense that they have had some special training for their jobs, but in the sense that they think the ideas and speak the language current among progressive folk all over the world. They welcome inquiry and talk freely of their plans, hopes and fears. I had the opportunity of meeting all the men who are most influential in both the local and federal governments; these conversations did not take the form of interviews for publication, but I learned that there are at least three angles from which the total situation is viewed.Governor Chen has had no foreign education and speaks no English. He is distinctively Chinese in his training and outlook. He is a man of force, capable of drastic methods, straightforward intellectually and physically, of unquestioned integrity and of almost Spartan life in a country where official position is largely prized for the luxuries it makes possible. For example, practically alone among Chinese provincial officials of the first rank he has no concubines. Not only this, but he proposed to the provincial assembly a measure to disenfranchise all persons who have concubines. (The measure failed because it is said its passage would have deprived the majority of the assemblymen of their votes.) He is by all odds the most impressive of all the officials whom I have met in China. If I were to select a man likely to become a national figure of the first order in the future, it would be, unhesitatingly, Governor Chen. He can give and also command loyalty—a fact which in itself makes him almost unique.His views in gist are as follows: The problem of problems in China is that of real unification. Industry and education are held back because of lack of stability of government, and the better elements in society seclude themselves from all public effort. The question is how this unification is to be obtained. In the past it has been tried by force used by strong individuals. Yuan Shi Kai tried and failed; Feng Kuo Chang tried andfailed; Tuan Chi Jui tried and failed. That method must be surrendered. China can be unified only by the people themselves, employing not force but the methods of normal political evolution. The only way to engage the people in the task is to decentralize the government. Futile efforts at centralization must be abandoned. Peking and Canton alike must allow the provinces the maximum of autonomy; the provincial capitals must give as much authority as possible to the districts, and the districts to the communities. Officials must be chosen by and from the local districts and everything must be done to encourage local initiative. Governor Chen’s chief ambition is to introduce this system into Kwantung province. He believes that other provinces will follow as soon as the method has been demonstrated, and that national unity will then be a pyramid built out of the local blocks.With extreme self-government in administrative matters, Governor Chen will endeavor to enforce a policy of centralized economic control. He says in effect that the west has developed economic anarchy along with political control, with the result of capitalistic domination and class struggle. He wishes to avert this consequence in China by having government control from the first of all basic raw materials and all basic industries, mines, transportation, factories for cement, steel, etc. In this way the provincial authorities hope to secure an equable industrial development of the province, while at the same time procuring ample revenues without resorting to heavy taxation. Since almost all the other governors in China are using their power, in combination with the exploiting capitalists native and foreign, to monopolize the natural resources of their provinces for private profit, it is not surprising that Governor Chen’s views are felt to be a menace to privilege and that he is advertised all over China as a devout Bolshevist. His views have special point in view of British efforts to get an economic stranglehold upon the province—efforts which are dealt with in a prior chapter.Another type of views lays chief stress upon the internal political condition of China. Its adherents say in effect: Why make such a fuss about having two governments for China, when, in point of fact, China is torn into dozens of governments? In the north, war is sure to break out sooner or later between ChangTso Lin and his rivals. Each military governor is afraid of his division generals. The brigade generals intrigue against the division leaders, and even colonels are doing all they can to further their personal power. The Peking government is a stuffed sham, taking orders from the military governors of the provinces, living only on account of jealousies among these generals, and by the grace of foreign diplomatic support. It is actually bankrupt, and this actual state will soon be formally recognized. The thing for us to do is to go ahead, maintain in good faith the work of the revolution, give this province the best possible civil administration; then in the inevitable approaching débâcle, the southern government will be ready to serve as the nucleus of a genuine reconstruction. Meantime we want, if not the formal recognition of foreign governments, at least their benevolent neutrality.Dr. Sun still embodies in himself the spirit of the revolution of 1911. So far as that was not anti-Manchu it was in essence nationalistic, and only accidentally republican. The day after the inauguration of Dr. Sun, a memorial was dedicated to the seventy-two patriot heroes who fell in an abortive attempt in Canton to throw off the Manchu yoke, some six months before the successful revolt. The monument is the most instructive single lesson which I have seen in the political history of the revolution. It is composed of seventy-two granite blocks. Upon each is engraved: Given by the Chinese National League of Jersey City, or Melbourne, or Mexico, or Liverpool, or Singapore, etc. Chinese nationalism is a product of Chinese migration to foreign countries; Chinese nationalism on foreign shores financed the revolution, and largely furnished its leaders and provided its organization. Sun Yat Sen was the incarnation of this nationalism, which was more concerned with freeing China—and Asia—from all foreign domination than with particular political problems. And in spite of the movement of events since that day, he remains essentially at that stage, being closer in spirit to the nationalists of the European irredentist type than to the spirit of contemporary young China. A convinced republican, he nevertheless measures events and men in the concrete by what he thinks they will do to promote the independence of China from foreign control, rather than by what they will do to promote a truly democratic government. Thisis the sole explanation that can be given for his unfortunate coquetting a year ago with the leaders of the now fallen Anfu Club. He allowed himself to be deceived into thinking that they were ready to turn against the Japanese if he would give them his support; and his nationalist imagination was inflamed by the grandiose schemes of little Hsu for the Chinese subjugation of Mongolia.More openly than others, Dr. Sun admits and justifies the new southern government as representing a division of China. If, he insists, it had not been for the secession of the south in 1917, Japan would now be in virtually complete control of all China. A unified China would have meant a China ready to be swallowed whole by Japan. The secession localized Japanese aggressions, made it evident that the south would fight rather than be devoured, and gave a breathing spell in which public opinion in the north rallied against the Twenty-one Demands and against the military pact with Japan. Thus it saved the independence of China. But, while it checked Japan, it did not checkmate her. She still expects with the assistance of Chang Tso Lin to make northern China her vassal. The support which foreign governments in general and the United States in particular are giving Peking is merely playing into the hands of the Japanese. The independent south affords the only obstacle which causes Japan to pause in her plan of making northern China in effect a Japanese province. A more than usually authentic rumor says that upon the occasion of the visit of the Japanese consul general to the new president (no other foreign official has made an official visit), the former offered from his government the official recognition of Dr. Sun as president of all China, if the latter would recognize the Twenty-one Demands as an accomplished fact. From the Japanese standpoint the offer was a safe one, as this acceptance of Japanese claims is the one thing impossible to the new government. But meantime the offer naturally confirms the nationalists of Dr. Sun’s type in their belief that the southern split is the key to maintaining the political independence of China; or, as Dr. Sun puts it, that a divided China is for the time being the only means to an ultimately independent China.These views are not given as stating the whole truth of the situation. They are ex parte. But they are given as settingforth in good faith the conceptions of the leaders of the southern movement and as requiring serious attention if the situation of China, domestic and international, is to be understood. Upon my own account, and not simply as expressing the views of others, I have reached a conclusion quite foreign to my thought before I visited the south. While it is not possible to attach too much importance to the unity of China as a part of the foreign policy of the United States, it is possible to attach altogether too much importance to the Peking government as a symbol of that unity. To borrow and adapt the words of one southern leader, while the United States can hardly be expected to do other than recognize the Peking as the de facto government, there is no need to coddle that government and give it face. Such a course maintains a nominal and formal unity while in fact encouraging the military and corrupt forces that keep China divided and which make for foreign aggression.In my opinion as the outcome of two years’ observation of the Chinese situation, the real interests of both China and the United States would be served if, in the first place, the United States should take the lead in securing from the diplomatic body in Peking the serving of express notice upon the Peking government that in no case would a restoration of the monarchy be recognized by the Powers. This may seem in America like an unwarranted intervention in the domestic affairs of a foreign country. But in fact such intervention is already a fact. The present government endures only in virtue of the support of foreign Powers. The notice would put an end to one kind of intrigue, one kind of rumor and suspicion, which is holding industry and education back and which is keeping China in a state of unrest and instability. It would establish a period of comparative quiet in which whatever constructive forces exist may come to the front. The second measure would be more extreme. The diplomacy of the United States should take the lead in making it clear that unless the promises about the disbanding of the army, and the introduction of general retrenchment are honestly and immediately carried out, the Powers will pursue a harsh rather than a benevolent policy toward the Peking government, insisting upon immediate payment of interest and loans as they fall due and holding up the government to the strictest meeting of all its obligations. The notification to be effectivemight well include a virtual threat of withdrawal of recognition in case the government does not seriously try to put its profuse promises into execution. It should also include a definite discouragement of any expenditures designed for military conquest of the south.Diplomatic recognition of the southern government is out of the question at present. It is not out of the question to put on the financial screws so that the southern government will be allowed space and time to demonstrate what it can do by peaceful means to give one or more provinces a decent, honest and progressive civil administration. It is unnecessary to enumerate the obstacles in the way of carrying out such a policy. But in my judgment it is the only policy by which the Great Powers will not become accomplices in perpetuating the weakness and division of China. It is the most straightforward way of meeting whatever plans of aggression Japan may entertain.May, 1921.
InJanuary 1920 the Peking government issued an edict proclaiming the unification of China. On May 5th Sun Yat Sen was formally inaugurated in Canton as president of all China. Thus China has within six months been twice unified, once from the northern standpoint and once from the southern. Each act of “unification” is in fact a symbol of the division of China, a division expressing differences of language, temperament, history, and political policy as well as of geography, persons and factions. This division has been one of the outstanding facts of Chinese history since the overthrow of the Manchus ten years ago and it has manifested itself in intermittent civil war. Yet there are two other statements which are equally true, although they flatly contradict each other and the one just made. One statement is that so far as the people of China are concerned there is no real division on geographical lines, but only the common division occurring everywhere between conservatives and progressives. The other is that instead of two divisions in China, there are at least five, two parties in both the north and south, and another in the central or Yangtse region,3each one of the five splitting up again more or less on factional and provincial lines. And so far as the future is concerned, probably this last statement is the most significant of the three. That all three statements are true is what makes Chinese politics so difficult to understand even in their larger features.
By the good fortune of circumstances we were in Canton when the inauguration occurred. Peking and Canton are a long way apart in more than distance. There is little exchange of actual news between the two places; what filters through into either city and gets published consists mostly of rumorstending to discredit the other city. In Canton, the monarchy is constantly being restored in Peking; and in Peking, Canton is Bolshevized at least once a week, while every other week open war breaks out between the adherents of Sun Yat Sen, and General Chen Kwang Ming, the civil governor of the province. There is nothing to give the impression—even in circles which accept the Peking government only as an evil necessity—that the pretensions of Sun Yat Sen represent anything more than the desires of a small and discredited group to get some slight power for themselves at the expense of national unity. Even in Fukien, the province next north of Kwantung, one found little but gossip whose effect was to minimize the importance of the southern government. In foreign circles in the north as well as in liberal Chinese circles upon the whole, the feeling is general that bad as the de facto Peking government may be, it represents the cause of national unity, while the southern government represents a perpetuation of that division of China which makes her weak and which offers the standing invitation to foreign intrigue and aggression. Only occasionally during the last few months has some returned traveller timidly advanced the opinion that we had the “wrong dope” on the south, and that they were really trying “to do something down there.”
Consequently there was little preparation on my part for the spectacle afforded in Canton during the week of May 5th. This was the only demonstration I have seen in China during the last two years which gave any evidence of being a spontaneous popular movement. New Yorkers are accustomed to crowds, processions, street decorations and accompanying enthusiasm. I doubt if New York has ever seen a demonstration which surpassed that of Canton in size, noise, color or spontaneity—in spite of tropical rains. The country people flocked in in such masses, that, being unable to find accommodation even in the river boats, they kept up a parade all night. Guilds and localities which were not able to get a place in the regular procession organized minor ones on their own account on the day before and after the official demonstration. Making all possible allowance for the intensity of Cantonese local loyalty and the fact that they might be celebrating a Cantonese affair rather than a principle, the scene was sufficiently impressive to revise one’s preconceived ideas and to make one try to find out whatit is that gives the southern movement its vitality.
A demonstration may be popular and still be superficial in significance. However one found foreigners on the ground—at least Americans—saying that in the last few months the men in power in Canton were the only officials in China who were actually doing something for the people instead of filling their own pockets and magnifying their personal power. Even the northern newspapers had not entirely omitted reference to the suppression of licensed gambling. On the spot one learned that this suppression was not only genuine and thorough, but that it meant a renunciation of an annual revenue of nearly ten million dollars on the part of a government whose chief difficulty is financial, and where—apart from motives of personal squeeze—it would have been easy to argue that at least temporarily the end justified the means in retaining this source of revenue. English papers throughout China have given much praise to the government of Hong Kong because it has cut down its opium revenue from eight to four millions annually with the plan for ultimate extinction. Yet Hong Kong is prosperous, it has not been touched by civil war, and it only needs revenue for ordinary civil purposes, not as a means of maintaining its existence in a crisis.
Under the circumstances, the action of the southern government was hardly less than heroic. This renunciation is the most sensational act of the Canton government, but one soon learns that it is the accompaniment of a considerable number of constructive administrative undertakings. Among the most notable are attempts to reform the local magistracies throughout the province, the establishment of municipal government in Canton—something new in China where local officials are all centrally appointed and controlled—based upon the American Commission plan, and directed by graduates of schools of political science in the United States; plans for introducing local self-government throughout the province; a scheme for introduction of universal primary education in Canton to be completed in three steps.
These reforms are provincial and local. They are part of a general movement against centralization and toward local autonomy which is gaining headway all over China, a protest against the appointment of officials from Peking and the managementof local affairs in the interests of factions—and pocketbooks—whose chief interest in local affairs is what can be extracted in the way of profit. For the only analogue of provincial government in China at the present time is the carpet bag government of the south in the days following our civil war. These things explain the restiveness of the country, including central as well as southern provinces, under Peking domination. But they do not explain the setting up of a new national, or federal government, with the election of Mr. Sun Yat Sen as its president. To understand this event it is necessary to go back into history.
In June, 1917, the parliament in Peking was about to adopt a constitution. The parliament was controlled by leaders of the old revolutionary party who had been at loggerheads with Yuan and with the executive generally. The latter accused them of being obstructionists, wasting time in discussing and theorizing when the country needed action. Japan had changed her tactics regarding the participation of China in the war, and having got her position established through the Twenty-one Demands, saw a way of controlling Chinese arsenals and virtually amalgamating the Chinese armies with her own through supervising China’s entrance into the war. The British and French were pressing desperately for the same end. Parliament was slow to act, and Tang Shao Yi, Sun Yat Sen and other southern leaders were averse, since they regarded the war as none of China’s business and were upon the whole more anti-British than anti-German—a fact which partly accounts for the share of British journals in the present press propaganda against the Canton government. But what brought matters to a head was the fact that the constitution which was about to be adopted eliminated the military governors or tuchuns of the provinces, and restored the supremacy of civil authority which had been destroyed by Yuan Shi Kai, in addition to introducing a policy of decentralization. Coached by members of the so-called progressive party which claimed to be constitutionalist and which had a factionalist interest in overthrowing the revolutionaries who controlled the legislative branch if not the executive, the military governors demanded that the president suspend parliament and dismiss the legislators. This demand was more than passively supported by all the Allied diplomats in Peking with the honorable exceptionof the American legation. The president weakly yielded and issued an edict dispelling parliament, virtually admitting in the document the illegality of his action. Less than a month afterwards he was a refugee in the Dutch legation on account of the farce of monarchical restoration staged by Chang Shun—who at the present time is again coming to the front in the north as adjutant to the plans of Chang Tso Lin, the present “strong man” of China. Later, elections were held and a new parliament elected. This parliament has been functioning as the legislature of China at Peking and elected the president, Hsu Shi Chang, the head of the government recognized by the foreign Powers—in short it is the Chinese government from an international standpoint, the Peking government from a domestic standpoint.
The revolutionary members of the old parliament never recognized the legality of their dispersal, and consequently refused to admit the legal status of the new parliament, called by them the bogus parliament, and of the president elected by it, especially as the new legislative body was not elected according to the rules laid down by the constitution. Under the lead of some of the old members, the old parliament, called by its opponents the defunct parliament, has led an intermittent existence ever since. Claiming to be the sole authentic constitutional body of China, it finally elected Dr. Sun president of China and thus prepared the act of the fifth of May, already reported.
Such is the technical and formal background of the present southern government. Its attack upon the legality of the Peking government is doubtless technically justified. But for various reasons its own positive status is open to equally grave doubts. The terms “bogus” and “defunct,” so freely cast at each other, both seem to an outsider to be justified. It is less necessary to go into the reasons which appear to invalidate the position of the southern parliament because of the belated character of its final action. A protest which waits four years to assert itself in positive action is confronted not with legal technicalities but with accomplished facts. In my opinion, legality for legality, the southern government has a bare shade the better of the technical argument. But in the face of a government which has foreign recognition and which has maintained itself after a fashion for four years, a legal shadow is a precarious political basis. It iswiser to regard the southern government as a revolutionary government, which in addition to the prestige of continuing the revolutionary movement of ten years ago has also a considerable sentimental asset as a protest of constitutionalism against the military usurpations of the Peking government.
It is an open secret that the southern movement has not received the undivided support of all the forces present in Canton which are opposed to the northern government. Tang Shao Yi, for example, was notable for his absence at the time of the inauguration, having found it convenient to visit the graves of his ancestors at that time. The provincial governor, General Chen Kwang Ming, was in favor of confining efforts to the establishment of provincial autonomy and the encouragement of similar movements in other provinces, looking forward to an eventual federal, or confederated, government of at least all the provinces south of the Yangtse. Many of his generals wanted to postpone action until Kwantung province had made a military alliance with the generals in the other southwestern provinces, so as to be able to resist the north should the latter undertake a military expedition. Others thought the technical legal argument for the new move was being overworked, and while having no objections to an out and out revolutionary movement against Peking, thought that the time for it had not yet come. They are counting on Chang Tso Lin’s attempting a monarchical restoration and think that the popular revulsion against that move would create the opportune time for such a movement as has now been prematurely undertaken. However in spite of reports of open strife freely circulated by British and Peking government newspapers, most of the opposition elements are now loyally suppressing their opposition and supporting the government of Sun Yat Sen. A compromise has been arranged by which the federal government will confine its attention to foreign affairs, leaving provincial matters wholly in the hands of Governor Chen and his adherents. There is still room for friction however, especially as to the control of revenues, since at present there are hardly enough funds for one administration, let alone two.
The members of the new southern government are strikingly different in type from those one meets elsewhere whether in Peking or the provincial capitals. The latter men are literally mediaeval when they are not late Roman Empire, though most of them have learned a little modern patter to hand out to foreigners. The former are educated men, not only in the school sense and in the sense that they have had some special training for their jobs, but in the sense that they think the ideas and speak the language current among progressive folk all over the world. They welcome inquiry and talk freely of their plans, hopes and fears. I had the opportunity of meeting all the men who are most influential in both the local and federal governments; these conversations did not take the form of interviews for publication, but I learned that there are at least three angles from which the total situation is viewed.
Governor Chen has had no foreign education and speaks no English. He is distinctively Chinese in his training and outlook. He is a man of force, capable of drastic methods, straightforward intellectually and physically, of unquestioned integrity and of almost Spartan life in a country where official position is largely prized for the luxuries it makes possible. For example, practically alone among Chinese provincial officials of the first rank he has no concubines. Not only this, but he proposed to the provincial assembly a measure to disenfranchise all persons who have concubines. (The measure failed because it is said its passage would have deprived the majority of the assemblymen of their votes.) He is by all odds the most impressive of all the officials whom I have met in China. If I were to select a man likely to become a national figure of the first order in the future, it would be, unhesitatingly, Governor Chen. He can give and also command loyalty—a fact which in itself makes him almost unique.
His views in gist are as follows: The problem of problems in China is that of real unification. Industry and education are held back because of lack of stability of government, and the better elements in society seclude themselves from all public effort. The question is how this unification is to be obtained. In the past it has been tried by force used by strong individuals. Yuan Shi Kai tried and failed; Feng Kuo Chang tried andfailed; Tuan Chi Jui tried and failed. That method must be surrendered. China can be unified only by the people themselves, employing not force but the methods of normal political evolution. The only way to engage the people in the task is to decentralize the government. Futile efforts at centralization must be abandoned. Peking and Canton alike must allow the provinces the maximum of autonomy; the provincial capitals must give as much authority as possible to the districts, and the districts to the communities. Officials must be chosen by and from the local districts and everything must be done to encourage local initiative. Governor Chen’s chief ambition is to introduce this system into Kwantung province. He believes that other provinces will follow as soon as the method has been demonstrated, and that national unity will then be a pyramid built out of the local blocks.
With extreme self-government in administrative matters, Governor Chen will endeavor to enforce a policy of centralized economic control. He says in effect that the west has developed economic anarchy along with political control, with the result of capitalistic domination and class struggle. He wishes to avert this consequence in China by having government control from the first of all basic raw materials and all basic industries, mines, transportation, factories for cement, steel, etc. In this way the provincial authorities hope to secure an equable industrial development of the province, while at the same time procuring ample revenues without resorting to heavy taxation. Since almost all the other governors in China are using their power, in combination with the exploiting capitalists native and foreign, to monopolize the natural resources of their provinces for private profit, it is not surprising that Governor Chen’s views are felt to be a menace to privilege and that he is advertised all over China as a devout Bolshevist. His views have special point in view of British efforts to get an economic stranglehold upon the province—efforts which are dealt with in a prior chapter.
Another type of views lays chief stress upon the internal political condition of China. Its adherents say in effect: Why make such a fuss about having two governments for China, when, in point of fact, China is torn into dozens of governments? In the north, war is sure to break out sooner or later between ChangTso Lin and his rivals. Each military governor is afraid of his division generals. The brigade generals intrigue against the division leaders, and even colonels are doing all they can to further their personal power. The Peking government is a stuffed sham, taking orders from the military governors of the provinces, living only on account of jealousies among these generals, and by the grace of foreign diplomatic support. It is actually bankrupt, and this actual state will soon be formally recognized. The thing for us to do is to go ahead, maintain in good faith the work of the revolution, give this province the best possible civil administration; then in the inevitable approaching débâcle, the southern government will be ready to serve as the nucleus of a genuine reconstruction. Meantime we want, if not the formal recognition of foreign governments, at least their benevolent neutrality.
Dr. Sun still embodies in himself the spirit of the revolution of 1911. So far as that was not anti-Manchu it was in essence nationalistic, and only accidentally republican. The day after the inauguration of Dr. Sun, a memorial was dedicated to the seventy-two patriot heroes who fell in an abortive attempt in Canton to throw off the Manchu yoke, some six months before the successful revolt. The monument is the most instructive single lesson which I have seen in the political history of the revolution. It is composed of seventy-two granite blocks. Upon each is engraved: Given by the Chinese National League of Jersey City, or Melbourne, or Mexico, or Liverpool, or Singapore, etc. Chinese nationalism is a product of Chinese migration to foreign countries; Chinese nationalism on foreign shores financed the revolution, and largely furnished its leaders and provided its organization. Sun Yat Sen was the incarnation of this nationalism, which was more concerned with freeing China—and Asia—from all foreign domination than with particular political problems. And in spite of the movement of events since that day, he remains essentially at that stage, being closer in spirit to the nationalists of the European irredentist type than to the spirit of contemporary young China. A convinced republican, he nevertheless measures events and men in the concrete by what he thinks they will do to promote the independence of China from foreign control, rather than by what they will do to promote a truly democratic government. Thisis the sole explanation that can be given for his unfortunate coquetting a year ago with the leaders of the now fallen Anfu Club. He allowed himself to be deceived into thinking that they were ready to turn against the Japanese if he would give them his support; and his nationalist imagination was inflamed by the grandiose schemes of little Hsu for the Chinese subjugation of Mongolia.
More openly than others, Dr. Sun admits and justifies the new southern government as representing a division of China. If, he insists, it had not been for the secession of the south in 1917, Japan would now be in virtually complete control of all China. A unified China would have meant a China ready to be swallowed whole by Japan. The secession localized Japanese aggressions, made it evident that the south would fight rather than be devoured, and gave a breathing spell in which public opinion in the north rallied against the Twenty-one Demands and against the military pact with Japan. Thus it saved the independence of China. But, while it checked Japan, it did not checkmate her. She still expects with the assistance of Chang Tso Lin to make northern China her vassal. The support which foreign governments in general and the United States in particular are giving Peking is merely playing into the hands of the Japanese. The independent south affords the only obstacle which causes Japan to pause in her plan of making northern China in effect a Japanese province. A more than usually authentic rumor says that upon the occasion of the visit of the Japanese consul general to the new president (no other foreign official has made an official visit), the former offered from his government the official recognition of Dr. Sun as president of all China, if the latter would recognize the Twenty-one Demands as an accomplished fact. From the Japanese standpoint the offer was a safe one, as this acceptance of Japanese claims is the one thing impossible to the new government. But meantime the offer naturally confirms the nationalists of Dr. Sun’s type in their belief that the southern split is the key to maintaining the political independence of China; or, as Dr. Sun puts it, that a divided China is for the time being the only means to an ultimately independent China.
These views are not given as stating the whole truth of the situation. They are ex parte. But they are given as settingforth in good faith the conceptions of the leaders of the southern movement and as requiring serious attention if the situation of China, domestic and international, is to be understood. Upon my own account, and not simply as expressing the views of others, I have reached a conclusion quite foreign to my thought before I visited the south. While it is not possible to attach too much importance to the unity of China as a part of the foreign policy of the United States, it is possible to attach altogether too much importance to the Peking government as a symbol of that unity. To borrow and adapt the words of one southern leader, while the United States can hardly be expected to do other than recognize the Peking as the de facto government, there is no need to coddle that government and give it face. Such a course maintains a nominal and formal unity while in fact encouraging the military and corrupt forces that keep China divided and which make for foreign aggression.
In my opinion as the outcome of two years’ observation of the Chinese situation, the real interests of both China and the United States would be served if, in the first place, the United States should take the lead in securing from the diplomatic body in Peking the serving of express notice upon the Peking government that in no case would a restoration of the monarchy be recognized by the Powers. This may seem in America like an unwarranted intervention in the domestic affairs of a foreign country. But in fact such intervention is already a fact. The present government endures only in virtue of the support of foreign Powers. The notice would put an end to one kind of intrigue, one kind of rumor and suspicion, which is holding industry and education back and which is keeping China in a state of unrest and instability. It would establish a period of comparative quiet in which whatever constructive forces exist may come to the front. The second measure would be more extreme. The diplomacy of the United States should take the lead in making it clear that unless the promises about the disbanding of the army, and the introduction of general retrenchment are honestly and immediately carried out, the Powers will pursue a harsh rather than a benevolent policy toward the Peking government, insisting upon immediate payment of interest and loans as they fall due and holding up the government to the strictest meeting of all its obligations. The notification to be effectivemight well include a virtual threat of withdrawal of recognition in case the government does not seriously try to put its profuse promises into execution. It should also include a definite discouragement of any expenditures designed for military conquest of the south.
Diplomatic recognition of the southern government is out of the question at present. It is not out of the question to put on the financial screws so that the southern government will be allowed space and time to demonstrate what it can do by peaceful means to give one or more provinces a decent, honest and progressive civil administration. It is unnecessary to enumerate the obstacles in the way of carrying out such a policy. But in my judgment it is the only policy by which the Great Powers will not become accomplices in perpetuating the weakness and division of China. It is the most straightforward way of meeting whatever plans of aggression Japan may entertain.
May, 1921.
VIFederalism in ChinaThenewcomer in China in observing and judging events usually makes the mistake of attaching too much significance to current happenings. Occurrences take place which in the western world would portend important changes—and nothing important results. It is not easy to loosen the habit of years; and so the visitor assumes that an event which is striking to the point of sensationalism must surely be part of a train of events having a definite trend; some deep-laid plan must be behind it. It takes a degree of intellectual patience added to time and experience to make one realize that even when there is a rhythm in events the tempo is so retarded that one must wait a long time to judge what is really going on. Most political events are like daily changes in the weather, fluctuations back and forth which may seriously affect individuals but which taken one by one tell little about the movement of the seasons. Even the occurrences which are due to humanintention are usually sporadic and casual, and the observer errs by reading into them too much plot, too comprehensive a scheme, too farsighted a plan. The aim behind the event is likely to be only some immediate advantage, some direct increase of power, the overthrow of a rival, the grasping at greater wealth by an isolated act, without any consecutive or systematic looking ahead.Foreigners are not the only ones who have erred, however, in judging the Chinese political situation of the last few years. Beginning two years ago, one heard experienced Chinese with political affiliations saying that it was impossible for things to go on as they were for more than three months longer. Some decisive change must occur. Yet outwardly the situation has remained much the same not only for three months but for two years, the exception being the overthrow of the Anfu faction a year ago. And this occurrence hardly marked a definite turn in events, as it was, to a considerable extent, only a shifting of power from the hands of one set of tuchuns to another set. Nevertheless at the risk of becoming a victim of the fallacy which I have been setting forth, I will hazard the remark that the last few monthshaverevealed a definite and enduring trend—that through the diurnal fluctuations of the strife for personal power and wealth a seasonal political change in society is now showing itself. Certain lines of cleavage seem to show themselves, so that through the welter of striking, picturesque, sensational but meaningless events, a definite pattern is revealed.This pattern is indicated by the title of this chapter—a movement toward the development of a federal form of government. In calling the movement one toward federalism, there is, however, more of a jump into the remote future than circumstances justify. It would be more accurate, as well as more modest, to say that there is a well defined and seemingly permanent trend toward provincial autonomy and local self-government accompanied by a hope and a vague plan that in the future the more or less independent units will recombine into the United or Federated States of China. Some who look far into the future anticipate three stages; the first being the completion of the present secessionist movement; the second the formation of northern and southern confederations respectively; the third a reunion into a single state.To go into the detailed evidence for the existence of a definite and lasting movement of this sort would presume too much on the reader’s knowledge of Chinese geography and his acquaintance with specific recent events. I shall confine myself to quite general features of the situation. The first feature is the new phase which has been assumed by the long historic antagonism of the north and the south. Roughly speaking, the revolution which established the republic and overthrew the Manchus represented a victory for the south. But the transformation during the last five years of the nominal republic into a corrupt oligarchy of satraps or military governors or feudal lords has represented a victory for the north. It is a significant fact, symbolically at least, that the most powerful remaining tuchun or military governor in China—in some respects the only powerful one who has survived the vicissitudes of the last few years—namely Chang Tso Lin, is the uncrowned king of the three Manchurian provinces. The so-called civil war of the north and south is not, however, to be understood as a conflict of republicanism located in the south and militarism in the north. Such a notion is directly contrary to facts. The “civil war” till six or eight months ago was mainly a conflict of military governors and factions, part of that struggle for personal power and wealth which has been going on all over China.But recently events have taken a different course. In four of the southern provinces, tuchuns who seemed all powerful have toppled over, and the provinces have proclaimed or tacitly assumed their independence of both the Peking and the former military Canton governments—the province in which Canton situated being one of the four. I happened to be in Hunan, the first of the southerly provinces to get comparative independence, last fall, not long after the overthrow of the vicious despot who had ruled the province with the aid of northern troops. For a week a series of meetings were held in Changsha, the capital of the province. The burden of every speech was “Hunan for the Hunanese.” The slogan embodies the spirit of two powers each aiming at becoming the central authority; it is a conflict of the principle of provincial autonomy, represented by the politically more mature south, with that of militaristic centralization, represented by Peking.As I write, in early September (1921), the immediate issue isobscured by the fight which Wu Pei Fu is waging with the Hunanese who with nominal independence are in aim and interest allied with the south. If, as is likely, Wu Pei Fu wins, he may take one of two courses. He may use his added power to turn against Chang Tso Lin and the northern militarists which will bring him into virtual alliance with the southerners and establish him as the antagonist of the federal principle. This is the course which his earlier record would call for. Or he may yield to the usual official lust for power and money and try once more the Yuan Shi Kai policy of military centralization with himself as head, after trying out conclusions with Chang Tso Lin as his rival. This is the course which the past record of military leaders indicates. But even if Wu Pei Fu follows precedent and goes bad, he will only hasten his own final end. This is not prophecy. It is only a statement of what has uniformly happened in China just at the moment a military leader seemed to have complete power in his grasp. In other words, a victory for Wu Pei Fu may either accelerate or may retard the development of provincial autonomy according to the course he pursues. It cannot permanently prevent or deflect it.The basic factor that makes one sure that this trend toward local autonomy is a reality and not merely one of those meaningless shiftings of power which confuse the observer, is that it is in accord with Chinese temperament, tradition and circumstance. Feudalism is past and gone two thousand years ago, and at no period since has China possessed a working centralized government. The absolute empires which have come and gone in the last two millenniums existed by virtue of non-interference and a religious aura. The latter can never be restored; and every episode of the republic demonstrates that China with its vast and diversified territories, its population of between three hundred and fifty and four hundred million, its multitude of languages and lack of communications, its enormous local attachments sanctified by the family system and ancestral worship, cannot be managed from a single and remote centre. China rests upon a network of local and voluntary associations cemented by custom. This fact has given it its unparallelled stability and its power to progress even under the disturbed political conditions of the past ten years. I sometimes think that Americans with their own traditional contempt for politics and their spontaneousreliance upon self-help and local organization are the ones who are naturally fitted to understand China’s course. The Japanese with their ingrained reliance upon the state have continually misjudged and misacted. The British understand better than we do the significance of local self-government; but they are misled by their reverence for politics so that they cannot readily find or see government when it does not take political form.It is not too much to say that one great cause for the overthrow of the Manchus was the fact that because of the pressure of international relations they attempted to force, especially in fiscal matters, a centralization upon the provinces wholly foreign to the spirit of the people. This created hostility where before there had been indifference. China may possibly not emerge from her troubles a unified nation, any more than a much smaller and less populous Europe emerged from the break-up of the Holy Roman Empire, a single state. Indeed one often wonders, not that China is divided, but that she is not much more broken up than she is. But one thing is certain. Whatever progress China finally succeeds in making will come from a variety of local centres, not from Peking or Canton. It will be effected by means of associations and organizations which even though they assume a political form are not primarily political in nature.Criticisms are passed, especially by foreigners, upon the present trend of events. The criticisms are more than plausible. It is evident that the present weakness of China is due to her divided condition. Hence it is natural to argue that the present movement being one of secession and general disintegration will increase the weakness of the country. It is also evident that many of China’s troubles are due to the absence of any efficient administrative system; it is reasonable to argue that China cannot get even railways and universal education without a strong and stable central government. There is no doubt about the facts. It is not surprising that many friends of China deeply deplore the present tendency while some regard it as the final accomplishment of the long predicted breakup of China. But remedies for China’s ills based upon ignoring history, psychology and actual conditions are so utopian that it is not worth while to argue whether or not they are theoretically desirable. Theremedy of China’s troubles by a strong, centralized government is on a par with curing disease by the expulsion of a devil. The evil of sectionalism is real, but since it is real it cannot be dealt with by trying a method which implies its non-existence. If the devil is really there, he will not be exorcized by a formula. If the trouble is internal, not due to an external demon, the disease can be cured only by using the factors of health and vigor which the patient already possesses. And in China while these factors of recuperation and growth are numerous, they all exist in connection with local organizations and voluntary associations. The increasing volume of the cry that the “tuchuns must go” comes from the provincial and local interests which have been insulted and violated by a nominally centralized but actually chaotic situation. After this negative work is completed, the constructive rebuilding of China can proceed only by utilizing local interests and abilities. In China the movement will be the opposite of that which occurred in Japan. It will be from the periphery to the centre.Another objection to the present tendency has force especially from the foreign standpoint. As already stated, the efforts of the Manchu dynasty in its latter days to enhance central power were due to international pressure. Foreign nations treated Peking as if it were a capital like London, Paris or Berlin, and in its efforts to meet foreign demands it had to try to become such a centre. The result was disaster. But foreign nations still want to have a single centre which may be held responsible. And subconsciously, if not consciously, this desire is responsible for much of the objection of foreign nationals to the local autonomy movement. They well know that it is going to take a long time to realize the ideal of federation, and meantime where and what is to be the agency responsible for diplomatic relations, the enforcing of indemnities and the securing of concessions?In one respect the secessionist tendency is dangerous to China herself as well as inconvenient to the powers. It will readily stimulate the desire and ability of foreign nations to interfere in China’s domestic affairs. There will be many centres at which to carry on intrigues and from which to get concessions instead of one or two. There is also danger that one foreign nation may line up with one group of provinces, and another foreign nation with another group, so that international friction will increase. Even now some Japanese sources and even suchan independent liberal paper as Robert Young’s Japan Chronicle are starting or reporting the rumor that the Cantonese experiment is supported by subsidies supplied by American capitalists in the hope of economic concessions. The rumor was invented for a sinister purpose. But it illustrates the sort of situation that may come into existence if there are several political centres in China and one foreign nation backs one and another nation, another.The danger is real enough. But it cannot be dealt with by attempting the impossible—namely checking the movement toward local autonomy, even though disintegration may temporarily accompany it. The danger only emphasizes the fundamental fact of the whole Chinese situation; that its essence is time. The evils and troubles of China are real enough, and there is no blinking the fact that they are largely of her own making, due to corruption, inefficiency and absence of popular education. But no one who knows the common people doubts that they will win through if they are given time. And in the concrete this means that they be left politically alone to work out their own destiny. There will doubtless be proposals at the Pacific Conference to place China under some kind of international tutelage. This chapter and the events connected with the tendency which it reports will be cited as showing this need. Some of the schemes will spring from motives that are hostile to China. Some will be benevolently conceived in a desire to save China from herself and shorten her period of chaos and confusion. But the hope of the world’s peace, as well as of China’s freedom, lies in adhering to a policy of Hands Off. Give China a chance. Give her time. The danger lies in being in a hurry, in impatience, possibly in the desire of America to show that we are a power in international affairs and that we too have a positive foreign policy. And a benevolent policy of supporting China from without, instead of promoting her aspirations from within, may in the end do China about as much harm as a policy conceived in malevolence.July, 1921.
Thenewcomer in China in observing and judging events usually makes the mistake of attaching too much significance to current happenings. Occurrences take place which in the western world would portend important changes—and nothing important results. It is not easy to loosen the habit of years; and so the visitor assumes that an event which is striking to the point of sensationalism must surely be part of a train of events having a definite trend; some deep-laid plan must be behind it. It takes a degree of intellectual patience added to time and experience to make one realize that even when there is a rhythm in events the tempo is so retarded that one must wait a long time to judge what is really going on. Most political events are like daily changes in the weather, fluctuations back and forth which may seriously affect individuals but which taken one by one tell little about the movement of the seasons. Even the occurrences which are due to humanintention are usually sporadic and casual, and the observer errs by reading into them too much plot, too comprehensive a scheme, too farsighted a plan. The aim behind the event is likely to be only some immediate advantage, some direct increase of power, the overthrow of a rival, the grasping at greater wealth by an isolated act, without any consecutive or systematic looking ahead.
Foreigners are not the only ones who have erred, however, in judging the Chinese political situation of the last few years. Beginning two years ago, one heard experienced Chinese with political affiliations saying that it was impossible for things to go on as they were for more than three months longer. Some decisive change must occur. Yet outwardly the situation has remained much the same not only for three months but for two years, the exception being the overthrow of the Anfu faction a year ago. And this occurrence hardly marked a definite turn in events, as it was, to a considerable extent, only a shifting of power from the hands of one set of tuchuns to another set. Nevertheless at the risk of becoming a victim of the fallacy which I have been setting forth, I will hazard the remark that the last few monthshaverevealed a definite and enduring trend—that through the diurnal fluctuations of the strife for personal power and wealth a seasonal political change in society is now showing itself. Certain lines of cleavage seem to show themselves, so that through the welter of striking, picturesque, sensational but meaningless events, a definite pattern is revealed.
This pattern is indicated by the title of this chapter—a movement toward the development of a federal form of government. In calling the movement one toward federalism, there is, however, more of a jump into the remote future than circumstances justify. It would be more accurate, as well as more modest, to say that there is a well defined and seemingly permanent trend toward provincial autonomy and local self-government accompanied by a hope and a vague plan that in the future the more or less independent units will recombine into the United or Federated States of China. Some who look far into the future anticipate three stages; the first being the completion of the present secessionist movement; the second the formation of northern and southern confederations respectively; the third a reunion into a single state.
To go into the detailed evidence for the existence of a definite and lasting movement of this sort would presume too much on the reader’s knowledge of Chinese geography and his acquaintance with specific recent events. I shall confine myself to quite general features of the situation. The first feature is the new phase which has been assumed by the long historic antagonism of the north and the south. Roughly speaking, the revolution which established the republic and overthrew the Manchus represented a victory for the south. But the transformation during the last five years of the nominal republic into a corrupt oligarchy of satraps or military governors or feudal lords has represented a victory for the north. It is a significant fact, symbolically at least, that the most powerful remaining tuchun or military governor in China—in some respects the only powerful one who has survived the vicissitudes of the last few years—namely Chang Tso Lin, is the uncrowned king of the three Manchurian provinces. The so-called civil war of the north and south is not, however, to be understood as a conflict of republicanism located in the south and militarism in the north. Such a notion is directly contrary to facts. The “civil war” till six or eight months ago was mainly a conflict of military governors and factions, part of that struggle for personal power and wealth which has been going on all over China.
But recently events have taken a different course. In four of the southern provinces, tuchuns who seemed all powerful have toppled over, and the provinces have proclaimed or tacitly assumed their independence of both the Peking and the former military Canton governments—the province in which Canton situated being one of the four. I happened to be in Hunan, the first of the southerly provinces to get comparative independence, last fall, not long after the overthrow of the vicious despot who had ruled the province with the aid of northern troops. For a week a series of meetings were held in Changsha, the capital of the province. The burden of every speech was “Hunan for the Hunanese.” The slogan embodies the spirit of two powers each aiming at becoming the central authority; it is a conflict of the principle of provincial autonomy, represented by the politically more mature south, with that of militaristic centralization, represented by Peking.
As I write, in early September (1921), the immediate issue isobscured by the fight which Wu Pei Fu is waging with the Hunanese who with nominal independence are in aim and interest allied with the south. If, as is likely, Wu Pei Fu wins, he may take one of two courses. He may use his added power to turn against Chang Tso Lin and the northern militarists which will bring him into virtual alliance with the southerners and establish him as the antagonist of the federal principle. This is the course which his earlier record would call for. Or he may yield to the usual official lust for power and money and try once more the Yuan Shi Kai policy of military centralization with himself as head, after trying out conclusions with Chang Tso Lin as his rival. This is the course which the past record of military leaders indicates. But even if Wu Pei Fu follows precedent and goes bad, he will only hasten his own final end. This is not prophecy. It is only a statement of what has uniformly happened in China just at the moment a military leader seemed to have complete power in his grasp. In other words, a victory for Wu Pei Fu may either accelerate or may retard the development of provincial autonomy according to the course he pursues. It cannot permanently prevent or deflect it.
The basic factor that makes one sure that this trend toward local autonomy is a reality and not merely one of those meaningless shiftings of power which confuse the observer, is that it is in accord with Chinese temperament, tradition and circumstance. Feudalism is past and gone two thousand years ago, and at no period since has China possessed a working centralized government. The absolute empires which have come and gone in the last two millenniums existed by virtue of non-interference and a religious aura. The latter can never be restored; and every episode of the republic demonstrates that China with its vast and diversified territories, its population of between three hundred and fifty and four hundred million, its multitude of languages and lack of communications, its enormous local attachments sanctified by the family system and ancestral worship, cannot be managed from a single and remote centre. China rests upon a network of local and voluntary associations cemented by custom. This fact has given it its unparallelled stability and its power to progress even under the disturbed political conditions of the past ten years. I sometimes think that Americans with their own traditional contempt for politics and their spontaneousreliance upon self-help and local organization are the ones who are naturally fitted to understand China’s course. The Japanese with their ingrained reliance upon the state have continually misjudged and misacted. The British understand better than we do the significance of local self-government; but they are misled by their reverence for politics so that they cannot readily find or see government when it does not take political form.
It is not too much to say that one great cause for the overthrow of the Manchus was the fact that because of the pressure of international relations they attempted to force, especially in fiscal matters, a centralization upon the provinces wholly foreign to the spirit of the people. This created hostility where before there had been indifference. China may possibly not emerge from her troubles a unified nation, any more than a much smaller and less populous Europe emerged from the break-up of the Holy Roman Empire, a single state. Indeed one often wonders, not that China is divided, but that she is not much more broken up than she is. But one thing is certain. Whatever progress China finally succeeds in making will come from a variety of local centres, not from Peking or Canton. It will be effected by means of associations and organizations which even though they assume a political form are not primarily political in nature.
Criticisms are passed, especially by foreigners, upon the present trend of events. The criticisms are more than plausible. It is evident that the present weakness of China is due to her divided condition. Hence it is natural to argue that the present movement being one of secession and general disintegration will increase the weakness of the country. It is also evident that many of China’s troubles are due to the absence of any efficient administrative system; it is reasonable to argue that China cannot get even railways and universal education without a strong and stable central government. There is no doubt about the facts. It is not surprising that many friends of China deeply deplore the present tendency while some regard it as the final accomplishment of the long predicted breakup of China. But remedies for China’s ills based upon ignoring history, psychology and actual conditions are so utopian that it is not worth while to argue whether or not they are theoretically desirable. Theremedy of China’s troubles by a strong, centralized government is on a par with curing disease by the expulsion of a devil. The evil of sectionalism is real, but since it is real it cannot be dealt with by trying a method which implies its non-existence. If the devil is really there, he will not be exorcized by a formula. If the trouble is internal, not due to an external demon, the disease can be cured only by using the factors of health and vigor which the patient already possesses. And in China while these factors of recuperation and growth are numerous, they all exist in connection with local organizations and voluntary associations. The increasing volume of the cry that the “tuchuns must go” comes from the provincial and local interests which have been insulted and violated by a nominally centralized but actually chaotic situation. After this negative work is completed, the constructive rebuilding of China can proceed only by utilizing local interests and abilities. In China the movement will be the opposite of that which occurred in Japan. It will be from the periphery to the centre.
Another objection to the present tendency has force especially from the foreign standpoint. As already stated, the efforts of the Manchu dynasty in its latter days to enhance central power were due to international pressure. Foreign nations treated Peking as if it were a capital like London, Paris or Berlin, and in its efforts to meet foreign demands it had to try to become such a centre. The result was disaster. But foreign nations still want to have a single centre which may be held responsible. And subconsciously, if not consciously, this desire is responsible for much of the objection of foreign nationals to the local autonomy movement. They well know that it is going to take a long time to realize the ideal of federation, and meantime where and what is to be the agency responsible for diplomatic relations, the enforcing of indemnities and the securing of concessions?
In one respect the secessionist tendency is dangerous to China herself as well as inconvenient to the powers. It will readily stimulate the desire and ability of foreign nations to interfere in China’s domestic affairs. There will be many centres at which to carry on intrigues and from which to get concessions instead of one or two. There is also danger that one foreign nation may line up with one group of provinces, and another foreign nation with another group, so that international friction will increase. Even now some Japanese sources and even suchan independent liberal paper as Robert Young’s Japan Chronicle are starting or reporting the rumor that the Cantonese experiment is supported by subsidies supplied by American capitalists in the hope of economic concessions. The rumor was invented for a sinister purpose. But it illustrates the sort of situation that may come into existence if there are several political centres in China and one foreign nation backs one and another nation, another.
The danger is real enough. But it cannot be dealt with by attempting the impossible—namely checking the movement toward local autonomy, even though disintegration may temporarily accompany it. The danger only emphasizes the fundamental fact of the whole Chinese situation; that its essence is time. The evils and troubles of China are real enough, and there is no blinking the fact that they are largely of her own making, due to corruption, inefficiency and absence of popular education. But no one who knows the common people doubts that they will win through if they are given time. And in the concrete this means that they be left politically alone to work out their own destiny. There will doubtless be proposals at the Pacific Conference to place China under some kind of international tutelage. This chapter and the events connected with the tendency which it reports will be cited as showing this need. Some of the schemes will spring from motives that are hostile to China. Some will be benevolently conceived in a desire to save China from herself and shorten her period of chaos and confusion. But the hope of the world’s peace, as well as of China’s freedom, lies in adhering to a policy of Hands Off. Give China a chance. Give her time. The danger lies in being in a hurry, in impatience, possibly in the desire of America to show that we are a power in international affairs and that we too have a positive foreign policy. And a benevolent policy of supporting China from without, instead of promoting her aspirations from within, may in the end do China about as much harm as a policy conceived in malevolence.
July, 1921.