FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[1]China Information Committee,News Release, Chungking, September 30, 1940; and the same, December 30, 1940.[2]Wang Shih-chieh, "The People's Political Council,"The Chinese Year Book 1938-39, cited, p. 346-55; the same,The People's Political Council, [Chungking], [1939?], pamphlet, reprinted fromThe China Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. I (Winter 1938-39). Dr. Wang's contributions, brief as they are, worthily supplement his pre-war constitutional studies, and provide the most carefully annotated data on the Council which the present author has found. The list of members given in the first article, above, is one of the most interesting documents of our time, giving, as it does, the residence, profession, and age of each Councillor. Beside "Former Prime Minister" one finds "Living Buddha attached to the Panchen Lama," "Reserve Member, Executive Committee, the Third International," "Professor, National Peking University" and "Head of the Mêng Clan, Descendants of Mencius."[3]Woodhead, H. G. W., editor,The China Year Book, 1939, Shanghai, n. d., Ch. IX, "The Kuomintang and the Government," contains a detailed summary of the first two sessions of the People's Political Council (p. 231-7). Quigley, Harold S., "Free China,"International Conciliation, No. 359 (April 1940), includes a judicious appraisal of the work and meaning of the Council in its first two and one-half years (p. 137-8).[4]Wang Shih-chieh, "The People's Political Council," cited, p. 346ff.The new system, inaugurated early in 1941, provided for 90 members to be directly elected by Provincial and Municipal People's Political Councils.[5]Tang Chêng Chien Chih T'u-piao, cited, chart of theKuo-min Ts'an-chêng Hui.[6]Wang Shih-chieh,The People's Political Council, cited, p. 5. Obvious misprints have been corrected.[7]The author is indebted for some of these facts to an interview with Dr. Wang Shih-chieh in Chungking on August 1, 1940.[8]1938-39issue, p. 351.[9]Described below, p.159ff.[10]May-ling Soong Chiang (Madame Chiang K'ai-shek),China Shall Rise Again, New York, 1941. Chinese economic developments are the subject of careful study by the Institute of Pacific Relations, whoseFar Eastern Surveyfollows contemporary developments closely and whoseInquiry Seriesoffers a monumental collection of linked works on Pacific affairs, with particular stress on the economic background to politics. The volume in this series on Chinese political development, by Lawrence K. Rosinger, may be expected to fill an important gap in the literature on China today.[11]For the latest description of the organization of theWai-chiao Pu, see Wang Ch'ung-hui, "China's Foreign Relations during the Sino-Japanese Hostilities 1937-1940," Chapter XIII of Chiang, May-ling Soong,China Shall Rise Again, cited, p. 139-40.[12]China at War, Vol. V, No. 2 (October 1940), p. 37.[13]The same, Vol. V, No. 4 (November 1940), p. 78. See also Wu Yi-fang and Price, Frank W.,China Rediscovers Her West, New York, 1940; Chapter VII, "Holding the Educational Front" (p. 69-76) is by Y. G. Chen, President of the University of Nanking. The entire work edited by Messrs. Wu and Price is of value; written from the missionary point of view, it presents first-hand statements of affairs on Western China, and continues with liberal and socially conscious appraisals of the needs of Christian work.[14]Wang Wên-hsiang, "K'ang-jih Ta-hsüeh yü Ch'ing-nien Fan-mên" ("The Sorrows of Youth and the Resist-Japan University") in the symposium entitled So-wei "Pien-ch'ü" (The So-called "Frontier Area"), Chungking, XXVIII (1939), p. 30ff.[15]See the discussion of the mass education problem, below, p.218.[16]Among the recent books on Sinkiang, one, unusual because it is by a Chinese author, stands out: Wu, Aitchen K.,Turkistan Tumult, London, 1940. The travel books of Sven Hedin, Ella Maillart, Peter Fleming, and Sir Eric Teichman also contain material of political interest.[17]The Far Eastern Surveykeeps effectively up to date with all new developments in this field. An authoritative but understandable explanation of the work of the Ministry is found in H. H. K'ung, "Holding China's Financial Front," Ch. XI, work by Mme. Chiang K'ai-shek, cited above.[18]Wong Wen-hao, Minister of Economic Affairs, "Industrialization of Western China," Ch. XIV, work by Mme. Chiang K'ai-shek, cited above, p. 142.[19]He also spells it Oung Wen-hao; by the Wade transliteration, Wêng Wên-hao.[20]China Information Committee,News Release, Chungking, July 1, 1940.[21]The same, December 23, 1940.[22]Communication of August 12, 1940; in the present author's possession.

[1]China Information Committee,News Release, Chungking, September 30, 1940; and the same, December 30, 1940.

[2]Wang Shih-chieh, "The People's Political Council,"The Chinese Year Book 1938-39, cited, p. 346-55; the same,The People's Political Council, [Chungking], [1939?], pamphlet, reprinted fromThe China Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. I (Winter 1938-39). Dr. Wang's contributions, brief as they are, worthily supplement his pre-war constitutional studies, and provide the most carefully annotated data on the Council which the present author has found. The list of members given in the first article, above, is one of the most interesting documents of our time, giving, as it does, the residence, profession, and age of each Councillor. Beside "Former Prime Minister" one finds "Living Buddha attached to the Panchen Lama," "Reserve Member, Executive Committee, the Third International," "Professor, National Peking University" and "Head of the Mêng Clan, Descendants of Mencius."

[3]Woodhead, H. G. W., editor,The China Year Book, 1939, Shanghai, n. d., Ch. IX, "The Kuomintang and the Government," contains a detailed summary of the first two sessions of the People's Political Council (p. 231-7). Quigley, Harold S., "Free China,"International Conciliation, No. 359 (April 1940), includes a judicious appraisal of the work and meaning of the Council in its first two and one-half years (p. 137-8).

[4]Wang Shih-chieh, "The People's Political Council," cited, p. 346ff.The new system, inaugurated early in 1941, provided for 90 members to be directly elected by Provincial and Municipal People's Political Councils.

[5]Tang Chêng Chien Chih T'u-piao, cited, chart of theKuo-min Ts'an-chêng Hui.

[6]Wang Shih-chieh,The People's Political Council, cited, p. 5. Obvious misprints have been corrected.

[7]The author is indebted for some of these facts to an interview with Dr. Wang Shih-chieh in Chungking on August 1, 1940.

[8]1938-39issue, p. 351.

[9]Described below, p.159ff.

[10]May-ling Soong Chiang (Madame Chiang K'ai-shek),China Shall Rise Again, New York, 1941. Chinese economic developments are the subject of careful study by the Institute of Pacific Relations, whoseFar Eastern Surveyfollows contemporary developments closely and whoseInquiry Seriesoffers a monumental collection of linked works on Pacific affairs, with particular stress on the economic background to politics. The volume in this series on Chinese political development, by Lawrence K. Rosinger, may be expected to fill an important gap in the literature on China today.

[11]For the latest description of the organization of theWai-chiao Pu, see Wang Ch'ung-hui, "China's Foreign Relations during the Sino-Japanese Hostilities 1937-1940," Chapter XIII of Chiang, May-ling Soong,China Shall Rise Again, cited, p. 139-40.

[12]China at War, Vol. V, No. 2 (October 1940), p. 37.

[13]The same, Vol. V, No. 4 (November 1940), p. 78. See also Wu Yi-fang and Price, Frank W.,China Rediscovers Her West, New York, 1940; Chapter VII, "Holding the Educational Front" (p. 69-76) is by Y. G. Chen, President of the University of Nanking. The entire work edited by Messrs. Wu and Price is of value; written from the missionary point of view, it presents first-hand statements of affairs on Western China, and continues with liberal and socially conscious appraisals of the needs of Christian work.

[14]Wang Wên-hsiang, "K'ang-jih Ta-hsüeh yü Ch'ing-nien Fan-mên" ("The Sorrows of Youth and the Resist-Japan University") in the symposium entitled So-wei "Pien-ch'ü" (The So-called "Frontier Area"), Chungking, XXVIII (1939), p. 30ff.

[15]See the discussion of the mass education problem, below, p.218.

[16]Among the recent books on Sinkiang, one, unusual because it is by a Chinese author, stands out: Wu, Aitchen K.,Turkistan Tumult, London, 1940. The travel books of Sven Hedin, Ella Maillart, Peter Fleming, and Sir Eric Teichman also contain material of political interest.

[17]The Far Eastern Surveykeeps effectively up to date with all new developments in this field. An authoritative but understandable explanation of the work of the Ministry is found in H. H. K'ung, "Holding China's Financial Front," Ch. XI, work by Mme. Chiang K'ai-shek, cited above.

[18]Wong Wen-hao, Minister of Economic Affairs, "Industrialization of Western China," Ch. XIV, work by Mme. Chiang K'ai-shek, cited above, p. 142.

[19]He also spells it Oung Wen-hao; by the Wade transliteration, Wêng Wên-hao.

[20]China Information Committee,News Release, Chungking, July 1, 1940.

[21]The same, December 23, 1940.

[22]Communication of August 12, 1940; in the present author's possession.

China consists of twenty-eight provinces, varying in size about as do the European nations. Of the twenty-eight, fourteen are wholly under Chinese control, or are so slightly touched by invasion that normal governmental processes continue. Ten provinces are under dual or triple government—by the Japanese and pro-Japanese Chinese, by guerrilla and other semi-independent groups, and by the usual constitutional authorities. The remaining four are under firm Japanese domination, under the nameManchoukuo.[1]Well over half of China's population is under the National Government, and about one-ninth under unchallengeable Japanese control; the residuum is the subject of sharp political competition. The war is not merely a war between governments: it is a struggle for the creation of government.[2]

This problem would be immense even if there were no war. Under the successive Imperial dynasties of the past millennium, China developed extreme regional autonomy. Despite absolutist theory, the provinces under their governors or viceroys were practically as independent as states of the American union in the early nineteenth century.

PROVINCIAL AND URBAN GOVERNMENT

Provincial and Urban Government

* optional† legal, not administrative, entity

With the advent of war, the position of the provinces has become more precarious, truly new political devices in the form of novel regional governments have appeared, and the concrete problems of reform in the village communities have become as imperative as military measures.

The war-lord period was ushered in by the death of Yüan Shih-k'ai, dictator-President and commander-in-chief, in 1916. He had inherited a tradition of dual government—civil and military—no less sharp than the Japanese distinction, and had continued it by placing his military henchmen in power as provincial satraps. After his death, each province had a military governor (Tuchün), who sometimes tolerated a civil governor (Shêng-chang) and sometimes held both posts concurrently. The varioustuchünrivalled one another in a vain turmoil until the rise of the National Government suppressed or incorporated them. Even today some of these men hold remnants of their power, but it is still declining. The power of the National Government has increased almost every year for over fifteen years, and its programs, bequeathed by Sun Yat-sen, call for the constant diminution of provincial authority, until in the end the province shall be little more than a postal link between the central government and the districts (hsien).

Continued vitality of the provinces as a form of political life is shown by the chariness with which the government approaches the problem of re-subdividing the nation, by the continued effect of provincialism through the influence of geography, botany, ecology, economicsand spoken language, and by the manifest utility of the provinces in the prosecution of the war. It is impossible to discuss any aspect of Chinese affairs for very long without entering into distinctions between provinces.

In mild, modified, and controlled form, the pattern of civil-military contrast in provincial government still prevails. The civil governor, now in almost all cases the weightier official, is legally termed Chairman of the Province (Shêng Chu-hsi), but he frequently possesses a military colleague amiably designated Pacification Commissioner (Sui-ching Chu-jên).[3]The war has eradicated almost the last vestiges of provincial militarism. No Chinese army is in a position to make peace with Japan through the negotiated treason of its commander, although small groups occasionally change sides both ways.[4]On the other side of the picture, it is not altogether certain how far the National Government could go in replacing local leaders; more has been done than ever before, but the Generalissimo has tried to workhonestly with all leaders, provincial or independent, subsuming their power under his and the Government's without destroying it. Four provinces still show traces of autonomy.

Largest of the four is Sinkiang (Chinese Central Asia), under the military leader Shêng Shih-ts'ai; it is subject to very strong Soviet influence, since it is more accessible from the Soviet side of the border, via the Turksib Railroad, than from China. Its trade naturally flows out through the Soviet Union. The provincial authorities have been harsh toward Christian work, and casually cruel to occasional travellers. Since the National Government is exceedingly anxious to maintain good relations with the Soviet Union, and obtains much of its supplies from that country across Sinkiang province, it has made no attempt to interfere. The province has cooperated enthusiastically in war efforts; it is strange to see Central Asiatics with European features marching with Chinese troops. Many of the independent Leftist leaders have been welcomed in the area, although simon-pure Marxians are rare, and the province, with a new university, new air bases, new industries, and a trans-Asia highway, is undergoing rather spectacular development. The British and the Soviets are mutually so suspicious that the Chinese are likely to keep control, but the Chinese central government, taking no chances, cooperates rather than commands.

Yünnan, under General Lung Yün, is the second province with special features. Relatively isolated from the rest of China until the completion of the Kunming-Chungking stretch of the Burma Road, it has never been occupied by large National Government forces. The provincial chairman submitting in form and cooperating in fact has been left unmolested in his position. The province is becoming modernized by a great deal of commerce and development; it is likely that this vestigial autonomy will fade away unnoticed.

Kwangsi province possesses as leader General Pai Chung-hsi, one of the ablest military men in China. A Kuomintang leader of long standing, he followed, in conjunction with the leaders in Kwangtung (Canton), a policy ofde factoautonomy down to the very outbreak of war. He and his associates even had an independent air force, which was promptly merged into the National air service. During the war, he has fought in central China. The economic ruin of Kwangtung and the occupation of Canton city by the Japanese has quenched Cantonese autonomy, but Kwangsi has been relatively untouched. No whisper of suspicion has imputed separatism to General Pai, but should he desire it, he is one of the few men left in China still to have the means.

In Fukien province, General Ch'ên I serves as Chairman. He studied in Japan and has a Japanese wife. He remains loyal to the National Government, and he has fought the Japanese along the coast. No Chinese observer has criticized him, but Westerners have observed that Fukien is remarkably quiet; the Japanese have done little beyond blockading the coast and seizing the major ports, and the Chinese have launched no counter-attacks. It is possible that some unexpressed sense of understanding between the Governor and the Japanese prevents further conflict, while the Generalissimo—content to leave well enough alone—lets matters stand as they are.

Provincial government, as outlined in the chart at p. 98, is very simple in structure. The Commission plan, similar in many respects to the Galveston plan in American municipal government, reduces the Provincial Chairman to the status ofprimus inter pares. The departments of the provincial government are headed by members of the province's committee. The presence of provincial offices of the Kuomintang, military services, and war agencies makes a provincial capital a place more important than it seems in theory. A valuable innovationin provincial administration has been the inauguration of the Provincial People's Political Councils (Shêng Ts'an-chêng Hui). These are being taken seriously by the administrations. Although they occasionally pass visionary, impracticable, or bombastic resolutions, their work has for the most part been concrete. They have aided a great deal in transforming the atmosphere of government, and act as competent outside critical bodies to check the administrative officers.

Provincial government has been significantly transformed by the war. Dr. T. F. Tsiang (Chiang T'ing-fu), a distinguished historian who served on a central inspection commission to the Southwest in 1940, stated[5]that provincial government has improved in two outstanding ways: first, there is a real desire to understand the common people, and to do something for them. This was unheard-of a few years past. Second, all—or almost all—of the officials work very hard. There is far more work than there are men. Money is frequently available but unexpendable because there are not enough experts to go round. Hence, the provincial governments find their need is for men rather than funds, and the war is bringing new levels of actual accomplishment. Although most of the governors have military titles, many of these are like Kentucky colonelcies, courtesy titles from time past. The over-all effect is of hard work and little bombast.

Special Municipalities, most of which are now under Japanese occupation, are directly subject to the National Government and only incidentally a part of the provinces in which they are located. Ordinary Municipalities are under their respective provincial governments, but not under ahsien(district or county) administration; insome cases they include several former hsien. The Municipality is headed by a Mayor (Shih-chang), advised by a City Council (Shih-chêng Hui-i) composed of the chiefs of the administrative sections, several supplementary counsellors, and representatives from the Municipal Advisory Assembly (Shih Ts'an-i-hui), if one exists. Below theShihthe urban pattern of local government differs somewhat from the rural, but otherwise city government displays no features peculiarly Chinese.

Chinese local government has been the ever-fertile soil out of which successive Empires grew. To no other level of government has the Republic reached so poorly. Since China is constituted of about half a million villages, several thousand market towns, and a few hundred major cities, the bulk of the population is rural, but rural in a way foreign to the West. Congestion imposes upon agrarian China many problems and evils known as urban in the West. Corruption in government, extortion in economics, demoralization in social and family life—these start with the village and thehsien. Inconspicuous in any single village, each evil summed to its China-wide aggregate becomes tremendous.

Government has not been beloved by the Chinese farmer. Governmental benefits—for the continuance of scholastic culture, the protection of the realm, the creation of grandiose public works—were remote, but taxes were not; government meant the taxgatherer. Fêng Yü-hsiang, one of the great war-lords and now a Kuomintang general, says of his own childhood:

The people, except for paying their taxes, had nothing to do with the government. The government never paid any attention to the conditions under which the people lived, and the people never bothered themselves about what the government was doing. One party collected the taxes; the other paid them. That was all there was to it. Although Paotingcity was only about twoli[less than a mile] away, the inhabitants of Kang-k'ê village showed no interest in city civilization; instead, they rather looked down on that sort of thing. No discussions of politics were heard, and nothing about the encroachments of the foreign powers on China. All the big changes seemed to have taken place in another world, and very seldom affected this place.When the government was about to collect taxes, theLi Chêng[a petty local officer] would ring a gong from one end of the village to the other, shouting:"Pay your taxes! Four hundred and sixty coins to themou[about one third of an acre] for the first harvest!"When the people heard the gong, they did not go and pay their taxes immediately. They would walk listlessly to their doorways, only to withdraw after having taken a nonchalant look at theLi Chêng—as though they had heard nothing. They would wait until the very last minute, until they could not put it off any more, and then go, group by group, to the city to hand in money they had earned by sweat and blood.They were industrious and miserable all through the year ...[6]

When the government was about to collect taxes, theLi Chêng[a petty local officer] would ring a gong from one end of the village to the other, shouting:

"Pay your taxes! Four hundred and sixty coins to themou[about one third of an acre] for the first harvest!"

When the people heard the gong, they did not go and pay their taxes immediately. They would walk listlessly to their doorways, only to withdraw after having taken a nonchalant look at theLi Chêng—as though they had heard nothing. They would wait until the very last minute, until they could not put it off any more, and then go, group by group, to the city to hand in money they had earned by sweat and blood.

They were industrious and miserable all through the year ...[6]

This basic level of Chinese society is not easily susceptible to standardization, or the imposition of ready-made bureaucracies. Even in the United States, it would be almost impossible to impose a uniform plan for community organization from Bangor to San Diego and Walla Walla to the Bronx. Sun Yat-sen once said to Judge Linebarger, "China is a land of autonomy from the smallest village upward. Who shall dictate to the sub-governments of China the form and manner in which they shall express their local governmental needs? Of course, we must have a minimum of uniformity for both economy and efficiency in government, but the will of the people must be followed."[7]By seeking to remedy political abuses the National Governmentapparently hopes that economic inequalities will be ironed out by the people themselves.

The Chinese land problem cannot be understood except at the politico-economic nexus, where low political morale exposes the farmers to the unrestrained power of the gentry, acting in the triple capacity of officials, landlords, and money-lenders. The cycle, familiar in the West, of freehold farmers or yeomen first mortgaging their land, then becoming tenants, and finally ending in utter economic helplessness, has been familiar in China. In China's past, the cycle had another phase: agrarian insurrection sweeping the land with banditry and innumerable rebellions, thereby increasing the fiscal burden on the remaining land, leading to worse exploitation, until the slate was swept clean by dynastic collapse, general civil war, and a new Imperial house, whose administrative decline began another cycle. The peasantry never won completely, and never lost utterly. Today, if one judges by past experience, rebellion or reform seems long overdue.[8]

The detailed legislation adopted by the National Government in war time is given inAppendix I (G), and Chiang K'ai-shek's own explanation of the new system inAppendix III (C).[9]One might explain the general plan quite simply in terms of inter-connection between the central government and the millions of households. Thepao-chiasystem is one of mutual aid and mutual responsibility between households and groups of households, under government supervision. It has appeared in China from time to time since theCh'in dynasty (221-203B.C.). If used for welfare purposes, it amounts to a recognition of the pluralistic character of Chinese society by the government, and the happy utilization of the family pattern. Applied for police purposes, it is well suited to repression and terror. Thus, today the National Government is applying thepao-chiasystem (in relation to its whole scheme of local government) as a measure of progress and reform, while the Japanese encourage the same organizations in occupied China as a device for despotism and exploitation.

Expressed in law, now being applied in fact, thechiais a group of six to fifteen families (households), and thepao, a group of six to fifteen chia. The hsiang is formally composed of six to fifteen pao; actually it approximates what is loosely termed a community in the United States (e.g., a city ward, a single suburb, part of a rural election district). Thech'üis the rough equivalent of a township. Thehsien(district; county) is the fundamental unit of the traditional China-wide bureaucracy. Hence the missing steps are not those between thehsien, near to two thousand in number, and the central government. The gaps occur between the half-billion Chinese and their two thousandhsien. The following chart shows the broad outlines of the system:[10]

Outlines of The System

This is the official government plan. If ever put into complete effect, China will consist of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of self-governing units, arranged on seven levels (the five local levels; provinces; nation), and the world will wonder at a massive new democracy. In practical politics, what seems to be happening is that the system extends to the National Government areas, involving less than three hundred million people. Much of the application is purely formal, and signifies no more than did the grant of an imaginary suffrage under the first Republic. Elsewhere the new system is installed with telling administrative effect, improving the bureaucracy, strengthening the state, but not arousing much popular participation or enthusiasm. And in the remainder the program is beginning to work as is intended with genuine elections and popular participation in government.

The three chief devices which have been applied to the reform of local government are: instruction, mandate, and other remote controls; inspection systems; and training courses. First are the attempts to change local government by transmission from the capital of voluminous instructions, manuals, etc., supplemented by similar Kuomintang action for Party reform. In the second case, central officials go to the provinces. During the summer of 1940, a number of such groups of officials divided China between themselves, each group taking a number of provinces for its inspection zone. The presence of a central delegation in the field led to some housecleaning, provided an incentive for immediate work, and informed the National Government of the condition of the country. Some junketing was observable, but not enough to vitiate the work of inspection. By the third device, local officials are called to training centers. The Generalissimo is very fond of this method. He encourages the selection of younger men, who thereby feel that their careers are given a boost. Theyare taught modern governmental practice while living, in most cases, a disciplined but comfortable half-military life. Some training conferences are convenedad hocin a promising area; others continue from year to year under the government or related organizations. Many thousand men and women undergo some form of training. The program has clearly discernible effects in improving local government. The selection of persons who either hold office or are likely to hold office provides a practical self-interest motivation. Further minor devices of local government reform include the grants in aid to the provinces, the establishment of modelhsien, the military eradication of banditry, the reclamation of farm land and forests, some resettlement, and much planned modernization with small-scale projects. Town after town has received the stimuli of modernization from one of these sources.

Estimates—nothing more could be found—concerning the effectiveness of this program varied considerably. Since two equally skilled observers, considering the same institution at first hand, can differ sharply in their value judgments of efficacy or integrity, this is not surprising. A few Westerners and Leftists have insisted that the program was almost altogether sham. A few formal, optimistic officials have insisted that it has succeeded almost everywhere. One competent foreign observer told the author that he believed thepao-chiasystem to be installed in 90 per cent of Free China, and to be actually working in 50 per cent. Another agreed more or less with these figures, but suggested that there were enormous differences between the provinces, some being genuinely transformed and others remaining unaffected. A Chinese official, himself a social scientist, who had been intimately connected with local reform, stated that 50 per cent application for all Free China would be much too high an estimate, except for the holding of token elections. Only in Kwangsi provincewas the new self-government structure working over half of the countryside; elsewhere, the ratio was about one-fifth effective as against four-fifths nominal.

Most of all, genuine application consists in making institutions available, and thereupon letting the people help themselves. If local government is of practical use to the common people, they can be counted on to discover its utility promptly. If it is of no practical use, they will know that too. Whatever the present degree of success, obstacles still confront the program. Local extragovernmental institutions possess enormous vitality. If superficial or slipshod reforms are made, the new local governments will be merely operated as screens for secret societies, landlords' unions, or other narrow cliques.

Contrastingly, a tradition of discussion and public action makes it equally possible that the rural masses, familiar with cooperative action, will operate the new institutions successfully. The difference between success and failure is not to be measured in terms of wholly new achievement; it is determined by the choice of existing institutions which, transmuted and fitted, fill the pattern of the rationalized local government system. If narrow, class-bound or unprogressive groups assume the regalia of a novel legality, using their position to obstruct further development, the program will fail. If the town-meeting, cooperative potentialities of the entire adult population are aroused, and if the ordinary farmer or coolie can see that he has the opportunity of bettering his livelihood through political action, the success of democracy will be assured.

Potentialities in the field of local autonomy are enhanced by the fact that the National Government has competitors. The Japanese have an opportunity which, instead of utilizing, they have done their best to destroy: conquest through prosperity. If they and their Chinese associates offered low prices, easy marketing, and fairtaxes, in the place of arson, rape, thievery and bluster, their failure would become less certain. As a third side to the triangle of competitive power, the Communists and independent Left, while allied to the National Government, rival it in winning the loyalty of the population. Huge areas in Communist and guerrilla sections are sampling reform of a drastic and immediate kind: the lowering of taxes, the democratization of government, the abolition of usury. With the traitors on its Right and the Communists or guerrillas on its Left, the National Government does not abandon its chief politico-economic weapon by disregarding land and labor reform. None of the three parties has anything to gain by inaction. None has an interest which binds it to self-dooming reaction.

Three new governmental areas which are neither provinces nor local governments have come forth out of unification and war. Their relationship to Chungking is strange, perhaps unique. They are not states members of a federal union, since China is a unitary republic. They are not new regional commissions, creatures and extensions of the central government, because—whatever the theory—they were independently initiated. They are not allies, because they profess national unity. They are not rebellions, because they fight a common enemy, only occasionally coming into conflict with government troops. Yet they possess some of the features of each of the following: federal states, regional subgovernments, allied states, and rebellions. They cut across the pattern of the National Government. Two are governments; one is an army. The army and one government are largely Communist; the other government is a genuine United Front of the parties. Two are North Chinese; one is Central Chinese. But all three have this in common: they are Leftist,actively revolutionary; they are objects of patronizing suspicion to the central authorities, who are glad of the help but worry about its post-war cost.

The first and most famous of these areas is the Communist zone in the Northwest. Formally it includes eighteenhsien; the Communists claim inclusion of twenty-three. After being termed the Special Administrative District of the Chinese Republic (Chung-hua Min-kuo T'ê-ch'ü Chêng-fu), and then Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia Frontier Area (Shan-kan-ning Pien-ch'ü Chêng-fu), the zone assumed the much more modest style of Administrative Area of North Shensi (Shan-pei Hsing-chêng-ch'ü).[11]This Frontier Area is in personnel and Party life a direct continuation of the Chinese Soviet Republic. Leftist and Communist circles talk as though it were a wholly autonomous state, resting on its own military power, but cooperating with the National Government for national resistance and reconstruction. This is largely true—at any rate, more realistic than the opposing view, which avers that no change has taken place in the Northern part of Shensi province, and that the Communists are interfering with the proper processes of government. The following is a characteristic statement of the latter position:

At present the name "Frontier Area" seems to be very common because it is so called in false propaganda about the "independent sovereignty" [tzŭ-li wei-wang]. But if we agree that the so-called "Frontier Area" is a part of the territory of the Chinese Republic, the name ought to have been issued in conformity with the decrees of the central government. According to central government decree, it is only a "Supplementary Recruitment Area for the Eighth Route Army," but not an area of civil administration. [The author, in an extended discussion, challenges the re-division of the provinces as a matter not to be undertakencasually, denies the legal foundation of the term "Frontier Area," and then examines its practical justifications. He finds that the Communists have two: the regime is now ade factosystem, its existence is afait accompliand further discussion must proceed from this point; also, the regime is founded in popular opinion, and the government should not violate the wishes of the people. He disagrees with both of these and seeks to refute them, insisting on lawful procedure and constitutional government. He concludes with a peroration to the Communists themselves.] ... this problem is really quite simple, unlike the Sudeten problem. Was it the Communist Party of China which called the Sudeten Party of Czechoslovakia violators of the unity of their own country and running dogs of Fascism? Therefore, I think that they would never imitate what the reactionary Sudeten party did. And was it the Communists who originated the "United Front"? Hence they must understand very clearly what unification means to China, and must never utter things which they do not really believe. Therefore, with the rising tide of national unity and concentration, I suppose that the odd name "Frontier Area," which is contrary to the real sense of unification, will soon pass away and be a mere historical term.[12]

In practical terms this implies the informal reconciliation of two claims constitutionally and legally incompatible. The Chinese Communist leaders operate under the national law codes as much as they are able. They employ the national currency. They use the nationally standard system for local government. They profess unity. At the same time they maintain, as a hard reality, a separate regime in which the Communist Party is supreme, the Party Line is gospel, and dissidents are dealt with as "pro-Japanese traitors" or otherwise. Transit between National Government territory and Communist territory is not altogether easy. Leftists are reported to have died on their way to the Northwest, and Nationalists are equally well reported to have disappeared after they got there.

The Area itself is an unpromising piece of land. "From 36° N. Lat. on up, South of the Great Wall and West of the Yellow River, there lies a vast, desolate tract of yellow plateau, inhabited by half a million people. The plateau slopes from North to South; the further South it runs, the lower the land lies, but it is still 1000 meters above sea-level at the lowest place. This is what we have already known as Northern Shensi. In this region, the ground is always covered with a layer of yellow dust ... Furthermore, rainfall is scarce and no irrigation has been introduced, so that agricultural products are extremely scant. Under such geographical limitations, Northern Shensi has become a region notorious for its poverty."[13]For a Chinese to call an area notoriously poor implies a degree of destitution which the American mind cannot grasp. In such an area, the welcome to Communism is obvious, and the problems of Communism, once settled, are equally obvious. The probability of mineral resources opens up opportunities for development under Red rule, but these are distant.

Interpretation of the achievements of the Communist regime vary with the political standpoint of the observer, just as they do in the case of the Soviet Union. Sympathetic observers, both Western and Chinese, report enormous improvements in agriculture, fair land taxes, new cooperatives, brilliant experimental democracy, bold education, and great enthusiasm.[14]Nounsympathetic Western visitors have been reported admitted, and a few neutrals came away enthusiastic; but critical Chinese have found as much to question as one might find in a similar Western situation: terrorism, puppet elections, murder both judicial and plain, sham education, and immorality are charged.

The position of the Frontier Area is clear in a few respects.[15]In the first place, it is not declining. Communist strength is believed to be growing, by persons of almost all forms of political belief; differences arise only over the rate and probable maxima of that growth. The Communist strength in the Northwest is far less than it was in South Central China seven years ago, but much of that loss of power has been compensated for by increased relations with sympathetic guerrillas. Secondly, the Communist area is strategically poorly located. The land itself is poor; the adjacent large cities are completely under Nationalist control; and the general military-political locale is something like northern Arkansas in the United States. This explains the willingness of the Nationalist commanders to avoid friction with the Communists, and the positive zest with which they suggest further consolidation of Communist forces around the one center at Yenan. It soothes the impatience of Communists who wish unrestricted rightsof agitation, organization, and propaganda throughout the country. Although the Communists make little visible headway against the Japanese in the great urban slums of the coast, they are anxious to obtain freer access to city workers. Thirdly, the Communist area displays no structural peculiarities of government. Its profound difference from the rest of Free China is not a difference in institutional forms, but in the forces operating behind and through those forms. The Chinese Communists have achieved very considerable success in working within the legal limits of another state philosophy, and have done it with a minimum of violence; this augurs well for the perpetual continuation of the truce. Their practical accomplishments are extensive and novel; their leadership, brilliant; that their government should be so orthodox in form is all the more significant. By remaining within orthodox limits they challenge the National Government on common ground; the gain is theirs and China's.

The special area second in importance is the Hopei-Chahar-Shansi Border Region (Chin-ch'a-chi Pien-ch'ü Lin-shih Hsing-chêng Wei-yüan-hui). Widely publicized in the Western world as the Hermit Government, this regime functions altogether within the Japanese lines. A number of competent Western observers have visited this area, among them Major Evans Fordyce Carlson, Mr. Haldore Hanson, and Professor George Taylor. All have come away most enthusiastic about the work of the government. The governmental picture which emerges from their and other accounts is one of a highly flexible mechanism, working with great efficacy and superb morale.[16]The driving power behind theregime is social revolution as a means to national resistance, made easy by the flight of many former local bureaucrats, and by the treason of some ultra-conservatives, who affiliated themselves with the Provisional Government established by the Japanese in Peiping. The personnel is as genuinely United Front as may be found anywhere in the world; the position is eased by the circumjacency of the Japanese, and the formal recognition of the area by the Military Affairs Commission and the ExecutiveYüan.

The Border Region, like smaller guerrilla areas elsewhere in occupied China, is scarcely a domestic political problem because it is enfolded by the Japanese armies. Even a United Front area, such as the Border Region, would lead to far greater difficulties in political adjustment if established in Free China. The tension and balance between the Parties is such that this strain might not be borne. Behind the Japanese lines, where the central armies cannot do anything even if they wish, the Border Region finds Chungking's acquiescence to be stimulated by Chungking's impotence. What could or will happen if the Japanese leave the dividing area, and the Border Region has to settle the issue ofstatus quov.status quo ante bellumwith the central government, no one knows. The Generalissimo told the present author that he did not fear the encroachments of the guerrilla groups, because he and they were all working for democracy.

Following from this involuntarily protective and insulating role of the Japanese forces is the constitutional theory of the Border Region. Unlike the Frontier Area, where it is exceedingly difficult to gloss over the autonomy of Communist rule, the Border Region is definitely established as a war-time agency, controlling territory beyond the reach of the provincial governments. The provincial governments still function, in unoccupied corners of their provinces, or in exile, and the openly provisional (lin-shih) nature of the Border Region makes it palatable even to Kuomintang conservatives.

The pattern of government is one of devolution from an Executive Committee, which was established by a meeting of officials, volunteers, mass organizations, and others at Fup'ing in January 1938. The area is divided into provincial districts which are able to function with economy of personnel. The following outline illustrates the structure of this area:[17]

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

SecretariatCivil Affairs DepartmentFinancial Affairs DepartmentEducation DepartmentIndustry DepartmentJustice Department

Inspectorates of the Seven Provincial Districts

HsienGovernments or JointHsienGovernments or Sub-HsienGovernments

HsienDistricts

Village Committees

A very high degree of direct popular government has been achieved. Over wide areas, the average age of thehsienmagistrates is in the twenties. Recruitment to the Region of numerous professors and students from Peiping has helped to fill the need for trained personnel, and has assisted in maintaining the area as a genuine multi-group affair rather than a Communist front. Communists, although present and highly esteemed, do not hold the highest formal offices. (For further consideration of the United Front problem, see below, p.123.)

The New Fourth Army (Hsin-ssŭ-chün), third of the special zones, was formed by re-consolidation of the small mutually isolated Soviet areas left behind when the main Communist forces made the celebrated Long March. When first assembling under the truce, these Red units faced a certain amount of difficulty from the provincial military who did not grasp the United Front idea, but the Military Affairs Commission recognized them. The Army did not establish a government except through its Political Department, which coordinated political work of the volunteer village committees.[18]

According to available reports, the Army stands far to the Left of the Border Region. Formally United Front, its proportion of Communists is much higher and Communist control more telling. Operating in East Central China—the Anhwei-Kiangsu-Kiangsi-Fukien-Chekiang area—which provided the base of ten years'Communist insurrection and was long the home of the Chinese Soviet Republic, the New Fourth Army Zone represents a recrudescence of Soviet activities under different names and with a different military objective. This fact has caused intense dissatisfaction among some Kuomintang generals, who spent half their careers trying to root out Communism in that same area. They do not mind the Communist zone in the Northwest, where an effective informalcordon sanitairecan be drawn, but renewed Communist activity in the Yangtze valley impresses them as an evil not much less than pro-Japanese treason.

The New Fourth Zone, the Border Region, and the Frontier Area—together with a wide scattering of guerrilla areas and governments individually of less but collectively of equal importance—are the military step-children of the Chinese government. They all receive subsidies for their work, varying in amount. Usually this is calculated on the number ofhsienactually occupied as bases, so that the sum provides for a far smaller number of villages than those directly affected. In the case of troops, the salary allowances are based on the permitted size of the units, in almost all cases below the actual numbers. The money is paid to the commanders or other leading officials, who then set salary rates incomparably lower than those of the central forces. The money thus saved is applied to the general budget of the forces. Corruption, while occasional and inescapable, seems to be more sharply punished in the guerrilla than in the government areas.

In January 1941, the New Fourth Army was officially abolished, following a clash with regular National Government forces. The clash arose from a fundamental difference between the Generalissimo and the New Fourth leaders concerning the nature of the Chinese government. The Communists and their sympathizers held that the unity of China was a politicalunion between separate groups. When the Generalissimo ordered the New Fourth Army to move North, and oppose the Japanese forces above the Yangtze, the New Fourth countered with a demand for arms and funds. Treating this as military insubordination in war time, the central forces attacked the New Fourth—each side claiming that the other opened hostilities—capturing Yeh Ting, the commander. The rest of the Army was officially abolished, although its main forces were within the occupied zone and outside the Generalissimo's reach. A full Communist-Nationalist clash was avoided, however, and the Red leaders unwillingly acquiesced in the Generalissimo's interpretation of the episode as a military and not a political affair. The conflict brought forth the fundamental Communist question: are the Chinese Communists loyal first to the Chinese government, or first to the Communist Party? No answer was forthcoming, although the Communists failed to rebel elsewhere. The Generalissimo, by military swiftness and political acumen, had triumphed in one more particular instance.

With the parsimonious policy of the central government keeping them in fiscal extremity, the more Leftist guerrilla units make up their lack of funds with direct economic measures. These include suspensions of rents to landlords, regulation of share-cropping, lowering of taxes on the poorer farmers, and creation of cooperatives. The Communists have strained every point to avoid actual class war, and the economic reforms of the guerrilla and special areas are smoothed by the usual absence of the landlords. The political necessity of a bold economic policy remains important, if the special areas are to continue their activity against Japan or—in the Frontier Area case—their independence. Political development thus is inclined to stress the use of popular machinery of government, not for the creation of systematic, modern, responsible bureaucracy, but forpushing vigorous mass action, direct popular government, and socio-economic reconstruction, revolutionary by implication if not by immediate content.

Not all the guerrilla areas fall into the Left pattern. The Kuomintang, so long habituated to control of the state mechanism that its revolutionary background is somewhat dimmed, is bringing Kuomintang guerrilla work into action. The Party and Government War Area Commission is the chief supervisory agency for this work, and an enormous amount of planning has been done. Actual application of mass-movement work seems as yet to lag behind that of the Left. Meanwhile, in most areas except the Communist Northwest, Kuomintang officers, officials, teachers, and volunteers are active. The guerrilla groups all accept the same flag, hail Chiang as their leader, recognize theSan Min Chu Ias the state ideology, and maintain the cherished symbols of unity.

The Government and the Kuomintang were reportedly seeking a settlement of the whole special-area problem, in anticipation of the close of war, by urging the movement of all Communist or Communist-infiltrated forces Northward, so that a more or less continuous Left corridor would run from the Border Region to the Frontier Area. This precipitated the clash with the New Fourth Army; in March 1941 no settlement has been reached. Part of this is owing to the Communist desire to have unrestricted agitational rights, and to official Kuomintang insistence that no Party other than itself is constitutionally legitimate. The special areas meanwhile prepare fighters in the anti-Japanese war, and are helped by a government which is proud of them as Chinese but mistrustful of them as Leftists. And they develop vigorous applications of democratic formulae which challenge the reality and sincerity of everything the National Government does behind the lines.

Despite recurrent clashes, it is likely that the areas and the government will continue their present relations. In part this is owing to the genuineness of the universal hatred of Japan and the devotion to the long-cherished unification now achieved; in even greater part the wrangling, acrimonious, but effective cooperation of the government and the guerrilla Left depends on their equal and great desire for such cooperation. The highest Kuomintang leaders—above all others, Chiang—have pledged themselves to unity and cooperation, and are determined to eschew civil war in the midst of invasion; the higher Communist leaders are equally determined. In three years of collaboration, the highest officers on each side have developed very genuine respect for each other's sincerity. Quarrels are provoked by the men in-between, overbearing Nationalists or the doctrinaire Communists, who cannot forget 1927-37. (The author talked to one Communist leader who had an odd, not unattractive muscular tic in his face: the consequence of Kuomintang torture a few years past. Yet he collaborates, and so do his Kuomintang equivalents, men whose parents lie in unknown graves.) The common people on both sides want peace above all else, internal peace between factions, and peace—after victory, and then only—with Japan. The juxtaposed and competitive forces watch one another, compete in the development of institutions, and engage in an auction of good government: whoever wins the deepest love and esteem of the Chinese people wins China in the end. Few institutional reforms in the West have had such fateful stimuli.

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