Part 17 (1/2)

They serve as advance posts of the Soviet Union--precedent for the creation of puppet states within China. Years later the j.a.panese manufactured a ”state” in Eastern Inner Mongolia, with the cooperation of anti-Chinese Mongol princes, which j.a.pan has publicized very little.

Known in the world press as _Mengkokuo_, it provides a j.a.panese buffer state to meet the Russian buffer of Outer Mongolia. On October 29, 1937, it reached its latest phase with the proclamation of the Autonomous Government of Inner Mongolia.

The Great Empire of Manchou, to use its present official name, arose as Manchoukuo. The word itself was a concession to world opinion, as Manchuria is known to the Chinese simply as the Three Eastern Provinces (Tung San Sheng); its population is overwhelmingly Chinese. With the development of Chinese national unity, the j.a.panese position in this area was threatened. They invaded Manchuria in September, 1931; the following year they proclaimed the independence of Manchoukuo, inviting the young man who as a child had been the last Manchu emperor of China to serve as the head of the state. In 1934 he was installed as Emperor Kang Teh of the Great Empire of Manchou. The j.a.panese have done a great deal toward bettering their own economic position in Manchuria, but the effect of their policies on the Chinese population is of doubtful merit.

Equal motives underlay the rebirth of Peking, where on December 14, 1937, the Provisional Government of the Republic of China was proclaimed.[11] The old Peking-Republican flag was flown. The heads of the new regime were aged men who already twenty years ago had cooperated with the j.a.panese. Others served under duress and performed their mock routine in the cold agony of treason. The new administration is honeycombed with j.a.panese ”advisers” and under the domination of the j.a.panese army.

To round out their collection of puppet governments, the j.a.panese established in the spring of 1938 a Reformed Government of the Republic of China in Nanking, and even went so far as to adopt--provisionally, at least--the const.i.tutional form of the National Government, which had moved upriver. This regime was admittedly even more ephemeral than the others, and the j.a.panese announced their intention of consolidating it with the set-up they had organized in Peiping. For the time, it was to be subordinate for purposes of theory to the Northern regime, but the future of the whole j.a.panese adventure was in doubt, and that of their half-conceived instrumentalities even more dubious.

_The Growth of Government in China_

In the decade following 1927, Chinese government became more significant than it had been since the days of the founding emperors of the Ch'in and the Han. Power was based on a correlation of government with ideological and military forces. The Nationalist Party was the first to effectuate this correlation, in part as a result of lessons learned from the Soviet advisers in the period of collaboration.[12] The Nationalists utilized the doctrinal bases of the _San Min Chu I_, tested in the social revolution which arose from the Nationalist-Communist propaganda.

The great personal prestige of Sun Yat-sen was one of the most important contributing factors to the growth of Nationalist administration in Canton.

The military ability and political leaders.h.i.+p of Chiang K'ai-shek largely determined the success of the subsequent National Government.

Chiang created a military machine superior to any other in China and coordinated army and government in such a way as to add strength to both.[13] But Chiang stood not alone. His wife became his _alter ego_ for press relations, and important in her own right. His brother-in-law T. V. Soong, resourceful financier, and his sisters-in-law, Mme Sun Yat-sen (Sun's second wife) and Mme H. H. K'ung (wife of a later minister of finance), were strong influences at Nanking. Yet these members of the ”Soong dynasty” did not shape the course of Nanking policies as a closed concern. They were part of a larger group sharing responsibility equally.

Once the National Government was established its success was largely the result of success. Improvements in the international status of China accrued to the prestige of the regime, and a new surge toward reconstruction, delayed intolerably long by the anarchy of _tuchuns_, occurred as the result of the Nanking hegemony. In the later years of the National Government, before the j.a.panese onslaught transformed it into a quasi-military regime fighting for its existence, the increased extent of the national police power was brought into sharp relief. With the extension of a unified gendarmery service over great parts of the nation, and the development of a court system which worked well except when under political pressure, the individual came to face government as a reality--more than ever before, under any dynasty. The government defied custom and tradition in promoting public health, in attacking epidemics, in sponsoring modern burial practices, and in deriding unhygienic superst.i.tions. In the broad field of mores which adjoins public health, the influence of the government made itself felt--in reducing the cost of marriage, in promoting munic.i.p.al cleanliness and tidiness in public places, in furthering temperance. The New Life movement combined the prestige of the government with the elasticity of voluntary a.s.sociation. In its closing days Nanking whipped up an unprecedented wave of public spirit among the ma.s.ses.

As to government control of the economy, the Nanking government aimed at system, in place of the inchoate conditions which existed before its ascendancy. Chinese banks began to be as reliable as those of the West.

The currency was standardized on a national basis. A national fiscal policy was adopted. A great achievement was the introduction of a managed paper currency in a country where specie alone had been respected for ages. Agriculture, however, was lagging behind.

Government disavowed its previous identification with a scholastic officialdom. It dispensed with a state religion, although the commemoration of Sun Yat-sen compensated in part for the change.

Government disclaimed any vague totalitarianism and instead clarified its zone of functioning through the use of law. By narrowing the field of its authority, it increased its effectiveness. Nationalization, centralization, bureaucratization, the development of lawful process, the emergence of a half-Western state working for Chinese needs--thus may the growth of government be characterized in the period after 1928.

Obstacles remained, enough to dismay any ruler; but they had become obstacles and were not impa.s.sable barriers of cynicism, incomprehension, and futility.

The j.a.panese invasion of 1937 had two immediate effects on the government. It shattered overnight the structure erected by the Nanking regime. The work of a decade was undone. On the other hand, the j.a.panese threat helped to drive the Communists and Nationalists together and forced into the national nexus those regional leaders who were maintaining the last vestiges of separatism. Most consequential of all: j.a.pan's push--the greatest invasion the Chinese had known since the 1600's--thrust government and people toward each other. Foreign troops taught inland China what nationalism really meant.

They taught nationalism not merely with the fury of their guns, or with the cruelties of their hysterical troops in Nanking. The j.a.panese fostered nationalism most strikingly when they drove inland the protagonists of nationalism. Students, merchants, engineers, soldiers, administrators, physicians, and scientists of the coast were forced into the far interior. Villagers to whom the sight of these modern Chinese was as rare as the sight of a lama in Arkansas now had such refugees dwelling among them. The effect of forced cultural cross-fertilization is yet to be seen, but it may prove to be of extraordinary significance.

Chinese able to hold their own with any representative of the Western world can now be found in the remote valleys and plateaus of the hinterland--twentieth-century China and timeless China, united in their hatred of the invaders, and deeply aware of their new national unity, their desperate need for power.

NOTES

[1] See above, pp. 41 ff.

[2] See Wu Chih-fang, _Chinese Government and Politics_, pp. 147 ff., Shanghai, 1934.

[3] The outline given and the description offered are brief and generalized because the j.a.panese invasion will probably lead to recurrent reorganization of the government. s.h.i.+h Chao-ying and Chang Chi-hsien (editors), _The Chinese Year Book_, 1936-1937, have an excellent series of short descriptions by acknowledged authorities of the organs of government. Some of these are: Tsui Wei-wu, ”Kuomintang,”

pp. 223-229; Ray Chang, ”Central and Local Administrative Systems,” pp.

230-240; Tsiang Ting-fu, ”Executive Yuan,” pp. 241-246; Hsieh Pao-chao, ”Legislative Yuan,” pp. 247-292; Hsieh Kuan-sheng, ”Judicial Yuan,” pp.

293-336; Chien Chih-s.h.i.+u, ”Control Yuan,” pp. 337-347; Chen Ta-chi, ”Examination Yuan,” pp. 348-362; and Chu s.h.i.+h-ming, ”Army,” pp. 946-955.

This annual, which is written by Chinese in English and edited by Chinese, is not to be confused with the British _China Year Book_, 1912-; the latter gives a broad outline of Chinese government.

[4] Kalfred Dip Lum, _Chinese Government_, Shanghai, 1934. The author was himself a member of this convention; his work, therefore, possesses unusual interest.