1.
In January 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,[3]
each 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.
[3] Since the writing of this and the former chapter there
are some signs that Wu Pei Fu wants to set up in control of
the middle districts.
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 rumors tending 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 what it 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 management of 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 exception of 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 is
wiser 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 and failed; 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 Chang Tso 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 debacle, 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. This is 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 setting forth 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 effective might 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.