A Bolshevized China-The World's Greatest Peril

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A Bolshevized China The World's Greatest Peril

ALSO

NATIONALISTS' DELIBERATE POLICY ATTACKING ALL MISSIONS

A Bolshevized China-The World's Greatest Peril

Reprinted from the "North-China Daily News," May 26, 1927.

A BOLSHEVIZED CHINA-THE WORLD'S GREATEST PERIL

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The Persistent Propaganda Carried on by Missionaries in America in Favour of the Reds: American Public Thoroughly Deceived

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By the Rev. Edgar E. Strother, General Secretary, China Christian Endeavour Union.

An article entitled "Is China Going Red?" which I prepared a couple of years ago was received with a good deal of criticism by editors and others in the homelands, as well as by many missionaries in China who had not yet had their eyes opened to the subtle propaganda which was being carried on by the Soviet. The secretary of the Quaker Mission Board wrote me a scathing letter, asking why I should assume to express an opinion regarding conditions in China, when they were receiving their in formation from the National Christian Council, and especially from their own Dr. Henry T. Hodgkin, which contradicted all that I had written. He informed me that he was so provoked when he opened my letter and saw that I attributed the trouble in China to the influence of Bolshevism that he threw the letter into his waste paper basket, but later he decided to take it out and reply just to let me know how he felt about the matter and to ad vise me not to send any more of such unwelcome information to America. The events of recent months, especially the revelations in Peking since the raid of the Soviet premises there, have fully justified my statement.

The Other Missionary Point of View

A letter from the President of my own Mission Board, dated October 22, 1925, referred to my article as follows: "Your views of the up rising in China among the students as engineered largely by the Bolshevists and Soviet Russia, is different from what comes to us from many of the missionaries, at least those who write for the Press, who think the uprising is due to the aggression of foreign countries and the injustices perpetrated by the restricted tariff laws and the matter of extraterritoriality. I have no doubt that what you say of the Bolshevists is true-that they are bitterly anti-Christian-but I am not sure that they are responsible for stirring up all the race trouble in China, for I think the foreign nations, with the exception perhaps of our own country (though that is not wholly blameless) have done much to enrage the Chinese. How ever, I know you are in a better position to judge than I."

A later letter from Dr. Clark, date January 18, 1926, says: "We are still hearing contradictory reports from China, some missionaries taking your view of the situation and others defending the students in all that they have done and blaming the commercial people for abuses which they think justify any thing that the students may accomplish."

Pro-Red Propaganda

An article in a recent number of the "Christian Endeavour World," entitled "The New China," is evidence of the effectiveness of the persistent propaganda carried on in America in favour of the Reds; it even justifies the Boxer uprising of 1900 in the following words: "China was then being prodded awake by the spears of the Boxers, justly aroused as they were by the aggressions of foreign nations and the insolent tyranny of foreign merchants and others." Then referring to the present upheaval, we read: "China for the Chinese is the cry of the Nationalists, who seem to be winning their way rapidly, so that they already have over run more than half of China, have captured Hangchow, and have invested Shanghai itself. Who will say that it is an unworthy cry? For years and years China has belonged to any nation that might grab a piece of her territory. Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, have all joined in this grab game. Foreigners residing in China for years have not been subject to her laws and courts, but to the laws and courts of their own countries. Nearly a score of such courts have been set up in Shanghai alone. This is what extraterritoriality means."

The Nanking Outrages

The American papers reported just after the Nanking outrage that "the British claim proof that the looting and murders at Nanking were done by Cantonese soldiers, etc.," regardless of the fact that it was not British but American missionaries from Nanking who testified to the fact that the outrage was committed by Southern soldiers, for the simple reason that there are only American missions in Nanking.

It is amazing to those of us who are familiar with the situation here in China to see how thoroughly the American public has been deceived as to the real facts. It is certainly evident that the Bolsheviks, with the effective aid of the so-called National Christian Council, have very nearly succeeded in pulling the wool over the eyes of the Americans. Evidence of this Red propaganda in the U.S.A. is now abundant. For example, in an interview, on his way from America in Tokyo, the editor of the "Peking Leader," Mr. Grover Clark tells of his strenuous campaign of lectures in the principal cities of the United States for the Foreign Policy Association, and of his testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate in Washington, in which he urged the revision of the unequal treaties, etc. Mr. Clark says he was twice in a motion picture theatre when films were shown of American marines landing in China, and that not a handclap greeted them, but that he overheard spectators say, "What right have our soldiers in China?" He asserts that no political party will dare to put a plank for a strong China policy in its platform for the 1928 campaign, because the public is almost unanimously against such a plank. It is very interesting to learn that in the raid of the Soviet premises in Peking, receipts for several hundred dollars a month were discovered, signed by Grover Clark, and it is said that one of these receipts bears the inquiry in Mr. Clark's handwriting, "what about the $10,000.00?"

Mr. Millard's Writings

Now comes the news to Shanghai that Dr. A. L. Warnshuis, formerly a secretary of the China Continuation Committee (the cocoon out of which the N.C.C. was produced), but now in New York as a secretary of the International Missionary Council, together with a number of other former missionaries of the N.C.C. type, is praising the "New York World" because that paper has engaged Mr. Thomas F. Millard to write about the China situation and to "enable many of us to under stand the present day movements in China and to keep in touch with them." An organization known as the American Committee for Justice to China issues the following statement: "Thomas F. Millard has begun sending weekly cables to the "New York World," appearing in its Monday editions; his despatches are the best appearing in America." Those of us who are familiar with the style of Mr. Millard's writings, in which he shows his "sympathy with the aspirations of the Chinese people and his understanding of the Chinese" and his exposure of the "evidence which has been accumulating of definite propaganda emanating from Shanghai to force the United States into aggressive action against China in partnership with Great Britain," have no difficulty in putting two and two together in this case.

The Simple Truth

Whether the American people de sire to know it or not, the simple truth is that the upheaval in China is the direct result of propaganda directed and financed from Moscow, with a view to the Bolshevizing of the 400,000,000 of, Chinese, and the making of China the centre of the world-wide revolution, which is declared in their own documents to be the ultimate goal of the Communists. A Bolshevized China would be the world's greatest peril. It would not be very long before America would realize that her boasted isolation and independence is only an illusion, for the Bolsheviks' programme in dudes the overthrow of "this rotten American Government," as soon as the British Government has been undermined.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and if the American people are not willing to realize that it is a great privilege to stand shoulder to shoulder with our British cousins and, in an unselfish spirit, restore order and peace in China and thus check the spread of Bolshevik madness in other countries, perhaps she will consider the fate which she herself will surely suffer in the near future if she continues to be blinded by the floods of red propaganda which are pouring into the United States, especially aimed at the bringing about of an estrangement between our country and Great Britain, with whom we have more in common than with any other nation on earth.

Dr. Sun And Bolshevism

It is no use to say that China could not be Bolshevized. Dr. Sun Yat-sen said this to me, in an inter view in his home in the French Concession, about 10 years ago, declaring that the Chinese farmers would never become Communists. But it was the Bolshevized Ohinese farmers at Yochow, in Hunan province, only a few days ago, who took up stones and martyred the Chinese pastor who was utting up an official proclamation on the mission property, informing the public that the buildings should not be looted or burned. These Chinese farmers, who had been organized into a "Farmers' Labour Union" and taught the slogans of the Reds, called out that the Chinese Christian pastor was a "running dog of the Imperialists" and that he, therefore, ought to die, and they mercilessly stoned him to death.

The claim that a missionary is going into politics if he raises his voice in protest against Bolshevism is effectively answered by the statement that Bolshevism is primarily anti-Christian and aims at the stamping out of Christianity, and that, therefore, any missionary who declines to face this fact and to do all in his power to make it known to others is shirking his plain duty as a servant of Christ.

In my capacity as a missionary, and thinking primarily of the con sequences to the Church of Christ throughout the world if the mad dog of Bolsheviks’ is not checked in China, but is allowed to jump across the seas to our own beloved America, I have no hesitation in asserting my conviction that A BOLSHEVIZED CHINA WOULD BE THE WORLD'S GREATEST PERIL.

Nationalists' Deliberate Policy Attacking All Missions

Reprinted from the "North-China Daily News," April 14, 1927.

NATIONALISTS' DELIBERATE POLICY ATTACKING ALL MISSIONS

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Wherever Southern Armies Have Gone Mission Premises Looted or Seized for Barracks

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LITERALLY HUNDREDS THUS DESPOILED

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By LOUISE B. WILSON

At the present time when the question of future mission policies in China is being discussed by all mission offices, records are also being compiled by most of them regarding the extent of damage to their properties throughout China. The compilation is not anywhere near complete as can readily be understood in view of the proximity to recent events in Central China, as well as the uncertainties attached to evacuated places many of which require weeks for communications to reach.

In most cases there is no hesitation on the part of foreign missionaries to admit that these inventories are being prepared with a view to securing reparations. Others are not yet willing to commit themselves as to whether this is the end in view or not. The former group, however declare that they find in the present situation few points of com parison with past, and from the point of view of destructive elements, similar incidents. The present is an organized movement whereas in the past, should reparations have been demanded, payments would only have been extracted from Chinese communities in the vicinity of the destroyed mission, an extraction which would scarcely have tended to cement the Christian movement in those communities.

The stewards of foreign money and properties are thus beginning to trace the lines of contrast with past happenings. They realize that, while the very nature of missionary work implies sacrifice and exigencies not considered perhaps by those outside evangelistic work, the organized forces at work in the present movement, though displaying some of the ruthless tendencies not unknown in the past throw an altogether different aspect upon the present.

No honest mission worker will tell you that the eventual hope of his mission is anything other than turning over all institutions, schools, etc., to the Chinese Christians. But that again is a slightly different matter from being forcibly ejected from residences by anti-foreign soldiers. from seeing churches used as stables, and modern, splendidly equipped hospitals used as barracks for a filthy horde and a general disregard of law and order in ·its most lenient sense, not to mention the finer dis tinctions of property rights.

As in all such cases, however, the thing to do is to let facts speak for themselves. Such facts mount to an over-awing accumulation for him who would present them one by one, and as has already been said mission officers are not themselves fully prepared to give complete statements at the present time.

The Nanking incident alone, when figures are brought to light of losses sustained by foreigners, will probably be at the head of the list, but isolated incidents are not being overlooked in the tabulation.

C. I. M.'s Heavy Losses

Some of the available facts show that the China Inland Mission, adhering strictly in the past to a policy of exacting no reparations, has been .as hard hit as any. From Szechuan from which only scanty reports can be got at the present time we know that centres at Luchow have been looted, Wanhsien looted, and Paoning occupied by the military. Honan shows Yencheng looted; Kiangsu, three properties in Yangchow looted .and occupied; Chinkiang occupied .and looted.

In Kiangsi province (up to April 12) 24 stations of the C. I. M. had been affected, not including the Alliance China Mission; nine have been occupied by the military and in most cases damaged and looted; the hospital at Linkiang has been occupied by wounded soldiers and military; Loping station looted, after serious rioting and damage by the military and labour union.

Chekiang centres of the C. I. M. have likewise been badly used and present reports are that seven properties have been damaged to great er or less extent, eight others looted and three chapels sealed. There have been 12 stations in this province previously occupied by the military, and one station at Yenchow bears the mark of having been 14 times occupied. Political Labour Unions now have headquarters in eight C. I. M. centres in the province and occupation of four others are believed imminent following repeated threats.

Chinese Christians Persecuted

In all cases where Nationalist authorities · have been in the ascendancy it is authoritatively stated that Chinese Christians are persecuted when they attempt to worship.

In some places the local authorities "take over" schools and "run" them. It is almost impossible to speak of the taking over or the running with out a liberal sprinkling of inverted commas, so like a bad little boy's dream of attending school this process has been. Holidays exceed the wildest imaginations of the same bad little boy, student union meetings are given precedence to all merely scholastic duty, soldiers drill in the school premises and the authorities issue prolific accounts of their successes in administration.

To carry on with a few more in stances, soldiers being quartered in all properties belonging to the Methodist Episcopal Church at Nanking, with Middle Schools being used as stables. All houses of this mission were looted, four of which were burned. The same applies to Chinkiang. In Wuhu, another chief centre of the mission, schools are closed. Kiukiang and Nanchang show churches full of soldiers and latest reports which, it is taken, do not apply to the Methodist mission alone show that Nationalist circles are beginning to press the idea of general confiscation of mission properties.

Huge Sums in Damages

It is estimated that the Women's Bible Training School at Nanking alone sustained 35,000 damages, and other compilations of material damages by this mission show that about two months ago when Foochow institutions of the organization were gutted a total of between $50-60,000 loss was involved.

The same conditions apply to the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. Of the 65 schools, etc. of this mission, only those in Shaohsing, Hangchow and Ningpo in Chekiang are "running." Other schools under Chinese supervision are at Suifu, Yachow, Kiating and Chengtu.

The American Church Mission, (American Episcopal) at Nanking have finished a report of losses sustained by them in Nanking and in round numbers this is about $17,000, accrued from the looting, down to the woodwork, of one boys' and one girls' school, three residences and a church.

All Up the Yangtze

At Yangchow, three residences have been looted and five buildings belonging to the mission occupied. Labour agitators are using the church, school and residence at Woosung for headquarters as they are at Kiangwan and Sungkiang which the military occupied. At Anking where one of the best equipped mission hospitals in this part of China is situated, soldiers are quartered in the hospital, and seven residences have been looted thoroughly. At Kiukiang, two churches, two boys' schools and two residences are all being occupied and from Nanchang comes the same report. At Wuchang "school is being kept" at Boone University, although less than one third of the students are there and soldiers drill on the grounds.

At Changsha buildings are all in the hands of the students' union, nor does this mission entertain any very high hopes about property at Ichang and Shasi.

South China reports have been filtering through with great regularity since the first days of Nationalist aggressiveness. Among the later ones is that the Canton Hospital belonging to the Presbyterian Mission is closed, owing to labour troubles and that the Kerr Hospital for the Insane belonging to the same mission is now being administered by the Southern government and that the sum of $1 per year is paid as rent. Insane patients could neither leave the institution nor stay for awhile during the troubles, until the happy arrangement of paying a year rental was hit upon.

Hunan centres have suffered severely and reports from the Northern Presbyterian Mission show that the Union Theological School at Changsha has been occupied by the military, Huchow occupied and the large hospital at Changteh closed owing to preposterous demands by the labour union.

The Wrecked Missions of Nanking

Detailed accounts of the losses sustained by the large missionary group resident in Nanking will be available in due course, as these are now being carefully prepared. An eye-witness who gave some idea of the clean-sweep of looting done by Nationalist forces there described the sights which he saw just before his evacuation on Friday of the fated week-end.

All Theological Seminary residences were looted, including those of two Chinese teachers as was the dormitory. The Library was sealed up, but later reports from Nanking show that the valuable books belonging to this institution were later sold by the pilfering soldiers who were quartered there. Near the Seminary, the Bible Teacher's Training School's administration building and foreign teachers' residences were looted, while the dormitory was burn ed after mattresses soaked in oil had aided the conflag1ration. The Quakerage Chapel, next came under the observation of this informant, and it was seen that every movable object had been removed. The Y.W.C.A. Hostess House near at hand, the residence of a Nanking University professor, two houses be longing to the Stewart Evangelistic Fund, two Methodist houses and the house of the University builder next came into view, wrecked and looted. Looking up the road he saw the Hillcrest School burned, and in the same vicinity about a dozen other foreign missionary residences could be spied out, bearing all the marks of thorough looting. These details are perhaps more suitable for the official report which is being pre pared than fn generalization like the foregoing, but they all tend to show how widespread is the present epidemic of destroying mission property.

Illusions and Stark Reality

If there are any who harbour illusions that the present campaign of ruthlessness is one which will spend itself is due course, they have only to peruse newspaper accounts during the past two years to trace the steady advance under organized direction of the campaign.

"Outrages on American Missions," "Canton Strikers Generally Anti Foreign," "Ban on Wuchow Hospital," "Mission Assailed," "Mission Looted in the South," "The Merry Game of Confiscation" are some of the headlines which hundreds of such articles bear, and which represent so small a fraction of the destructive elements of the present time that one hesitates to introduce them when volumes of records pertaining to missionary losses would be more to the point.

The fact also that many missionaries assume the attitude of ignoring the purely material aspects in sublimation of the ideal held by the Christian evangelist cannot be said to outweigh the obvious facts, the unjustifiable losses sustained through out China as the result of the undisciplined Nationalist movement.

Chinese Pastor Stoned To Death

Reprinted from the "North-China Daily News," May 11, 1927.

CHINESE PASTOR STONED TO DEATH

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Suspected of Being an Imperialist by Yochow Farmers

The following news items have been received recently from Hunan by letter and telegram by a correspondent now in Shanghai:-

The Province of Hunan seems to be going through another very serious anti-Christian agitation, almost as bitter and better organized, in some places, than during the Christmas season last year. The most bitter and virulent form has taken place at Yochow, where a Christian Chinese Pastor, Cheng Tso-chin, was stoned to death by farmers. The immediate cause of the outbreak by the rabble was the fact that Pastor Cheng was posting up some proclamations issued by the officials asking the people to protect mission property and Christian work. He was thus accused of being an Imperialist and seeking the protection of toleration treaties, and the farmers took him and actually stoned him to death. There has been some very bitter persecution in other places, and some of the Christian leaders have had to flee. Pastor Cheng is the first martyr reported, others have been thrown into jail and molested in other ways.

The Bitter Centre of Changsha

Changsha is probably the next most bitter centre of this anti-Christian movement. Siangtan which is not far from Changsha takes on pretty much the colour of the movement in Changsha. It is often remarked that "what happens in Changsha 'to-day will be sure to happen in Siangtan tomorrow or the next day." Most of the Mission property is occupied by soldiers or unions or schools; in some cases written agreements are presented asking to borrow the pro-perty, but that is only a form. The Fuh-hsiang Girls school at Changsha was occupied first by soldiers and now by Seh Chuen students-some sort of student's organization. The beautiful campus has become a public place and as a recent letter naively says: "A public park without a manager."

The buildings of the Hunan Bible Institute have been occupied. The buildings of the United Evangelical Mission have been throughly ransacked, even the glass being removed from the windows. Several buildings on the campus of Yale in China have been taken over for use by a military academy and order is maintained. The residences are occupied by soldiers or "protected" by servants. All the trees on the campus which shaded adjoining farm land have been cut down by order of the Farmer's Union, which is now in control in Changsha.

Position in Southern Hunan

Southern Hunan has not been hit so hard by the recent stir up. There has been some looting and petty thieving of foreign residences at Hengchow, and one residence occupied by soldiers and an organized three day anti-Christian programme was broken up without effecting much, though reports say that the situation is very uncertain there. The compradore of the Presbyterian Hospital had to flee for fear he would be asked to open up the drug and store rooms and hand out the stores and drugs on hand. The situation in Chenchow seems to be better than any of the above named places and Christian boarding schools are still carrying on there.

Many reports and rumours of killing and capturing the idle rich at Changsha were somewhat exaggerated, but some have been killed without trial, since this method did not produce the money, the new method is to throw them into gaol and persecute them until their money is produced. Many have tried to flee and some have got away. These refugees from Changsha are now being arrested by telegram on their arrival in Wuhan.

Even with all this terrorism, reports show that conditions are better than a few weeks back.

The German business community at Changsha is apparently not being disturbed. It has been reported that all the German China Inland Missionaries in Hunan have been ordered out and are to take up their residence in Hankow until conditions get better.

Serious Period for the Church

The Liang-Hu Synod of the Church of Christ in China met in Hankow on April 28 and was well attended. Only two presbyteries, Shenchow, Hunan, and Ichang, Hupeh, were not represented. One of the stirring incidents of this meeting was the memorial service held for the Martyred Pastor Cheng of Yochow, who was an officer of the Synod. The reports show that the-Church of Christ in China is passing through a very serious period, but all the Christian leaders are facing the future with courage and with hope. One letter said the organized Church may be crushed in this situation, but the zeal and faith of the believers in God and their new found Saviour cannot be crushed by such persecutions.

A very interesting social event that took place was the celebration of the marriage ceremony of a newly ordained Pastor of Hengchow, Hunan, before the whole Synod.

Helplessness of Officials

Reports have come from Liling, Siangtan and other places that for-eigners private houses have been entered and much personal property stolen or destroyed. The officials are helpless, and there is little hope sof saving any private personal property as long as the present lawlessness prevails.

C.I.M. Premises At Anking

Reprinted from the "North-China Daily News," March 29, 1927.

C.I.M. Premises At Anking

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Illegal Seizure of Mission Property by Kuomintang Government

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FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT

Anking, Mar. 21.

General Chiang K'ai-shek arrived in Anking late yesterday afternoon, and is making temporary headquarters here.

The Political Bureau of the 33rd Army has occupied the China In-land Mission premises, so that the foreigners of the C. I. M. those in the training school and other workers are forced to leave as soon as they can get ready.

No attempts have yet been made to occupy the American Mission, and no injurious conduct of any sort has come to our notice. Students have quite thoroughly placarded the American houses with their proclamations of "Down with English Imperialism" and "Long live the Kuomintang," "To the uniting of China and the Kuomintang," etc.

Orgy of Mission Looting

Reprinted from the "North-China Daily News," May 12, 1927.

ORGY OF MISSION LOOTING

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Vandalism by Kuangtung and Kuangsi Mobs: 30 Buildings Wrecked in a Month

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FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT

Hongkong, Apr. 25.

Recently a lawless rabble raided and looted the chapel and residence of the Reformed Presbyterian Mission in Dosing, Kuangtung. This was followed by the forcible taking over of the premises by the Peasants Union, who turned the buildings into offices of the union for "the enforcement of law and order." Two influential Christian workers put in a protest against what they considered unlawful acts, and as a result both of them were arrested and cast into gaol. Efforts now are being made to secure the release of the two men, but their crime-protesting against the looting of the chapel and forcible occupation by the union-is considered a serious offence in these days when Lawless-ness is on the throne and Righteousness must bow and be silent.

Following the looting of valuable mission property belonging to three societies in the city of Kueilin, towards the end of March, the wave of lawlessness spread northward and ten chapels were looted and more or less damaged by groups of hooligans stirred up by the students. In most of the buildings the furniture was more or less destroyed, while one of the chapels had the roof partly taken off in order that the spring rains which have now set in might do greater damage to the building.

It is useless to protest against these acts of vandalism. When tests are made, the officials profess extreme sorrow for the action and always promise protection, and this protection usually is granted to the wrecked buildings, but presently another outrage is perpetrated in a neighbouring town, and again protests, apologies and promises follow each other like a merry wheel of fortune. One becomes tired of trying to deal with a so-called government who secretly encourage lawlessness and whose word is but "a scrap of paper" that cannot be relied on the least unless there is some gain to them included in the bargain. During the past 30 days there have been outbreaks of lawlessness in Kuangsi during which time about 30 mission buildings have been attacked and more or less damaged, some practically destroyed, and yet no one has been arrested, no one has been punished, and the whole attitude of the governing classes is such as to encourage the ignorant rabble to carry on their work of destruction and pillage whenever they feel like making a new attack.

The Red Regime In China

Reprinted from the "North-China Daily News," May 23, 1927.

THE RED REGIME IN CHINA

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