China In Chaos: A Survey Of Recent Events

Front matter

SKETCH MAP OF CHINA, CONTAINING THE PRINCIPAL NAMES OF PROVINCES AND CITIES MENTIONED IN THE VARIOUS ARTICLES

A Survey of Recent Events, Published by the North-China Daily News & Herald, Ltd., Shanghai

CHINA's LEADING WEEKLY: NORTH-CHINA HERALD SHANGHAI, APRIL 1927 CHINA's LEADING DAILY: NORTH-CHINA DAILY NEWS

OUR MESSAGE

OUR MESSAGE

AN attempt is here made to present a fairly complete picture of spectacular events in Hankow, Kiukiang and other Yangtze Valley centres, to illustrate the quality of "Nationalism" in China, to demonstrate that "Nationalism" is not a spontaneous Chinese patriotic movement but is a new form of Boxerism with much Russian inspiration behind it, and to point out the bitter fruits of British and other diplomatic efforts to conciliate this unreasoning anti-foreign spirit. Some space is given to the illustration of the soldier and bandit curse, which has reduced China to such a low level economically that "Nationalism" has proved an appealing novelty and diversion to the distracted people.

A complete survey of the assults upon the foreigner's position in China, which have been perpetrated during recent months, it has not been possible to crowd into the limited space available in this Supplement. Such subjects as China's repudiation of financial obligations, her orgy of illegal taxation, attempts to eliminate foreign administrators from the Posts and Customs, the dismissal of Sir Francis Aglen, Inspector-General of Customs, for refusing to collect an illegal surtax, "the unilateral denunciation of the Belgian treaty, mal-administration of justice, interference with the judiciary and the disappointing character of the provisional court in Shanghai, have had to be omitted altogether.

Under the general heading "Aftermath of the Agreement", a few news clippings of events subsequent to the signing of the Chen-O'Malley agreement at Hankow, February 19, are printed to make clear the vicious reaction to this very conciliatory document. Otherwise all of the events recorded in this publication fall within a period of six months, beginning with the Cantonese capture of the Hankow area in the first few days of September, 1926.

In the editorial introduction the prevailing attitude of the foreigner resident in China towards this situation is presented and an outline history and description of the Concessions and Settlements is given for the benefit of our friends abroad who do not clearly understand what "Concessions" are and how they came into being. The growth of Soviet Russian influence in various Chinese political and military factions ought to be the subject of a very massive volume, if it were to be adequately dealt with, and the attempt made here to give a sketch of Red endeavour in China is confessedly inadequate, the inevitable result of trying to crowd the maximum of material into a minimum space.

Any such publication as this Supplement must have a moral to convey to the world, and the foreigners in the Orient do have a very definite appeal to make to the Occident. The Chinese people, whose welfare is much more important to the world than that of the few thousand diplomats, merchants and missionaries living among them, must be saved from themselves, rescued from their frenzied and unscrupulous military tyrants, Red agitators and professional exploiters. All they ask is a little peace and a chance to work unmolested. Upon the cost of the trifling military effort needed to police China, the Chinese people would, through their tireless industry, immediately yield an enormous return. They cannot ask for intervention and probably could not be openly grateful for it, but in their inarticulate way, with their passion for productive toil, they would soon prove their appreciation of peace and order. Our appeal then is for such an international effort as will give the Chinese people relief from persecution and a chance to work.

Incidental to this appeal is our vigorous assertion that a settlement of China's troubles by negotiation is impossible. Whoever calls for negotiations calls forward self-appointed representatives who are the notorious wreckers and looters of this wretched land, while immediately behind them stand the Bolshevist agitators whose business it is to insist that there shall be no reasonable solution of any Chinese problem. The principal self-appointed leaders of the present day include a British subject, a native of the island of Trinidad, who has forfeited his right to British protection; a commander-in-chief who has standing against him in the police records of Shanghai charges for murder and armed robbery; a dictator who is an ex-bandit; and a warlord who is notorious for his immoral and profligate conduct, and who is still wanted for a murder perpetrated many years ago in Dairen. It would be next to impossible to bring forward a Chinese negotiator now against whom there is not some criminal charge. Evil times are bringing the vilest elements to the surface in China, and whoever would "negotiate" must deal with exalted rogues, the worst enemies of the Chinese people.

China's Present-Day Problems from the Foreign Viewpoint

China's Present-Day Problems from the Foreign Viewpoint

What "Nationalism" Really Means, and Why the Foreigner Does Not Support It.-A Brief History and Description of the Major Foreign Communities in China.

PART I.

The whole history of foreign relations with the Chinese Governments of various epochs is a sad record of stupid and costly errors, founded always upon the most obstinate refusal in the Occident to understand the real nature of the diplomatic points at issue, by statesmen wholly ignorant of the character and traditions of the Chinese governing classes, and upon a blind indifference to all the expensive lessons of the past.

All the wars which the great commercial Powers have reluctantly waged in China, at no little cost to themselves and the trade interests of both the Occidental and the Chinese peoples, have been the culminations of a long series of diplomatic mistakes made in direct opposition to the consensus of opinion among sane and experienced foreign residents in China. There seems to be no country which looks so different from the inside as from the outside; no country about which the considered opinions of those on the spot, whether they be Ministers, Consuls, merchants, missionaries or nondescripts, are so hard for the folk at home to grasp and interpret correctly.

The purpose of this publication is to set forth, in news clippings for the most part, an accurate sketch of the situation as it really exists in China, an appraisement of the crisis towards which the policy of Great Britain and the other major Powers seems to be leading us, in the hope that where arguments have failed, illustrative facts in cold type may help to some degree in bringing intelligent public opinion more in line with sober opinion in this country.

Quite apart from really malicious propaganda emanating from anti-British, anti-Christian and anti-foreign sources, Great Britain and the Occident generally are always saturated with misinformation about China that is simply grotesque and with wrong interpretations of the significance of events. This was true in 1842, during the so-called Opium War; in 1858, during the so-called Arrow War; throughout the great Taiping Rebellion; throughout the Boxer rising of 1900; throughout the Revolution of 1911 and the events subsequent to it; and it has been particularly true of the state of public opinion during every crisis in the past few years, when increasing chaos in China, fostered and exploited by the native politicians and militarists on the one hand, and by Soviet Russia on the other hand, have inconvenienced foreigners or endangered legitimate foreign interests. The British and American publics particularly have shown at every critical juncture a stronger inclination to accept the interpretations of news made by mendacious Chinese apologists for the anarchy in their country, or by Moscow's propagandists, than the most responsible statements from their own diplomatic agents or their own nationals in China. The disheartening feature of this is that since plenipotentiaries no longer make policies according to their own experience and judgment, but execute policies made at Home; and since Governments in their foreign policy are no longer free to act on the trustworthy information that comes to them, but must perforce reflect public opinion, it is increasingly futile to address either facts or opinions to Governments while public opinion is being shaped by thoroughly hostile interests. This, then, is an isolated attempt to reach at least a small proportion of the folk at Home who really shape policy—"the general public"—with sample pictures of the situation as it is seen and understood in this country.

To review the whole history of China's troubles and of the various manifestations of Chinese anti-foreignism, always more intense in chaotic times under gross native misrule, would require a work of encyclopaedic proportions. It has indeed been found impossible to carry the news record of events and the mistaken diplomatic reactions to them as far back as the spectacular "May 30th affair," over a period of less than two years; so all thought of presenting a complete record of the development of what is called "Nationalism" by its Chinese and Russian sponsors has been abandoned for a survey of the six months prior to the signing of the Hankow Agreement, beginning with the occupation of Hankow by the victorious Southern armies under the General command of General Chiang Kai-shek and under the advice of the Soviet General Galen and his large staff.

The Quality of Nationalism

"Nationalism" in China is not synonymous with what is conceived of as patriotism in the West, so the very use of the word is misleading propaganda. "Nationalism" is not born of pride in a fine tradition of achievement nor of a desire to perpetuate a national tradition of superior ability, but is the offspring of a knowledge of failure, a fear of greater failures in the future and a kind of bitter grudge against all the world that is witness to it. It is what a certain school of modern psychologists would call the "inferiority complex."

The spirit of this "nationalism" was originally imported by foreign-trained students, who returned from abroad with a sincere desire to make all China trade old lamps for new ones, who have since despaired of turning their wartorn and demoralized country into a respectable member of the family of nations, and who would like to put the responsibility for what they recognize as a deplorable muddle upon some force outside China. They resent the fact that the foreigner, who employs none of the methods of their own unscrupulous exploiters and tyrants and who is an unassimilable alien, should be able to make more of Chinese material than any Chinese can, should prosper by virtue of his treaty immunity from official persecution, should in hundreds of cases live among the wretched Chinese people and yet share none of their miseries. But they resent more still that the aloof alien should be a witness to their failures and shames. They consider it a loss of national prestige and feel this loss more and more keenly and therefore grow more and more resentful of the presence of the privileged foreigner, as China demonstrates more clearly from year to year her inability to adjust her own affairs. The highest aspirations of the "nationalist" are therefore to eject the foreigner or to reduce him to a status, under new treaties and understandings, in which he will be subjected to all the tyrannies, impositions and cruelties that hamper the Chinese people. Then the distinction in China between foreign efficiency and native ineptitude can be broken down and China can go to ruin in her own way without apparent loss of national dignity. These feelings and "aspirations," with which statesmen abroad profess to be so sympathetic, constitute the original impetus behind the "Nationalist Movement."

It will be seen readily enough that while the inspiration behind this movement differs materially from that behind the Boxer movement, the objectives are the same—the expulsion or humiliation of the alien. Among a timid, cautious people like the Chinese such feelings might be nursed for generations without coming to the surface, except in isolated incidents, so when there is such an outbreak of virulent anti-foreignism as is now sweeping over China, one must always look for a source of courage. In 1900 the Boxers got the courage to express themselves from a few Viceroys first and then from the Imperial Court. Their mode of procedure was also endorsed by the Court. In this epoch, however, the courage and the methods as well—not to mention munitions, money and expert leadership—have come from the Soviet Government, or, in the matter of propaganda, from the Third International.

Soviet Purpose and Practice

Russia's policy in China is to exploit anti-foreignism, under the guise of "nationalism," and thereby to create a state of affairs in China which will at once ruin all foreign trade with this country and make residence impossible except for those willing to live under dangerous, humiliating and unprofitable conditions. The ulterior motives are (1) an increase in unemployment in highly industrialized Occidental countries and in Japan, making them more fertile fields for communistic endeavour; and (2) untrammelled opportunity for a revived Russian Imperialism in Mongolia, Manchuria, Chinese Turkestan and northwest China—in Red parlance, the "New Manchuria." China is confessedly an unfertile field for the spread of theoretical communism, so the conversion of the masses is not desired; but chaos is to be promoted by the encouragement of "Nationalism." The subversion of teachers, students and discontented labourers, together with the organization of the purchasable, semi-criminal riff-raff, has been the first method of Soviet approach in China. The second has been the purchase of militarists, in North and South, through unlimited supplies of money, munitions, military equipment, propaganda material and expert trainers and organizers.

In this fashion a hold was got upon Feng Yu-hsiang, the now notorious "Christian General," his army and his territories in the North, and upon Dr. Sun Yat-sen, his "Government" and his military following in the South. Strikes, boycotts, anti-foreign demonstrations and deliberate violations of foreign treaty rights have followed the forces under Soviet direction into every district which they have invaded and have subsided in every area within which their Chinese agents have Donor: been defeated or discredited, which is in itself the most eloquent comment upon the spontaneity of the "anti-Imperialistic" campaign.

The welfare of China is nowhere sought by the Russian agents, because trade is paralyzed, economic life disrupted, shops and factories are taxed out of existence, communications cease and the population is terrorized by something resembling closely the Russian Cheka. Unless the absorption of China into the U.S.S.R. is the ultimate objective, the only apparent end, as Lenin said, is to "keep the pot boiling," so that all foreign checks upon China's downward course may be removed, while Chinese and foreign trade interests and investments are engulfed in Red ruin. Sympathy stimulated abroad in Chinese "nationalism" and the "legitimate aspirations" which the Soviet agents have invented for their Chinese friends, is designed to make the attainment of Russia's ends easier by bringing the pressure of deluded Occidental opinion to bear upon the Governments that might contemplate action to save China from Bolshevist terrorism.

Anti-Christian Agitation

The persecution of Christian missionaries, which has recently resulted in the evacuation from the interior of China of hundreds of families of devoted, earnest and self-sacrificing folk under the most distressing and often cruel circumstances, can scarcely ever be traced to religious prejudice of any sort among the Chinese. In some communities old superstitions hostile to Christianity have been revived and absurd charges have been brought against those who profess the faith, but in the vast majority of cases, the movement is frankly anti-foreign rather than anti-Christian. Among some student bodies the Bolshevist agents have taken the trouble to promote atheism as in Russia and to denounce Christianity as a mass of outworn superstition, but the greater effort has been rather to alienate the native Christian from the foreign missionary, to make a "Nationalist" of him and to use him as a tool in the general anti-foreign movement.

To this effort unbelievably large numbers of Chinese Christians have responded, ignoring completely the enormous debt that they owe to some generations of preachers, teachers and doctors, and demanding within the church in China complete freedom from foreign tutelage and control, even while taking it for granted that the foreign mission funds from Europe and America, which have hitherto reached the native Christian communities through the medium of the Mission Societies, would hereafter be forwarded directly to the Chinese church organizations, to be administered by them as they saw fit. No picture of the state of China would be fully understandable were it not made amply clear that certain individual missionaries and certain groups and societies, following a shortsighted, if not actually suicidal policy of conciliation, have strenuously fostered this "nationalism" within the Chinese Christian communities, going far out of their way to express sympathy with what were too apparently anti-foreign movements under Russian inspiration, and spreading propaganda abroad in support of the "legitimate aspirations" of the Red groups with an industry with which no organization has found it possible to compete.

Among these groups the most highly organized, and now most notorious, is the National Christian Council, a would-be federation of Protestant Missions and Chinese churches, from which a number of the most influential Missions in China have stood aloof and towards which missionary opinion is now increasingly hostile, but which has shown an efficiency in propaganda which no other missionary organization has thought it quite respectable to emulate.

The most definite proof, perhaps, of the anti-foreign rather than anti-Christian motives behind the persecution of the Christian missionaries, is the growing hostility to foreign missionaries shown by General Feng Yu-hsiang, the "Christian General," and his many Christian subordinates towards missionaries in Shensi and Kansu, where their position has recently become untenable and from which provinces many have already been evacuated. General Feng, after a long sojourn in Moscow, has returned to China imbued with the bitterest anti-foreignism, utterly forgetful of the enormous support which the Christian missions have given him throughout his career.

The Soldier and Bandit Pest

Incessant and purposeless internecine warfare over a period of many years, and throughout the better part of China, has given birth not only to vast armies of men under some degree of control and discipline, but also to equally large hordes of useless, rapacious, cruel parasites, drawn from the coolie class, who are encouraged by their equally unscrupulous leaders to excesses which beggar description. Such organizations are now soldiers, now bandits, and it makes little difference in their behaviour what they are called. In the South the same class are now soldiers or sailors, now pirates. Even in what must be termed, by way of distinction, the regular armies, loyalty and discipline are at a premium, and wherever a man in uniform goes, whether he be field-marshal or private, he grants himself the right to high-handed impositions and exactions, monopolizing communications, billeting himself on the public, demanding the right of way, behaving with insufferable arrogance to all, interfering with the ordinary processes of justice, defying the law and the civil authorities, and almost invariably looting and destroying in retreat.

In all of these respects it is clearly emphasized that the Southern forces are no better than the Northern, but are often most systematically troublesome under Russian direction, wrecking and defiling foreign property and stripping the country folk of their most trifling possessions.

Throughout all these armed organizations of all characters, whether influenced by propaganda or not, anti-foreignism and a conviction that foreigners can be outraged and abused with impunity has been growing for some years, thanks to the hundreds of major and minor "incidents" that have passed unresented, until it is now a sore trial upon the patience of all self-respecting or spirited persons to live in proximity to Chinese military units and often a source of constant nervous strain to the wives and children of foreign residents.

THE SWORD THAT FELL

Mr. Damocles Knowall:- "Ah! They're having trouble in China again! Now, if they'd only leave it to me.............."

The Fruits of Conciliation

"Patient conciliation" in China, the much advertised policy of Great Britain, America, Japan and other major Powers, has meant, for some years past, the surrender to China in chaos, China divided and confessedly incapable of executing any sort of an international treaty or agreement, of foreign rights which were justly considered essential to the security of foreign lives and property and the peaceful pursuit of trade at a time when China had a highly centralized Government capable of executing a bargain. Instead of stiffening foreign policy in China, the growth of anti-foreignism, the open violation of treaties, defalcation on debts, interference with the operation of the Government services which were security for foreign constructive loans, the abuse of railways foreign built and unpaid for, murderous assaults upon foreign shipping and the commandeering of vessels under foreign flags, insults to the flags and accredited representatives of all the major Powers, the seizure of foreigners by bandits and pirates under the noses of both Chinese and foreign officials, and now latterly an open campaign of insult and abuse under frank Russian direction—all these developments have prompted a display of a conciliatory spirit which the Oriental can only interpret as cowardice or weakness, and therefore as the strongest possible encouragement to further outrages.

No "graceful gesture" made by any Power in China during the past five years has yielded any fruit but a series of insults, treaty violations, debt repudiations, anti-foreign demonstrations and declarations of "rights." The more clearly China displays her inability to execute any sort of an international bargain, the faster she forfeits her rights as a member of the family of nations, the more conspicuously she wastes her resources and reduces her people to abject misery—just so much louder become her demands for complete freedom from all international checks upon her mad course.

Because these demands are made in the name of "Nationalism," and therefore appeal strongly to uninformed public opinion in the Occident, Governments that have encouraged an enormous foreign trade investment in China and are therefore morally responsible to their nationals in China for their protection to the limit of their strength, are forced to make the absurd concession that "the old treaties are out of date" and to meet the new Boxerism, backed by ardent Soviet encouragement, with ruinous conciliation. This policy, if followed consistently to the very bitter end, means not only the loss of all trade with China, but the prostration of the whole Chinese people under unspeakable anarchy. The loss of prestige entailed also means that in every Asiatic country where European control guarantees order and prosperity, Moscow's agents will need no credentials, but have only to point to China, stress the ease with which the Occidental was ruined, shamed and ejected, and say: "Go thou and do likewise."

Mr. Strawn Seeks The Truth

When Mr. Silas H. Strawn, the American Plenipotentiary Delegate to the Tariff Conference, and America's representative on the Extraterritoriality Commission, came to China in October, 1925, he was predisposed to view the situation in this country as China's propagandists and Moscow's agents represent it abroad. After nearly a year's residence in the country, during which he had rare facilities for getting to the bottom of every Chinese problem that interested him, he returned to America with a profound liking and respect for the Chinese people, but with an intense desire to see that the bare facts of the situation were properly presented in the Occident. Those who have read the report of the Extraterritoriality Commission, readily available in both Great Britain and America, will find most of what is presented in the subsequent pages superfluous and will require no quotations from Mr. Strawn's subsequent speeches in America to convince them of the almost criminal character of the propaganda which befogs the whole China issue abroad. A few months after his arrival in Peking—January 15, 1926—Mr. Strawn addressed a body of Chinese students in the Chinese metropolis as follows:—

"We hear much about China being the victim of unequal treaties; that she is being ground under the heel of imperialism; that her people are suffering from the injustices of extraterritorial rights; and that her sovereign dignity is continuously impinged. Since I have been in China it has been my duty to study the economic, political and social conditions obtaining here, and while it would be absurd for me to assert that I could accurately diagnose all of these conditions, I believe I can confidently state that I have thus far seen no convincing evidence that China's present-day troubles are in any degree attributable to the so-called unequal treaties, or to the imperialistic attitude of the foreign Powers. On the contrary, the evidence seems to be overwhelming that the troubles of China to-day are internal rather than external, and that unequal treaties, extraterritoriality, tariff autonomy, and imperialism are political slogans which are availed of by the agitators to excite the people of China into a frenzy of criticism and unrest."

Nearly a year later, at the end of December, 1926, he wrote as follows for a Chinese student magazine published in New York:—

"I have said on several occasions that I thought the present troubles of China were internal rather than external, and that the anti-foreign and anti-Christian feeling now obtaining in some parts of China is the result of persistent agitation and propaganda intended to excite the Chinese people into a continuous state of unrest... One cannot help but deplore the situation wrought by the militarists and denounce what they are doing continuously to enslave and impoverish the Chinese people."

In a subsequent letter, Mr. Strawn wrote:—

"By telling the truth about the situation, I may be able to help the Chinese people... No one can help China unless he starts with a knowledge of the facts."

With all due modesty, this publication is sent forth in the same spirit in which Mr. Strawn is attempting to tell America the facts about China. The British and other foreign residents in this country have a case to present and a plea to make—a plea for more intelligent understanding and the preceding paragraphs are designed to serve as an outline of the case to be made, but only as a quod est demonstrandum. The fundamental purpose, however, is to help China, as Mr. Strawn says, through a knowledge of the facts. The foreigner's interest in China and the best interests of the Chinese people are essentially one and the same. Without further argument, we trust the reader to find in the following pages of news clippings such evidence in support of our case that no summary of it will be needed to make our case clear and convincing.

PART II.

WHAT CONCESSIONS ARE, AND WHY

The tradition of Chinese superiority over all the rest of mankind is very ancient, and collateral with it there has always been a contempt for the alien and a desire to keep him at arm's length. Only when the ruling families of China have been themselves alien and, at the same time, powerful enough to override native tradition, has it been possible for outsiders to travel and reside in the country even on legitimate business. Under even the most liberal regimes, however, the whole tendency was to isolate such groups of foreign traders as contrived to take up their residence in the ports or the frontier trading centres and forbid them residence in the purely Chinese communities. Under the Tang Dynasty, which collapsed a thousand years ago, there were such isolated Arab settlements in the Southern ports. An effort has always been made in Western China to keep the Mohammedans to their own communities and to allow Tibetans access to certain quarters of certain specified trading towns. Under the late Manchu Dynasty, as under the earlier Mongol Dynasty, the subject Chinese were only too pleased that the conquerors built themselves cities apart and confined themselves to them. A hundred years or more before "extraterritoriality" was ever heard of, the Russians were limited to specified areas in Kalgan and Peking, within which they had the right to reside and trade. In almost every city in Chinese Turkestan today the Chinese have arranged that they shall have one community and the Moslems another.

With this policy of isolating the alien has always gone the policy of extraterritorial jurisdiction, at the suggestion of the Chinese authorities. The idea behind it was that the Chinese could not condescend to understand the strange customs of the "barbarian" and that it was below their dignity to interfere with them. They therefore preferred that the alien communities settle their own affairs among themselves in their own outlandish ways, their only duty to China being the appointment of some one supreme authority who would be responsible to China for the good order of the community and for the collection and remission of taxes. Within each such community its own customs and traditions, though they might be in contravention of everything Chinese, constituted the law of the community and were no concern of the Chinese authorities. The Turki, Afghans, Indians, Kazaks, Mongols, Persians and other non-Chinese in Chinese Turkestan actually live under such an extraterritorial system today, to the perfect satisfaction of the Chinese authorities. The antiquity of the system is indicated by the fact that the term used to designate the headman of each alien community is a Chinese corruption of the term in the language of the ancient Huns for chieftain. Along the Chinese Tibetan border a great variety of tribes live in Chinese territory under an extraterritorial system with headmen known in Chinese as Tusi. In Asiatic countries this system has been assumed to be the most convenient for all concerned and the Chinese themselves enjoyed extraterritorial rights on the Russian side of the Amur river down to comparatively recent times and have still later insisted upon such rights in Mongolia and Tibet.

All the early feuds, from the beginning of the sixteenth century down to the end of the seventeenth, came of the foreign trader's resentment of Chinese impositions and outrages, the foreigner's insistence upon his right to barter on fair terms with those Chinese who wanted to buy and sell and the Chinese official contention that the foreigner had no such right. No seizure of Chinese territory nor acquisition of any other right than that of peaceful access to Chinese markets, was then contemplated. In the defence of their right of arbitrary persecution of traders the Chinese finally lost in 1842, and then for the first time the question of how foreigners who were granted the right to trade in Chinese markets were to live and be governed, came up for discussion. The most natural and acceptable solution to the problems that arose was the one to which the Chinese were accustomed in their dealings with other "barbarians" on their frontiers; namely a system under which the detested aliens were to be segregated on otherwise worthless sites and were to be responsible to their headmen (their consuls), who would in turn be responsible to the Chinese authorities for the administration of justice, the punishment of crime and the keeping of order within the "barbarian" communities, there by relieving the Chinese of the arduous task of meddling with their affairs.