China Waits

For centuries China believed herself the center of the world—and she had the right to believe it, because her geographical position sheltered her almost entirely from all contact with the outside. But a time came, during the nineteenth century, when this situation was fundamentally changed, both by the increasing need of the Western powers to find outlets for their industry and by the improved communications with other countries. China was drawn, through no fault of hers and without being able to do anything about it, into the whirlpool of world affairs.

Twice in the course of the nineteenth century there were Chinese who recognized the fatal, inevitable character of in-terpenetration between Chinese civilization and that of the Occident. Twice there were men who understood that it would be useless to resist this evolution and that it would be wiser to try to direct it, to canalize it, and to profit from it. And twice the historic opportunity which was given to China was missed, through the fault of men or of circumstances. The first time was on the occasion of the Taiping revolt, between 1850 and 1860. It is difficult to re-edit history, and there is no way of knowing what would have happened if the Taiping movement had succeeded in its attempt to overthrow the Manchu dynasty. But this much is certain: its leaders were imbued with Christian ideas, they were under the influence of the missionaries, and they were not in principle reacting against the ideas of the Occident. The success of the Taiping movement would have been a success for Christianity and, to a certain extent, for Western civilization—all of which did not prevent its being defeated, thanks partly to the help the dynasty received from the British Government.

The second opportunity that China missed occurred at the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Kwang Hsu in 1898. Under the influence of advisers with advanced ideas, the young Emperor, well intentioned but very weak, dreamed of doing for China what the Emperor of Japan had done for his own country. He wanted to make of his reign a Chinese Meiji Era. Had his effort been crowned with success, it would perhaps have saved the dynasty and spared China the twenty years of revolution which she has just gone through. But the Dowager Empress, who had a will of iron, promptly put an end to the Occidental leanings of her nephew; by a coup d’etat she seized power and, if she did not imprison the Emperor, she in effect deposed him.

The events of 1898 led up to and made necessary those of 1912. The Dynasty showed itself unable to understand the necessities of the times, and consequently these necessities had to seek another channel. Sun Yat-sen was their instrument. But his task was soon seized upon by men who did not understand its spirit, and a second revolution, that of 1927, was needed to complete his work.

The men who in 1912 and in 1927 took up this tremendous, almost superhuman task of harmonizing the Chinese tradition with the inevitable influences of the Occident met with immense and numerous difficulties, and with the worst possible conditions for handling them.

China is an enormous country, almost entirely without means of communication; its peoples lacked practically all contact with one another for thousands of years. The only bond between them was a Dynasty, which no longer exists, and an extremely complicated system of writing, which remained for a long time the privilege of a few men of learning. As for the spoken language, this differs according to the province, and the people of the south can hardly understand those of the north. The natural result of such different development has been a great difference in mentality.

The construction of a modern state would have required two conditions, both of them lacking and both hard to bring about — good communications and sound finances. Good communications are necessary not only for business but for order and security. They are likewise necessary from the financial point of view, because without communications the state cannot raise taxes with any regularity. But the creation of good communications in such a vast country demands not only technical skill, in which China is not very rich, but also money. It is a vicious circle—and the Chinese Government has never been able to escape from it.

It is to the lack of good communications that we must likewise attribute, at least in part, the political difficulties which have prevented any rapid progress in China. In this country, throughout the centuries of foreign domination, political opposition has always taken the form of conspiracy, and political struggle the form of civil war. In this respect the Republic has brought nothing new. Under the Monarchy, the governors of distant provinces were neither less feudal, nor less independent, nor less intractable than they are now. Armed rebellions were as frequent as the civil wars of recent times; only the name has changed.

It must be recognized nevertheless that between former conditions and those of today there are two differences.

First, an internal difference. Ancient China rested on a long tradition and on a civilization that had solid foundations and solid principles. Today, the introduction of Western ideas and especially of Western technique has destroyed the mental equilibrium of the younger generation.

The second difference is external to China herself, but is none the less important in its practical consequences. Formerly, with rare exceptions, the armed uprisings which the Imperial Government had to put down were neither stirred up nor kept going by foreign powers. It is quite otherwise today. Not only does the existence of foreign concessions make it easy for conspirators to escape the Chinese police and defy the Government, but furthermore, on numerous occasions, certain foreign powers—and particularly one of them—have had a direct interest, if not in fomenting civil war, at least in maintaining it.

If we reflect on the relative positions of Japan and China, we can scarcely doubt the reality of the suspicion which every Chinese harbors. Japan is a relatively small and poor country, but through a series of historical circumstances she has evolved a half century beyond her rival, and has at her disposal a considerable military force. The day that China completes her reconstruction and achieves a new equilibrium between the forces of the past and those of the future, between her ancient civilization and the technical conquests of our epoch, Japan will find herself in the position of a small country facing a large one. It seems rather natural that she should seek to put off by every means in her power—and her means are numerous—the arrival of that day.

II

In the course of the twenty years since her first revolution, despite the obstacles in the way of regular and peaceful progress, China has made great headway on the road to modernization. This statement will perhaps cause surprise; but it will be understandable if we keep in mind a few facts.

China is made up of several sections, in which the conditions of life differ widely. The only section which really counts is the coastal region, which is rather narrow but in which are located all the great cities, all the producing centers, both of agricultural exports and of industry, and the chief lines of communication—in a general fashion all the real wealth of China. Behind the coastal region lies a second zone, infertile and often mountainous. This second region is incapable of feeding more than a thin population, and from it comes in ordinary times the bulk of China’s emigrants. Finally, in the west, lie Tibet and Mongolia, which are only nominally parts of China. When we say that the government controls only a part of the country, we are accurate; but whoever effectually holds the coastal region, indirectly holds the whole country. And nobody can claim that the coastal region is not held at present by the Government of Nanking, or that this Government is not administering it, or that public order is not maintained there.

It must also be remembered that the Chinese revolution, like all revolutions, has passed through several phases. The first was the period of mysticism and of virulence. The writings of Sun Yat-sen became a Bible in the name of which rival factions excommunicated each other. To-day this period has passed. Very few people still believe literally in the “Three Principles of the People,” just as very few socialists accept the whole of the writings of Karl Marx. Ought we to deduce from this that the regime in power has lost its force? On the contrary; for by becoming less dogmatic it has made itself accessible to people who before remained outside its ranks. Thus today it can be said that if nobody any longer believes completely in Sun Yat-sen, yet the whole of China is united in respect for his memory.

Finally, a third fact ought not to be lost sight of, the peculiar character of political contests in China. It has been said that in China party contests are fought out with rifles. This is not wholly true because very few rifles are actually fired in what is commonly called “the civil wars” of the Chinese. As a matter of fact, this term “war” is wholly deceptive, because, in the minds of Occidentals, it carries with it the notion of dead and wounded, but not in China.

It would be nearer the truth to say that in the democratic countries of the Occident we are in the habit of measuring the strength of a party by calculating its votes, while in China a party’s strength is calculated on the number of its soldiers.

It may be objected that these civil-war armies rarely represent ideas and that the term “parties” cannot therefore be applied to them. But besides the fact that with us also parties do not always represent ideas, in China the generals who lead armies are, more often than is commonly believed, the representatives of a political theory or interest.

The chief inconvenience of this method is not that it is insufficiently democratic; it is quite as democratic as many others. Its real danger lies in the fact that it has brought on the country the paradoxical phenomena of over-armament and under-armament. China has too many soldiers and generals. But since these poorly paid and poorly equipped soldiers prove extremely costly, she has not enough left to arm them properly. And the result is that in time of war she has too many soldiers but not enough armies.

Nevertheless, this phenomenon of civil war, which has been a leech on the strength of the Chinese people, is at present disappearing. For several years now, and especially since the defeat which Chiang Kai-shek inflicted upon his combined opponents — Yen Hsi-shan and Feng Yii-hsiang — civil war has become less frequent and more difficult. And twice in a year we have witnessed a phenomenon almost unheard of in the history of modern China—a peaceful governmental succession.

It will be remembered that at the end of 1931, confronted by the difficulties of the diplomatic situation, the party in power handed over the government to its opponents. The experiment did not last. At the end of a month, the treasury was empty, and the new government, not knowing how to fill it, had to withdraw and themselves recall the government of Chiang Kai-shek and T. V. Soong, which enjoys the confidence of the Shanghai bankers and which alone can replenish the treasury by borrowing.

Quite recently an even more characteristic phenomenon occurred. Following the Jehol defeat, a movement of public opinion forced the resignation of the responsible generals. And the world then saw the young Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang withdraw voluntarily, quit his army and his posts, and order his subordinates henceforth to obey his successor, the direct representative of the Nanking Government.

This fact would not be extraordinary in another country. But if we reflect that Chang Hsueh-liang had never been nominated by the Government; that he held his position through hereditary right; that he had at his disposal an army of 150,000 men, entirely devoted to him; finally, if we reflect that the Government, far from being in a position to give him orders, was under obligations to him, since in 1929 Chang Hsueh-liang had through his neutrality made possible its triumph, we will understand that the readiness with which he consented to renounce all his advantages has the import of a real revolution. It marks the beginning of a new era, or at least the end of the feudal era, in this country.

Some of these events have happened since the Japanese aggression in Manchuria; but they are the symptoms of a partially pre-existent condition, which has undoubtedly influenced the decisions of the Japanese military element. Informed as they are about China, they understood that something new was happening in that country: the formation of a conscious and active public opinion. This is a rather remarkable phenomenon in a country where one must know at least a thousand letters in order to read a newspaper; but it is a fact that, at least in the cities, education has affected the masses enough to produce irresistible currents of opinion.

It is one of these currents that the Government is obeying this very moment when it refuses to negotiate directly with Japan.

The Japanese understood that for them the psychological moment had arrived, and that if they let it pass, they ran the risk of seeing China progress to a point where they could undertake nothing against her. Japan and her friends often say that Japan is making war on China because China lacks a government, because she is disordered and chaotic. It is rather the opposite which is true. The Japanese are making war on China because they were beginning to find no more generals to make it for them, because chaos was beginning to give place to order, because the Government was beginning to grow strong.

Besides, we must be clear when we talk about chaos reigning in China. It is true that this country is neither governed nor administered according to the standards of the Occident —and for a very simple reason: these methods are not applicable to Chinese mentality. The Chinese does not reason as we do; he lacks our rational spirit and our foresight; he is essentially empirical. In China there is an order, but it is the order of life itself. Is the human body rational? And yet it lives. China is a great living body, in which individuals supplement the inadequacies of the state, and in which there is more real order than appears at first glance to the superficial Occidental.

III

But Japanese aggression has faced the Chinese government with a multitude of problems. Of these we will point out but one, because it is the principal one.

Every country at the present time confronts immense financial difficulties. Obviously, financial administration can hardly be easy in a country like China, which lacks almost every device for collecting taxes, which has moreover an army or rather armies quite out of proportion to its potentialities, and which in addition has enormous needs in the fields of reconstruction, roads, railways, schools, hospitals, etc. And in fact, the Chinese budget is based almost exclusively on receipts from customs, on revenue from the salt tax, and on loans—receipts which are rather inelastic and which are suffering acutely from the effects of the economic crisis.

Japanese aggression has now imposed on this half-empty treasury new burdens. Manchuria used to return through its customs, good and bad year alike, around thirty-seven million (Chinese) dollars, and the salt tax around eighteen millions. That makes fifty-five millions that are missing; but that is not all, for China is obliged to import war supplies, and though in insufficient quantities, these cost money. Merely supplying the Peiping-Tientsin front will require about fifty millions—to what effect, will doubtless be known when this article appears. That makes a hole of more than a hundred millions in a budget whose total barely exceeds six hundred millions, and whose balance is already unstable. We need not mention the damage inflicted on the credit of the Chinese Government in foreign markets.

That explains sufficiently the policy of prudence and tem-porization which China has adopted, in this affair, since September 18, 1931. Her principal pre-occupation, after having referred the affair to the League of Nations, has been not to incur any responsibility for subsequent events, to do nothing which might aggravate the tension or furnish the Japanese with a pretext for aggravating it.

It cannot be said that this method was without results or that it failed completely. It placed the whole responsibility so obviously on Japan’s shoulders that the League of Nations—despite the bad faith of certain states, who would have liked to confuse the issue—was unable to avoid the necessity of saying who was right, and of pronouncing a categorical judgment.

What is the situation now, resulting from the report adopted on the 24th of last February by the League Assembly, the report which the United States approved? This situation is clear: Japan has been able to seize Manchuria by force of arms, but she has not been able to acquire a legal title. Her possession will remain precarious. In other words, any change that takes place, either in Japanese domestic politics or in the economic policies of the great powers, may play into the hands of China and call the present settlement into question again. That is an advantage that can not be underestimated, and that thoughtful Chinese fully appreciate.

Unhappily, if the legal situation is clear, the military situation is not. The Japanese occupy four Chinese provinces. They have already passed the frontier of Jehol and their troops are now in the territory of the province of Hopei, the former Chihli, which is indisputably a part of China proper. From there, they are able to threaten either Peiping and Tientsin to the south, or Kalgan and Mongolia to the west. What will they do?

This should be known by the time this article appears. But it may be of historical interest to state what the situation is at the present moment. There are in Japan, in the militarist party itself, two schools of thought. Both are of the opinion that, since China refuses to negotiate, Japan will sooner or later have to force her to it, by occupying an important part of her territory: to be exact, the region of Peiping and Tientsin—two cities which boast a million inhabitants each. The Japanese officers are too imbued with the point of view of the German military men who have been their teachers, not to be obsessed in their turn with the idea of a “war map,” an idea which dominated the whole policy of the Reich from 1914 to 1918 and which probably prevented it from negotiating an acceptable peace when there was still time. The Japanese, in their turn, are saying to themselves that the Chinese will be obliged to negotiate when they have lost a territory containing close to a hundred million inhabitants; and they are saying in addition that, in case of negotiations, Japan would be in a better position if she had something to give back, that is, if she were in a position to make an apparent concession—while now, she occupies only territories which she intends to keep.

But this agreement in principle has developed a divergence in method. Certain Japanese officers think Japan ought to profit by China’s present weakness and march on Peiping without giving the Chinese time to organize their front. Others feel that on the contrary an operation of that sort requires a detailed diplomatic and military preparation, that they ought to have every chance on their side, and that they should first invade Chahar, to the west of Jehol, so as to encircle completely the plain of Peiping, and to cut China off from any military communication with Russia.

Amongst the Chinese, an analogous situation exists: a mixture of agreement and disagreement. Certain Chinese military men think that the operation against Chahar is the more dangerous of the two, because this region is very difficult to defend, and indeed cannot be defended any more effectively than Jehol. Others, on the contrary, believe that, since the loss of Peiping-Tientsin is much the graver of the two, both from a political and a military point of view, any other outcome is preferable. But it matters little, since it is not the Chinese who will make the decision.

On the other hand, there is one point upon which they are all agreed. Chang Hsueh-liang has left the northern front in an incredible state of disorder, and it would take at least three months, not for China to organize an effective resistance, but merely to place at every point reliable troops, who will not quit the positions entrusted to them, and who will possess at least a minimum of equipment. Three months and plenty of money. And this is why all the Chinese are agreed that China’s policy must avoid, not only provoking Japan, but also anything that could furnish the Japanese a pretext for precipitate action, anything that could aid the Japanese military party.

This imposes on China a policy of self-restraint, which is the logical outcome of the one she has followed for the last eighteen months. An impatient and nervous people would doubtless be unable to impose upon itself a discipline of this sort; fortunately, the Chinese are neither impatient nor nervous. For them, time does not count. They have absolute faith in the final victory of Chinese civilization—and the rest hardly interests them. It is the returned students, imbued with Occidental ideas, who from time to time give way to manifestations; the mass of the people remains indifferent.

It cannot even be said that the Chinese of today are nationalistic, as the Occident understands the word. They have dubbed themselves “nationalists,” and the Occident has taken them at their word—to their great hurt. That is the plain truth. The Chinese are, if you like, nationalistic so far as extra-territorial privileges go, as anyone would be. When one goes walking in Tientsin and sees the Japanese flag flying everywhere, and J apanese soldiers patrolling the streets—when they are not firing their rifles to amuse themselves, as they do at Peiping, where all the foreign diplomats are beside themselves with annoyance at the irritating behavior of the Japanese—one understands why the Chinese should be somewhat exasperated. As a matter of fact, their exasperation is very slight. The great mass of the population gives the matter no heed—and in their place, any other nation would give far different and more vigorous proof of its nationalism.

This placidity, this calm, which must not be confounded with a lack of national sentiment, although it sometimes resembles it, greatly aids the Chinese in following the temporizing policy that has just been explained. But another thing aids them too, and aids them powerfully—the fact that they have no choice, that for them there is no alternative. Resist? They do resist as much as they can and they would resist more if they could. But they have deplorable generals, a deplorable army, swollen in size but not trained, no equipment and almost no money to buy any. This, in a word, is their position. Should they then negotiate? Some of them would like to, perhaps, in their heart of hearts. But besides the fact that public opinion would undoubtedly not tolerate negotiation, they could not negotiate, without losing face, unless they had something to exchange.

IV

Now neither the Chinese nor the Japanese can give up any part of Manchuria, because Manchuria is the whole object of the conflict and because by its nature it cannot be divided. In these circumstances, all direct negotiation is doomed to failure.

The Japanese cannot surrender the idea of transforming their de facto occupation into a legal title, and they have tried in every possible way to initiate direct negotiations. Japanese agents, more or less authorized, are constantly approaching Chinese statesmen, which allows the rest of the world to say that they are talking. They are indeed talking, but thus far the conversation has been a monologue. But the Chinese have been listening; and they know what Japan will eventually offer them. She will give up asking for an explicit recognition of Manchukuoan sovereignty, and will ask only that the question be left open, and will then stop discussing it; and Japan on her side will offer to revise the system of extra-territoriality — they have even said they might renounce it.

This is a clever offer; the Japanese thoroughly realize that extra-territoriality in China injures the influence of those who enjoy it far more than it profits them. The Russians and especially the Germans are quite content with the ordinary law—although there are naturally slight disagreements, of no political consequence.

Now the ambitions of Japan certainly do not stop short with Manchuria. Her victories have gone to the heads of her military men, just as the victories of the Great War went to the heads of the Germans. And in the same way that the latter invented Pan-Germanism, the former have invented Pan-Asia. They are spreading through China, by subterranean means, proposals for a great federal empire of the Far East which would include on a footing of equality China, Korea, Japan, and Manchuria—that is, Japan multiplied by three; whose capital would be Peiping and whose language would be Chinese, but whose banner would be the Japanese flag. This, it will be objected, is not a serious matter. No doubt, so far as practical politics go. But it is more serious than it appears if taken as an indication of the dreams which haunt the minds of the younger generation in whose hands lie the destinies of Modern Japan.

All this, it must be recognized, leaves very little room for a direct understanding between China and Japan. And it is understandable that Chinese public opinion, which guesses these things rather than knows them, should be almost unanimously opposed to any direct negotiation. If there are in China people who feel otherwise, it is among the politicians, many of whom have made their careers with Japanese support and who long for the good old days. But the common sense of the people is, here as elsewhere, much surer than the ideas of politicians.

If China cannot follow a military policy in the grand style against the enemy who occupies her territory, and if she is likewise unable to find a tangible basis of agreement with that enemy, her policy is nevertheless already indicated: to wait, to lay her cause before the League of Nations and the United States, to bide her time. This policy she has followed for eighteen months. Just here, two questions arise: “With what success?” And secondly: “Can this policy continue, and in what terms?”

The result of this policy, as we have already indicated, has been to prevent Japan from regularizing her possession and acquiring a legal title to Manchuria. To appreciate the importance of this result, we should have to know the future.

It is clear that if China is finally led to give way and sign a treaty, the time she will have gained will be of slight value. But if circumstances turn in her favor, it is possible that, thanks to the League of Nations, Manchuria will be finally saved. It is therefore important now to prepare against the future—and it is here that China has the right to ask the League of Nations and also the United States what they intend to do to back up their promises.

Nevertheless, there is an important difference between the United States and the League of Nations, of which Occidental opinion is not always aware. The United States has not assumed any precise obligation to aid China. They may have an interest in doing so, but their interest is the only measure of their action. On the contrary, the members of the League of Nations are bound by the Pact, which obliges them to help any state which is the victim of aggression. It seems like a dream when we see the English newspapers discussing this case as if we were still living in 1914 and as if England were entirely free either to act or to do nothing. It is indeed possible for England to do nothing at all, since nobody has the means of compelling her to act. But by abstaining from action she will not be respecting the obligations she has assumed.

China asks nobody to fight her own war. She has enough men to fight it for herself. She is not unaware, moreover, that economic sanctions precipitately employed would offer her more risks than advantages. Japan would doubtless answer them either by a blockade of China or by open war, and China is not in a position at the moment to run such risks.

One could, it is true, conceive that the powers, in conformity with the Pact, would decide to break diplomatic relations with Japan; this would be a moral demonstration which would not be without weight. But the principal thing is to aid China in some positive way. In order to organize an effective defense of her territory, she must have money—and a few staff officers.

V

Among Geneva’s papers there now exists a draft of a treaty of financial aid, which was passed by the Assembly of 1930, precisely for cases of this sort. This treaty, which will be one of the group of disarmament conventions, has not yet been ratified. But nothing would prevent the powers from putting it into play in China’s favor, if they wanted to.

But what are they actually doing? Just the contrary. Far from aiding China financially, they are putting every imaginable difficulty in her way. We are not speaking here of that dishonest arms embargo which, indeed, only played into Japan’s hands, and which fortunately England quickly dropped. We are talking here especially from the point of view of finance.

We have seen what the loss of Manchuria costs the Chinese customs and salt tax; China is none the less obliged to pay all the arrears on her loans, guaranteed by the revenue of her customs. That is, contrary to a generally recognized principle of international law, Manchuria, though not contributing her part toward covering China’s loans, is none the less not forced to pay her share—as was the case among all the new treaty states. Naturally, the Chinese Government can take no initiative in this matter, because by so doing it would seem to recognize the existence of Manchukuo. But she could default on that part of her loans chargeable to Manchuria, about fifteen per cent of the total. If she does not do this, it is because she fears the repercussions on her own credit.

But more than that, each month the Chinese customs pay to Japan directly the sum of 33,000 for the Japanese share of the Boxer indemnity—which does not prevent Japan from illegally withholding in the vaults of the Bank of Korea a sum of two million dollars which belongs beyond possible dispute to the Chinese customs. The Chinese Government decided that these payments to Japan had lasted long enough, and a few months ago she stopped them. But immediately London and New York bankers exerted such pressure that she had to give way. The payments had to be resumed. Is that what is called helping China, in conformity with the treaties?

And yet the aid China asks would not be a one-sided affair. We cannot forget, in these times of economic distress, what a market of 400,000,000 inhabitants means. Only a few months ago, when the German Government appeared to think its commerce with Manchukuo was worth a sacrifice, it sufficed for China to remind her that the Chinese market is larger than the market of Manchuria to put an end to Germany’s flirtation with Mukden.

Likewise, in the political field, China is for the moment so placed, and perhaps for the first time in the history of the League of Nations, as to render the latter a real service. Up till now she has always appeared at Geneva as a supplicant. But now that Japan has withdrawn from the League, the situation is a little different. Though Japan’s withdrawal has no very great practical consequences for the League of Nations, it offers this real handicap, that it deprives the League of its really universal character. The extra-European states which continue to belong are in general second-rate powers: China alone still stands for something in the world, through her size and her civilization if not as a political power. By extending her co-operation with the League of Nations, by replacing the Japanese wherever she can, and by taking an active part in every commission and in the various conferences, China can help the League of Nations retain in these trying days its universal character, which is essential to its continued existence.

But if she is to play this international role, China must fulfill certain conditions as regards her internal affairs. To offer the world a really valuable market, she must be sufficiently organized, sufficiently peaceful, to allow her people to develop their truly prodigious stores of vitality. There is no need to tell the Chinese that they must buy, consume, produce: give them political peace, and some security for the future, and you will see the incredible expansion this country will quickly undergo.

But are these conditions fulfilled? This cannot be lightly asserted. Certainly China has very good materials at its disposal: an industrious, sober, and gentle people, an intellectual elite of high culture. But between this people and this elite stands a class of politicians who, alas, seem to have learned nothing and forgotten nothing in the course of the present crisis. The civil wars may be considered as ended for a time. This is the greatest service Japan has rendered China. But we cannot be certain that they have ended for good—and political struggles continue. Personal rivalries between the Nanking people and those of Canton, in the very bosom of the Government, too often obscure national interests. And we cannot help asking ourselves sometimes, when we examine things closely, what this wretched people needs in order to escape from its misery.

And yet, history goes on. Once more, we Occidentals sin through impatience. Time is needed if a people of 400,-000,000 inhabitants is to be led from the middle ages to modern times, from the philosophy of Confucius to the necessities of modern technique. Time is needed—and a great deal of prudence. For if we are not careful, if we do not help China, a day will come when we will all be surprised to find that China has absorbed from our civilization, of which we are so proud, only its militarism—unless it also takes over our communism.

Japan is rapidly bringing about this result; and thus far we have done very little to prevent it.