CHINA: Double Ten

Chinese celebrated throughout the World last week the “Double Ten Festival,” “the tenth day of the tenth month,” the day on which a bomb exploded in Hankow fifteen years ago.*

The explosion was the signal for revolutionaries who toppled the Manchu dynasty in ruins, and built unsteadily out of the debris the north-central republic under Yuan Shih-kai and the rival southern republic under Sun Yatsen. Both these “presidents” died,—the former at the height of power, allegedly by poison; the latter a weary exile in cold Peking. China became the spoil of numerous Tuchuns or provincial governors. One year ago, on “the tenth day of the tenth month,” there was a relatively stable northern Government at Peking, and the southern Government at Canton weltered in the doldrums of impotence. During the past year this situation has sensationally reversed itself.

Vicissitudes. The events of the twelvemonth group themselves naturally about the rise and fall of the great Super-Tuchun Wu Pei-fu —no stranger to such vicissitudes. A year ago he was gathering strength in the Yangtze valley for an onslaught upon Peking. So well did he succeed that he completely disrupted the power of the Pekingese Super-Tuchun Feng Yu-hsiang. For a time it seemed that Wu and the Super-Tuchun of Manchuria, Chang Tso-lin, would dominate the North. Then occurred the sudden and momentous upheaval which is still disrupting China to the point of anarchy.

Mystery Army. At Canton the political heirs of Sun Yat-sen had cut themselves off from the Occident by imposing an anti-British boycott. Behind this screen they organized and drilled an army whose strength was universally underestimated. Suddenly, last August, at the hour of Wu’s northern triumph the Cantonese struck at his war base, the Yangtze valley. The troops of their “mystery army” poured northward under Super-Tu-chun Chang Kaishek. Too late Wu rushed southward to defend Hankow and Wuchang—his twin strongholds on either bank of the Yangtze. Hankow fell at once. Wuchang has ever since been cruelly besieged. Reputedly 10,000 Wuchangese have died of starvation. Last week the besiegers came to terms with the besieged. The cycle of revolution which began a decade and a half ago has ringed China with warfare and returned to its point of ignition, the Yangtze Valley.

Significance. While observers are unanimous in predicting several years more of civil war for China, the events of the last fortnight have definitely transformed the presumption that a strong Chinese Government is to be found in Peking to the possibility that it may be found in the not distant future at Canton. The U. S. Minister to China, John Van Antwerp MacMurray, sensitive to this trend, was reported to be in Canton last week, despite his previous announcement that he had left China for the Philippines. Simultaneously negotiations were reported progressing to end the anti-British boycott. The emergence of Canton from self-imposed boycott isolation to paramount importance loomed.

Far City. For the first time in many weeks a courier brought news that Sianfu, a walled city of 500,000 population and the capital of Shensi province, is still enduring the siege laid to it in mid-April. At that time the besieged were supposed to be adherents of Feng Yu-hsiang and the besiegers proclaimed their allegiance to Wu Pei-fu. Since then both Feng and Wu have suffered eclipse, but the siege continues “on its own,” so to speak. Thirty-one foreign missionaries, eight of them U. S. citizens, were reported still held in Sianfu, last week, apparently as hostages.

Missionaries Harassed. Widespread but meagre reports told last week that foreign missionaries are being molested in China at present as never before. No instances of murder were reported, but unsubstantiated accounts of kidnapings, looting of missionary premises and some unprecedented disorder were numerous. Pending the arrival of trustworthy despatches many U. S. mission executives withheld the names of missionaries reported molested from the press to quench premature sensationalism.

*The Ford Chinese Students Club entertained on this anniversary Mr. and Mrs. Edsel Ford and Mayor John W. Smith of Detroit at a banquet in the palm room of the King Wah Lo Cafe, Detroit.