CHINA: Rice & Salt, Not History

It is related in Chinese folklore that a young peasant girl was asked to carry some wind wrapped in paper and some fire, also wrapped in paper. Her answer was to carry a fan and a lantern.

With the same earthy wisdom the tenth plenary session of the Kuomintang’s Central Executive Committee last week attacked China’s seemingly impossible problem of inflation and price control. After dozens of schemes were suggested the delegates settled on one: henceforth the general price of all commodities will be in a fixed ratio to the price of salt and rice.

This was a homespun device. It might prove sound. But the fact that this was the only important decision of the Central Executive Committee’s tenth annual meeting was a disappointment. To those Chinese who believe that China can become a true democracy, it was a tragedy.

The Party Purpose. As the great Sun Yat-sen defined it, the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) is the trustee of Chinese sovereignty until the people are educated to conduct their own affairs. China’s Government is for all practical purposes a one-party Government, and the Kuomintang is the party.

The party is run by 260 Central Executive Committeemen drawn from war areas, provincial capitals, Government bureaus, from diplomatic posts in Washington and London. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek runs China, but he almost always defers to the party’s Executive Committee.

At each annual meeting, the Executive Committee is supposed to carry China one step closer to democracy: to give up some of its power and give the people some new tokens of franchise. In wartime such steps must necessarily be short steps.

The Party’s Accomplishment. For a fortnight Chungking squirmed with rumors as party leaders fought out policy.

There were hopes that there would be shifts in personnel within the party or Cabinet or both, which would transfer the Government’s center of gravity a foot or two toward the true democrats. But after the session the same group had the same firm grip on the party: Communist-hating War Minister Ho Ying-chin; the Chen brothers, leaders of the notoriously reactionary CC clique; Finance Minister H. H. Kung.

There were hopes that there would be dynamic moves to end once & for all the Kuomintang-Communist schism. The usual statement to the Communists (behave yourselves) was read into the record.

As for the post-war world, China—through its most potent organ, the party —endorsed the program-outlined by the Gissimo to the New York Herald Tribune forum promising post-war cooperation.

The Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang held the clay of history in its hands last week. It had a chance to start molding China into the beautiful shape which Sun Yat-sen imagined. Instead, it fixed prices against rice and salt.