CHINA: Double Ten

At 10 o’clock the little people of Chung king lit festooned firecrackers and cheered.

It was 10/10 (Oct. 10), the Revolution was 32 years old, and in Government House Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was taking the oath as President of the Republic of China. The people surged through the mud and drizzle to stare at the ban ners, the red posters, the lanterns, the brightly colored electric lights. In the gorge below the bleak, steeply terraced city, a gunboat barked 21 times.

Inside the flag-hung hall 400 high offi cials and one woman, Mme. Chiang, stood as the Generalissimo recited the testament of Sun Yat-sen and reached for the single sheet of white paper inscribed with the oath of the Presidency. The Generalissimo, in full-dress uniform, was taut, expectant; his decorations gleamed and his immaculate white gloves moved restlessly. Kuomintang Elder Wu Chih-hui, scholar and veteran of 1911, solemnly handed the new President the great jade seal, wrapped in red silk, and Chiang was ready to deliver his Double Ten address, doing double duty as his inaugural.

Democracy was his theme, and he went back 3,000 years to root his faith in China’s past, citing the Kao Tao Mu: “. . . the reward or punishment of Heaven is based upon the judgment of the people.” Said Chiang:

“Sun Yat-sen’s . . . revolution has as its … ultimate goal to make all the people take part in the administration of state affairs. . . . However . . . the democratic spirit lies in the observance of law and discipline. If I should ever transgress the limit of my power, it is the duty of every citizen to censure and correct me.”

A New China. As he spoke, Chiang could look back on a year of compensations for hard going. Sinkiang, China’s westernmost province, had crept back into the fold after ten years’ illicit living with its Russian neighbor. The war had gone well enough so that many could speak of an end before the next Double Ten. There had been no important clashes with the Chinese Communists, and there was a promise on the record to call a People’s Congress and adopt a democratic constitution within a year after the war.

A New Japan? China’s faith in democracy was not for herself alone but for all Asia, including her mortal foe. On this same, solemn day, Sun Fo, son of the “sainted Sun Yatsen, now President of the Legislative Yuan, called for a republic in postwar Japan:

“To fight this war to a decision means . . . Japan must be so beaten . . . that she will not dare to entertain an aggressive thought for 100 years. This can be done only if a fundamental revolution . . . sweeps away the military caste … the emperor and the cult of emperor worship.

“Only then will the grandeur-dazed Japanese . . . learn the intricacies of self-government without the hypnotic spells of a ‘divine ruler.’ The Japanese Empire must be overthrown and a Japanese republic set up in its place. . . . We will be ready and willing to establish normal relations with a new Japan.”