CHINA: Profound Changes

Even the alert Occidental, who knows that Turks no longer keep harems or wear fezzes, can often be caught believing that China is still chaos, a national famine pullulating with bandits and “War Lords.”

Last week to Philadelphia, where Japanese Ambassador Hiroshi Saito stuck out his tongue at naval ratios fortnight ago (TIME, Dec. 3), went Chinese Minister Sao-Ke Alfred Sze. Admirers called him “Alfred” at Cornell where, as an undergraduate, he edited the Cornellian. Last week in his quiet, careful way Minister Sze spoke on Reconstruction in China with an apt allusion to the harem and the fez: “I believe it is correct to say that nowhere else in the world, unless it be in Turkey, are there such profound changes taking place in all departments of national life as are to be observed in China.”

A first-rate journalist, Minister Sze then read a speech that is a first-rate news report on China’s reconstruction. Excerpts:

“First of all, I would ask my audience to bear in mind that in China from time immemorial the governments, local as well as central, have not sought to take an active part in controlling or influencing the social and economic activities of their peoples. In fact, in the past, such an interference would have been regarded by my people as an undue interference with their right to regulate their own affairs by their own less formal, less coercive means, and in accordance with their own ideas as to justice, propriety, and expediency.

“In the Western world, habituated as the people are to look to their governments for both guidance and control, any failure of those governments to function with reasonable efficiency and controlling authority leads to national demoralization and disorder. This is not true in China. When there is political discord there, and even when there is considerable armed fighting between contesting parties, only local and temporary and what one might call surface disturbances are caused. The underlying and all-pervading economic and social life of the people is not seriously troubled. Thus it is that a Westerner is apt to gain a distorted idea as to what is the situation in China when he reads in the newspapers of civil strifes in China, and the lack of complete coercive control by the Central Government over certain portions of China’s vast area. Almost certainly he would be surprised, could he gain a full knowledge of the great movement for social and economic reconstruction which has been under way during recent years.”

Education. “Prior to 1905, Chinese education had had for its primary purpose the inculcation of moral principles rather than the imparting of substantive information or facts. A second characteristic of this older educational scheme was that the Central Government concerned itself only with the holding of examinations for testing the proficiency attained by students. . . . How rapid development has been is indicated by the fact that China now has more than 100 institutions of higher learning, more than 20 of which are national institutions. The importance that is now attached to science, and the practical application of the results of science, is attested by the fact that 30 of these colleges specialize in technological subjects.

“As for primary and secondary education, it has been estimated that, in 1921, there were about 3,000,000 children in school. The Ministry of Education of the Chinese Government reports that in June of the present year, there were 11,000,000 in the primary and middle schools registered with the Government. And, since this does not include a large number of students in private schools of various kinds, it would appear that in 13 years there has been an increase of not far from 400%. . . .

“In connection with matters cultural, I wish that I had time to speak of what is known as the ‘New Life Movement,’ especially sponsored by General Chiang Kaishek, and which advocates simple and what one might almost call puritanical extended treatment” (TIME, Sept. 24 & Oct. 8).

Industry & Finance. “In the commercial, financial, and industrial fields the modernizing movement has made equally great advance. Industrialization is going ahead, especially in the larger cities, and the Chinese banks are conducting their operations upon a larger scale and operating under sound financial principles. . . . Whereas, up to recent years, China was a field for foreign exploitation, whether with regard to the financing of railways and other large undertakings, or the conducting of foreign trade, or manufacturing upon a large scale, this is no longer dominantly the case. The Chinese are now financing, in very large measure, their own public undertakings. They are establishing and operating their own manufacturing plants, and are themselves directing their large exporting and importing concerns instead of acting merely as subordinate agents for foreign companies.”

This change, in the opinion of competent observers, declared Minister Sze “is easily the most significant that has come in China in recent years.”

Planned Economy. Stressing the little realized fact that China has a National Economic Council, chairmanned by Dictator-Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, Chinese Minister Sze summed up “what has been done or is being done, either by the National Economic Council or by other governmental departments or by private agencies” as follows:

Transport. “The greatest work that has been undertaken by the National Economic Council is the work of providing China with more adequate highways. As a result of this widespread movement for improved means of transportation. China has now more than 40,000 miles of improved roads, whereas, 20 years ago, she had hardly 100 miles throughout her entire vast area; and many more miles are under construction. Upon these improved roads, many motor busses are already operating. During the past two years alone, roads built with the help of the National Economic Council amounted to 4,000 kilometers or about 2,600 miles. . . .

“Railroad construction by the Chinese Government is also going ahead. When completed, the Hankow-Canton Railway will become the central trunk line connecting North and South China; the Lunghai Railway will facilitate the development of the Northwest; the Chekiang-Kiangsi-Hunan Railway will bring about closer economic and cultural relations between the Southeastern provinces. . . .

“Commercial aviation is making great strides in China. Regular services are now maintained north to Peiping, south to Canton and up the Yangtze to Chengtu, capital of Szechwan. From Shanghai to Chengtu, the trip used to take over a month at certain times of the year. This trip can now be made in two stages of a little over twelve hours flying time. . . . With railways and highways affording ample means of transportation and supplemented by ready means of communication, the safety of persons and property in the outlying districts will be increased, the administrative efficiency of the Central Government will be greatly augmented, and conditions of commerce, international as well as domestic, will be vastly improved.”

Rationalization. As the National Economic Council’s secondarily great work. Minister Sze described its efforts toward putting Chinese agriculture on a more up-to-date basis. Typical effort: “A Commission for the Rationalization of the Cotton Industry has been established, and is promoting the use of better cotton seed, the establishment of cooperation among cotton growers, the establishment of better marketing methods; and, in general, the rationalization of the cotton industry. Cotton weaving and spinning is already a major industry in China and, in fact, employs more labor than any other of the industries of China.”

Calamity Relief. “In the fall of 1931, came the Great Yangtze flood which affected an area of 70,000 square miles inhabited by 25,000,000 people. Something like 140,000 persons were drowned and crops worth $900,000,000 lost. To meet this calamity a National Flood Relief Commission was established to furnish relief to those suffering from the flood, and to provide for the repair of the broken dykes, and the building of them upon such a higher, larger, and stronger scale, that future floods might be prevented. Much foreign financial aid was sent to China at this time, and Sir John Hope Simpson was sent by the League of Nations to direct the work of this Commission. As indicating the magnitude of the preventive work to be undertaken, and the part played by the Chinese in that work, I will read a paragraph from Sir John’s report:

” ‘When I first surveyed the flooded area,’ he says, ‘I felt that the dykes could not possibly be repaired before the next flood season. But it was done within six months, and by Chinese engineers. There was not a foreigner in the lot. . . . These dykes of ours were many of them 140 feet broad at the base and 30 feet broad at the top and they were 30 to 50 feet high. . . . At one time we had 1,400,000 of people working on the main river dykes. The amount of dirt used would put a dyke around the earth at the equator two metres thick and two metres high.’

“When the emergency work of the National Flood Relief Commission was finished, the National Economic Commission was directed by the Chinese Government to take over the funds and materials still on hand, and to carry on the general work of water conservancy throughout China. Since then a great amount of work has been done, in which the expert engineers sent to China by the League of Nations have collaborated. Two million dollars have been allotted by the National Economic Council from its funds for hydraulic work in the four provinces of Shensi, Kansu, Ninghsia, and Chinghai, the aggregate area of which is equal to that of France and Germany combined. I will ask you to note especially the statement by Sir John Simpson, in the words which I have quoted, that in the huge and successful work which he described, not a foreign engineer was employed.”

Grand Liaison. With fire in his eye Minister Sze concluded: “China is not in that state of demoralization in which some have sought to have her viewed! The widespread reconstructive measures, which are now being actively carried out, constitute adequate evidence of this. I am sure that my audience will not deem me too boastful of my own people, if I say that the developments now going forward in China bear evidence to the fact that there resides in the Chinese people a vital energy which, because so often latent in the past, occasions surprise when it is made manifest, just as, in Shanghai, in 1932, the power of ill-equipped Chinese soldiers to defend their native soil exceeded all the expectations of the Japanese invaders. This does not mean that China no longer requires aid from outside.”

Foreign aid, announced Minister Sze, will henceforth be sought chiefly through the newly formed CDFC (China Development Finance Corporation). Recently organized on a basis of 100% Chinese capital and supposed to be managed by Chinese businessmen of integrity rather than Government generals and bureaucrats, “it will serve as a liaison instrumentality for joint Chinese and foreign constructive enterprises in China.”

But what about the bandits? What about the Reds? Most properly they were omitted from Minister Sze’s discourse on Reconstruction last week, but news from the rebel front last week was also encouraging.