THE DRAGON'S SEED: Peking and the Overseas Chinese
By Robert S.
Elegant. 319 pages
St. Martin's Press, New York
US$4.95
Reviewed by Geraldine Fitch
After long experience in the Far East, Robert S. Elegant, Southeast Asian correspondent and Hongkong bureau chief for NEWSWEEK magazine, is well qualified to undertake a study of Peking and the hua-chiao (Chinese sojourners abroad).
One need not agree with all his deductions to appreciate his comprehensive report and stimulating analysis. The regrettable shortcoming of "The Dragon's Seed" is that, though a new book of 1959, it seems to have missed the amazing shift in loyalties of the overseas Chinese in most of these Asian countries. This may be due to the time-lag between writing a book and seeing it come off the press these days. Changes, of which the author seems unaware, are definitely demonstrable.
First, let us consider the author's thesis, that "The Chinese record of imperialism is the world's longest." Perhaps it is longest because China's history and civilization are the world's oldest. But is it the longest, or the earliest? China was warring and conquering back in the days of the Han Dynasty, to be sure. But for many centuries thereafter (until we come to the days and ways of the Chinese Communists), the Chinese tide flowing into Southeast Asia was a peaceful one. They did not go with armies, they did not plant the Chinese flag, they did not establish colonies dominating native peoples.
The Chinese went, as Mr. Elegant himself puts it, as: coolies, consuls and culture-mongers (teachers and writers.) This type of migration hardly deserves the name of imperialism. It remained for the Chinese Communists to revert to raw imperialism with military conquests.
The author points out two things which deeply stirred the hua-chiao. One was Japan's "Asia for the Asians," which marked the end of Western rule in the Orient, even though Japan was eventually defeated. The other was the attainment of power by the Chinese Communists and their initial accomplishments, including the near-defeat of the West in Korea, which stirred the aspirations and admiration of Asians.
Then comes the author's picture of Asia today:
"Indochina, with a quarter of her territory under Communist control, is nominally ruled by two weak monarchies and a precariously-balanced strong man, all at odds with each other and with their former French overlords. Thailand is independent but so blighted by internal corruption and exploitation as to present a flimsy barrier to military or ideological assault. Malaya, long scourged by Communist guerrillas, is now independent of Great Britain, but her Malay and Chinese sons are eyeing each other's threats. Indonesia, free of Dutch rule, is shaken by political crises, tormented by economic folly and hospitable to Communist ideals ... Burma, in the west, is pursuing her own Socialist experiment, hampered by a half-dozen insurgent elements and by economic chaos."
As far as it goes, the above is pretty accurate. But is it the whole picture, and does it go far enough? Korea and Japan are not part of Southeast Asia, but, as part of Asia, they are definitely on the side of the Free World (and Korea was among those specifically mentioned as once paying tribute to the Chinese Empire.) Indonesia is still ideologically in doubt, but Thailand as part of SEATO is not as hopeless as this would imply; Singapore and Malaya are very different today from the days of 1955 and David Marshall; South Vietnam and Cambodia find their pro-West proclivities strengthened by the troubles in Laos. Can Hongkong be excluded from the former Chinese Empire? It walks a tight-rope successfully, managing to keep the Communist problem under control. Burma shows strong indication today of becoming more anti-Communist, not less. For long enough for Mr. Elegant to have noticed, far more Chinese national flags have flown in Hongkong on the Double Tenth than Red Chinese flags on October 1st. The Crown Colony itself commented on the contrast in its press this year.
One of the author's early conclusions is: "The Communists have nearly taken the hua-chiao. During the crucial five years from 1953 to 1958 the West seemed incapable of executing—or even conceiving—any strategy to prevent Peiping's victory. Native governments have been preoccupied with other problems."
Perhaps this is where Mr. Elegant went astray. While the West seemed impotent to help freedom-fighters, even when in successful revolt as in Hungary, not all native governments were inert. The government of the Republic of China has been active, and here are some of the facts about the hua-chiao not to be found in the book under discussion. Peking made a great bid for overseas youth by offering free education. For a time they streamed through Hongkong into Red China. Disillusioned by the inadequate education, and forced to spend part-time on road-work or other physical labor, they left the mainland by the thousands, with hundreds still stranded in Hongkong for lack of re-entry permits and funds to go home.
In contrast, only 60 hua-chiao came to Taiwan for study in 1951. By June 1958 this number had climbed to 7,889 with 27 different countries represented, and more than a hundred from North Borneo, Cambodia, the Philippines, Thailand, Korea, Malaya and Singapore, Indonesia, South Vietnam, on up to 2,557 from Hongkong and Macao. In addition, over 4,000 others take correspondence courses.
A total of 3,830 overseas Chinese schools maintain their contact with the Republic, most of them in Asia. Low-cost textbooks, reference books, charts and maps go to these schools in large quantity.
Up to 1958, 175 overseas Chinese newspapers and magazines were loyal to the Republic. A total of 58,448 news releases, 13,000 news photos, and 13,386 books were mailed to these publications from Taiwan.
In 1950, only four groups totaling 94 visitors came to Taiwan. In 1957, 138 groups totaling over 14,000, the majority hua-chiao, came on Goodwill or Trade Missions. From three firms investing in Taiwan industry in 1951, the number has grown to 169. The persecution of overseas Chinese today in countries of their residence indicates that they are against the Communists who have stirred up most of the trouble for them. Otherwise they would follow trade and commerce peacefully as for hundreds of years.
Refugees continue to flee Red China at the rate of about 1,000 a month; almost no individual returns because he is proud of Red China's industrial strength. The fishermen escape, 200 strong, with their junks and their families. Four hundred blind came into Macao recently after a long trek. How the author arrives at his conclusion that the US should recognize Red China, and "cease backing the Nationalists" is very difficult to see. It is hard to think of a greater betrayal of mil lions who want to remain free, and who trust the US to help them maintain their freedom.
Genocide in Tibet
(A Study in Communist Aggression)
Edited by Rodney Gilbert
American-Asian Educational Exchange, Incorporated 103 Pages
Reviewed by D. J. Lee
With the able editorship of Mr. Rodney Gilbert, a leading authority on China and the Far East and author of several books two of which are on China, the American Asian Educational Exchange, Incorporated has brought out a timely publication on Tibet with illustrations by William R. Johnson.
Tibet and Nepal, which are check by jowl in geographical position, were known as two forbidden countries in the world until the Communists came to power on the Chinese mainland.
In 103 pages, the editor has been able to document enough material to provide the reader with a good knowledge of Tibet and her fight against the Chinese Communist aggression. The introduction to this study dwells on Tibet's relation with the outside world in general and with China in particular, on the kind of Buddhism practised in this unfamiliar country, its customs and briefly on the history of the Tibetan people.
The statements made by the Dalai Lama in India give a graphic account of what actually transpired between the Tibetan government and the Chinese Communist authorities. They represent a refutation of the distorted account rendered by the Chinese Communist propaganda machinery—the New China News Agency.
On the basis of his personal experience, the Dalai Lama knew that the Chinese Communists could not be trusted and so the Tibetan uprising would have broken out much sooner if the god-king had not taken the advice of the notorious fence-rider, Jawaharlal Nehru who was himself so gullible and naive as to take Chou En-lai's "assurances" seriously. The net result is that the Tibetan leader and his people have become the victims of the Chinese Communists' vicious persecutions.
Documentary evidence of the Chinese Communists' bad faith, acts of aggression and atrocities—violations of the 17-point agreement of May 23, 1951, subversion of the authority of the Tibetan Government, and wanton disregard of human rights—is shown in black and white in Part Two of the pamphlet under review.
As its title indicates, it is not just another booklet on Communist aggression. It is an authenticated account of how Chinese Communists committed genocide in Tibet. Given an opportunity, the Communists will commit genocide in any part of the world.
As a student of Tibetan affairs for several years in the late twenties, I cannot very well accept the views expressed in the first paragraph of Part One in which it says that "There has always been a strong desire for independence on the part of the Tibetan people." Until World War II, the Tibetans were divided into three groups according to their political aspirations for their country. One group was unmistakably pro-China, another pro-Britain and the third, which was the least popular of all, believed in independence. As India is no longer a part of the British Empire, the pro-British elements are no longer in existence Today. The aggressive Chinese Communists have driven the Tibetan god-king and thousands of his followers into the arms of India, whose leaders are too selfish and ignorant to be able to give the Dalai Lama intelligent and sound advice and whose government, even if it would, is too weak to help him fight back the Communist aggression. As unhappy guests on Indian soil, the Tibetan leader and his people find no alternative to doing everything possible to please their host country which believes that nothing serves the interests of India better than an independent Tibet. Therefore it is only to be expected that the Dalai Lama should declare in his appeal to the United Nations that Tibet has all along been an independent state. As long as the Tibetan refugees and their leader remain in India, they are not in a position to express themselves freely.
All freedom fighters in Tibet and free Chinese in this country share the views expressed under the heading "What to Do About the Situation." Among other things, it says:
"Ultimately there will be no true liberation of Tibet from the abomination of Communist bondage, or of the Tibetans from enslavement and the moral desolation that it entails, until the bestial regime in Peiping collapses. That collapse is inevitable and it can be hastened by the pressure of educated world opinion. The late Secretary Dulles and the recently retired Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern affairs, Mr. Walter Robertson, are both on record in expressions of the belief that China's cruel domination by a Communist clique is "a passing phase." Those statements clearly imply that in the United States' estimation the eventual "passing" of that regime is desirable. There is a great body of American citizens working together in such groups as the Committee of One Million, who feel that this attitude towards Red China should not only be implied, but should be more emphatically stated."
The concluding paragraph under the same heading is also worth quoting:
"Public opinion in the United States, and throughout the world needs to be convinced that the pattern of Red China's conduct in Tibet is no deviation from that which has always been characteristic of it and always will be, until the masses of the Chinese people rise up against their masters and destroy their rule. To hasten that impending day, public opinion must demand the total isolation of the monstrosity in Peiping, the complete denial to it of all intercourse with the civilized world, and the erection of the stoutest possible barriers against its further expansion. Now that it has besmirched itself in the sight of some hundreds of millions of Asian peoples, this is an appropriate moment for each and all of us to cry out for the monster's tight confinement so that it may strangle on its own fumes. This booklet is a modest contribution to such an education and marshalling of public opinion as may make that possible." In general, Mr. Gilbert is to be congratulated for his remarkable efforts in collecting so much of the evidence of a recent Chinese Communist unnatural crime into as compact a booklet as "Genocide in Tibet."