Towards the end of the Eighteenth Century when Emperor Chienlung of the House of Eishinjoro committed the glories of his reign to stone in the form of an essay commemorative of his ten most noteworthy victories, the extent of territory controlled from the Manchu Imperial capital exceeded that of any period before or since. Poetry and prose, calligraphy and painting, theater of both the Northern and Southern types all attained a height of creative fertility hitherto unheard of. Food was plentiful. Peace and prosperity were general throughout the empire. Population multiplied in geometrical ratio, as it would be said in the style of the gospel according to Malthus.
That was the pinnacle. With the advent of the Nineteenth Century, the march turned downhill. By 1840, commercialism extended its tentacles even to the Middle Kingdom. Whether you liked it or not, you've got to trade with us, it said to Emperor Taokuang. Canton, the only international mart of China, was too far away and too inconvenient for opium and other items of trade. The addition of five other ports open for residence and trade to aliens alleviated the situation but did not solve the problem. No direct access was rained to the seat of government. It took another show of arms in 1860 to force the reception of legations on the Manchu Court. The despatch of Ping Chun to Europe the year after started the exchange of diplomatic missions, a practice which has been continued to this clay. Where such a mission is usually received with glee by the appointees today, Ping Chun and the members of his suite did not exactly welcome their appointment with open arms.
The detachment in 1886 of Tonkin and Vietnam from the suzeraignty of the Chinese Empire marked the beginning of the expression of European Imperialism in China which found its most naked and wanton display in the carving out of spheres of influence for the various Powers towards the end of the century and continued till the seat of government of the Republic of China was removed to Nanking. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 changed the relationship between the Kingdom of Korea and the Chinese Empire and detached Taiwan from China. From then on the impact of Western commercialism and European and Japanese Imperialism could no longer be ignored. The impotence of the reigning House, the unwieldy character of the national political organization and the impossibility of living as an isolated community in a world of rapid interchange of goods and ideas, of much faster transportation and almost instantaneous communications made it quite obvious to the literate Chinese that change had been overdue.
Evidence of unrest began to be exhibited long before the turn of the century. Hung Shiu-chuan of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom could not have snowballed to such strength over so wide a swath of territory in so few years after his humble beginnings in 1850, had there not been great difficulty in making a livelihood in South China and in the hinterlands along both banks of the Yangtze River. The annual migration of destitute Shantung males to what are to be later designated as the Northeastern Provinces could not have reached the enormous figure of six millions, had the relationship between population and food production not been radically upset in that province of productive and hardy individuals. Military expenses involved in raising the Hunan and Anwhei armies for putting down the Taipings and the Mohammedan uprisings in the Northwest called for the institution of likin and the Maritime Customs Service, the effect of either of which on the social economy could not possibly have been soothing or stabilizing.
During the early decades of the Eighteenth Century, the Manchus might still have had some foreboding on racial grounds regarding the security of their power and consequently might have tried to keep the Manchu garrisons in the provinces virile and intact as a fighting unit. By the middle of that century, it would certainly have been groundless to assert that racial feelings still ran high or that the Manchu garrisons were still being maintained as an effective combat unit. The Manchu had been culturally assimilated by the Chinese. Some forms of distinction were still preserved, but there was more form to them than spirit. The use made of racial antagonism by the Taipings could not have been quite as effective as their use of the trappings of mysticism and superstition.
When the recognition that modernization and constitutionalism were the order of the day came in the "Hundred Days" under Emperor Kuanghsu in 1898, it had gone much farther than mere negative protest. Under the leadership of Kang Yu-wei and Liang Chih-chao, the movement must be conceded to have been slightly more than being just political reform. Constitutionalism was indeed political reform of great significance, but it was to bring with it a spirit of self-examination that might lead to other even more important aspects of our national life. Its failure was no criticism of its ineptness, its being ill-timed or out of place.
When the forces of reaction seized in 1900 upon the Boxers' magic and superstition to try to divert the attention of the people from the senility and incompetence of the Court to foreigners who were sojourning in China in the service of God or Mammon, it showed more clearly than any other symptom that the Manchu Court was very near the end of its tether. The opening up of the interior to foreign trade, some attempts at the mechanization of production—notably in the munitions and textile industries—and the demands of domestic commerce all made for urbanization with its tendency to give added impetus to the normal rapid rate in the increase of population. Production apparently increased and the movement of goods increased in quantity and at a greatly accelerated rate of turn-over—of these, all observers were fairly sure. Whether or not the increased concentration of people in the cities had a better life, a higher standard of living, observers weren't unanimous in their conclusions.
Dr. Sun Yat-sen began his contribution to the cause of reform through the organization in 1894 of the Regeneration Society. The failure of the "Hundred Days" Reform Program convinced him that mere reform would get the nation nowhere. From then on, he stood for revolution. He gathered his first disciples from students studying in Japan. In 1896-98, during his stay in Europe, he widened his following to include Chinese students in Europe. Gradually, he developed further strength among the Chinese communities in the United States and in Southeastern Asia. His outlook was modern for he could fall upon his medical training for the scientific approach to all social problems. Quite early in his life, he came in intellectual contact with Jean Longuet and Paul Lafargue of Europe and Maurice William of America, which would explain at least in part his espousal of socialism and his tolerance of Marxism.
The philosophical bases of the revolutionary and reconstruction programs of the Kuomintang are found in the San Ming Chu Yi which Dr. Sun first discussed publicly in Brussels in 1905 and in Tokyo in 1906. These three principles may best be freely translated into Nationalism, Democracy and Socialism. Nationalism in Dr. Sun's system emphasized freedom from the domination of alien Imperialism more than it did the strictly racial implications of the word. The overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty was more in the nature of getting rid of a decadent and ineffective political instrument than the supplanting of the Manchu race by the sons of Han as the ruling class. When the Twentieth Century dawned, the Manchus and the Hans were culturally and racially no longer distinguishable, just as the descendants of the Israelites in Kaifeng and other parts of China are no longer racially and culturally distinguishable from the other Chinese.
Democracy within the framework of San Ming Chu Yi means constitutional and representative government based on adult suffrage. Dr. Sun went as far as to have compiled a book of the rules of order in debate in public assemblies. Had his followers and Chinese citizens in general chosen to give greater currency to this minor book of his teachings, the mechanics of democracy would have run with smoother gears in the 42 years of the Republic.
Dr. Sun's socialistic platform is made up essentially of two planks. The first plank contemplated an equalization of land ownership through a series of reforms starting with the introduction of a graduated scale of taxation of unearned increment of land values. The second plank projected a system of direct taxes that will assure the impossibility of the concentration of capital in the hands of a few. The often repeated charge that Dr. Sun's economic theory embraced Communism is a misinterpretation of a truncated quotation.
On October 10, 1911 some followers of Dr. Sun were compelled by unforeseen circumstances to start the call to revolution a bit prematurely. It spoke eloquently of the thoroughly rotten state of the body politic that the Manchu Emperor Hsuantung soon abdicated. The resulting republic did not measure up to the tenets of Dr. Sun's San Ming Chu Yi. Till 1927, the followers of Dr. Sun never had a chance at executing in actual politics his reconstruction program. Thenceonward, the responsibility and leadership went to Chiang Kai-shek, currently the President of the Republic of China.
Nehru: A British Puppet
Dr. Yung Tai Pyun, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea, has done the democratic cause a conspicuous service by exploding the British-Indian myth that India speaks with the authentic voice of Asia and that whatever Jawaharlal Nehru stands for is representative of the views and aspirations of all Asiatic peoples. That myth, which has been assiduously cultivated by the British Government and press and actively propagated by Communist sympathizers throughout the world, is now thoroughly discredited by Dr. Pyun when he summarizes "what India has done" with one single word —"appeasement."
Ever since the Chinese Communist regime's intervention in the Korean war India has advocated appeasement of the aggressor. Blinded by the applause of fellow-appeasers like Churchill, Attlee, and Bevan, Nehru has become more and more vociferous in his championship of the Communist cause. He has successively opposed the condemnation of the puppet Peiping regime as an aggressor, the bombing of strategic targets north of the Yalu River, and the blockade, of the Chinese mainland, posing all the while as an apostle of peace. But not being content with a mere negative policy of opposing measures inimical to his Communist friends, and finding that the slogan of "peace" has a wider appeal than any other political stunt, he has switched over to a more positive program since last winter by first sponsoring the "Indian resolution" in last year's United Nations General Assembly and, in recent weeks, trying to get a seat in the proposed Political Conference after having obtained for his country the much coveted chairmanship of the Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission and the exclusive right to send troops to guard the anti-Communist prisoners of war. He has done all these ostensibly for the sake of "peace" but really to ingratiate himself with the Reds.
While we Free Chinese have seen through Nehru's dubious role from the very beginning and have, on numerous occasions, called the world's attention to his deceitful tactics, the honor of exposing India's betrayal of freedom and democracy in open forum and without mincing any words has been reserved for Dr. Yung Tai Pyun. In a great speech delivered before the Political and Security Committee of the United Nations General Assembly on August 24, the Korean Foreign Minister expressed the unanimous judgment of all Free Asiatic peoples when he said: "India has done nothing but disservice to the cause of human freedom by pandering to the interests of the enemy of freedom. India is not only trafficking with the Communists, but intriguing with them to make the free world look contemptible." "He rejected India as a member of the prospective Political Conference on the allied side, because the Republic of Korea would find it impossible to collaborate with "a betraying and scheming India."
Dr. Pyun's speech has been hailed not only by the free peoples of Asia for its revelation of the true character of Nehru's India, but also by many American editorial writers who are fed up with the glorification of New Delhi as the grand repository of political wisdom east of the Suez Canal. Commenting on Dr. Pyun's criticism of the Indian policy vis-a-vis the Communists, the influential Scripps-Howard newspapers said on August 26, "we are indebted to Mr. Pyun for unmasking the sanctimonious Mr. Nehru and his crew of cunning connivers." On the same day the Knight newspapers commended "Minister Pyun" for having done the United Nations "a service in stripping away some of the hypocrisy and making it clear that some, at least, regard treason as contemptible." Under the title of U. S. Firmness Pays In U. N., and referring to "the unexpected and overwhelming vote of 43 to 5 in favor of the U. S. plan for the Korean peace conference," the Philadelphia Inquirer opined on August 29, "We have a hunch that even Nehru respects us more for not giving in to his double-cross diplomacy."
A country whose governors are arraigned before the bar of public opinion as a "crew of cunning connivers" guilty of "contemptible treason" and conducting "double-cross diplomacy," can hardly qualify as the leader of Asia and the spokesman of all Free Asians. Yet those are precisely the titles which Nehru has brazenly arrogated to himself and the British politicians have conferred on him with full pomp and overflowing flattery. Time was when Nehru was a mere prisoner serving long terms of imprisonment under the rule of the hated British. Now that his erstwhile jailors have granted "independence" to his country and are treating him personally on a footing of equality with all other prime Ministers of the British Commonwealth of Nations, he naturally has to reciprocate their kindness by doing their bidding as if it were done of his own free will. One can well imagine his pride in thinking of himself as a family member of the British community, with the only regret that his skin is not as white as his British brethren's and that his blood is not Anglo-Saxon. Fortunately, his erstwhile jailors are not very particular on those points and will concede him equality of status so long as he is sufficiently hypnotized by the outward show of "independence" to do their bidding."
The history of the recent debate in the United Nations General Assembly on India's participation in the proposed Political Conference shows conclusively how the British have made a puppet of India to advance their own political program, which consists in the appeasement of the Chinese Communist regime by inviting it into the United Nations. The ball was set rolling when the Governments of the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand introduced a resolution in the General Assembly recommending that the Government of India participate in the Political Conference. That was the beginning of the maneuvers, and that was the basis of the Indian delegate's declaration made on August 25 that "India is not a candidate. India is a prospective invitee or a prospective draftee, if you like, but she is not a candidate." Having said so much, the Indian delegate went on to express his country's gratitude for the honor of being nominated by a solid bloc of British Commonwealth nations by saying, "Our name was proposed and we are grateful for the confidence shown in us by the sister states of our commonwealth." Nehru must have been tickled to death when he read this passage, for it described his innermost thoughts and sense of gratitude so vividly and accurately. Nehru must have wept for joy for days and nights when he learnt of an editorial entitled American Blind Spot in the Toronto Globe and Mail which declared, as reported by Raymond Daniel in The New York Times of August 31, that Mr. Syngman Rhee as a political figure compared to Jawaharlal Nehru, India's Prime Minister, as the head of "the most obscure banana republic compares to President Eisenhower." How flattering to Nehru's sense of self-importance! How soothing to his hungry ego!
But why have the "sister states of the British commonwealth" been so generous to Nehru, the ex-prisoner and the incumbent Prime Minister of India? The answer to this question is supplied by the last paragraph of Mr. Raymond Daniel's report just referred to, where he says, "Canada sought India's inclusion (in the Political Conference) for it was felt that as a powerful neutral India could raise the broader issues without the serious risk of reviving the disunity that would afflict the Western powers if Britain were to propose membership of the Chinese Communists in the United Nations." To put it in the simplest way, the British are exalting Nehru to the skies because they want him to advocate the Peiping regime's admission to the United Nations.
Britain has bought Indian submission to British policy by a legal fiction of "independence." Nehru's India is willing to be led by the nose so long as the legal fiction of "independence" is maintained. But no nation can be really independent, despite the legal fiction, if its policies are determined by an extraneous authority.
Mahatma Gandhi would turn in his grave if he knew that his beloved India, thanks to Nehru's stupidity, has gained her "independence" but lost her soul.
A gentleman inspires no awe by ill-behaving himself. Learn and you will not be self-opinionated. Be loyal and faithful; do not associate with men of inferior character; be brave enough to correct your own mistakes.
—From The Confucian Analects.
Translated by Durham Chen.