By Ch'u Chai and Winberg Chai
Mentor Book, New American Library,
New York 253 pp., US75¢
Reviewed by Arthur Aw
The back cover of this pocketbook, published in 1962, identifies Ch'u Chai as professor of Chinese culture and philosophy at the New School for Social Research. It says he held a similar position in Taiwan and was professor of jurisprudence and philosophy at the University of Peking. His son, Winberg, is identified as a former lecturer of Chinese studies at the New School and as, more recently, a visiting assistant professor of political science at Drew University.
A Madison (Wisconsin) dispatch of United Press International says Winberg Chai is a teacher at Fairleigh Dickinson University there. The elder Chai is reported to have been dean of Chungking University law school prior to 1950. UPI also says that The Changing Society of China is being translated into six Asian languages by the U.S. Information Agency for "free distribution to overseas schools."
All this should imply an excellent, objective book.
Unfortunately, that is not quite true in a political sense. The authors unquestionably are anti-Communist. They note, for example, that Mao Tse-tung "used his New Democracy as a cloak for his personal dictatorial power," and they go on to conclude that the Communists will be unable "to destroy the stubborn autonomy of the mind that persists in strong individuals .... "
In their intellectualism, however, they do not offer a counterforce to Communism, because they virtually reject the possibility that the government of the Republic of China can regain the mainland.
They write: "The policy and administrative decision of the Nationalist government in Taiwan are suspended between two considerations: realistically, it cannot anticipate recapture of the mainland, either by its own efforts or in a future global war; politically, it must rule nobly and hopefully as the legitimate government of all China. Taken either way, the military factor is a very important one. The Nationalists stress that their early revolutions in 1911 and 1926 were consummated only after many years of failure. With these historical precedents, they believe that the present may be merely another period of temporary eclipse. This is the Nationalist view of the future, but it is at best a mere wishful conjecture. The time is as yet premature to predict what chances there are for the Kuomintang and its government under Chiang Kai-shek to regain control over the mainland."
What they do not say is that aside from the one admittedly crucial factor of a green light from the United States, the forces of the Republic of China are ready to march right now. The Chais imply there would be no welcome on the mainland. To the contrary, the word of both refugees and defectors is that the people of the mainland are looking for delivery from their oppressors. Whether the present political alignment of the Republic of China were retained afterward would be for the people to decide.
The authors are critical of President Chiang Kai-shek and of the Kuomintang for actions or failure to act—on the mainland. They maintain that political reform also failed on Taiwan. In fact they give credit only for land reform and entirely neglect the rest of the Taiwan success story.
Thus the value of this volume is obviously not political. If USIA seriously proposes distribution in six Asian languages, it should at least undertake re-examination of the chapter on Chiang Kai-shek and Nationalism. As allies and partners in the fight against Communism, the United States and the Republic of China are ever ready to indulge in mutual criticism; by the same token they are honor bound to show the other side of the coin. Defeatist political analysis of the outlook for China is not going to be very helpful in East Asian countries where some 15 million overseas Chinese reside.
Culturally, the Chais have made a worthwhile contribution to popular knowledge of the Chinese civilization and way of life. They survey geography, history, and race—then take up national, religious, political and humanistic concepts. China's greatest contribution to the science of government, they find, is that there must be harmony in the relations between ruler and ruled. Operating through the family, they say, humanism has "worked for social order in China."
Structure of imperial, nationalist and communist governments is examined almost entirely as an exercise in political science.
The most helpful sections of the book concern the Chinese family, the people's communes, and Chinese culture and philosophy.
Material on the communes is largely descriptive. For the communes, this is sufficiently damning. As the authors remark, given the Communist system and China's huge population, the government must maintain "absolute control over the peasantry." The commune is the device of that control.
Also included are sections on Chinese law, religion, literature, language and art. These may be criticized as superficial, but in a book of brief scope, that was unavoidable. It is surprising that the Chais crowded in as much as they did.
It would have been better if they had pointed out that the older values of Chinese culture and society are dynamically alive on Taiwan. Still, there is much to recommend in their conclusions of the final chapter:
"From what has been happening in recent years all over the mainland of China, it seems clear that the Chinese Communists are working hard to replace the Chinese type of humanity—the real Chinese, who has learned how to be a good man in his relations with others-by the Communist Chinese, treacherous, hideous, and ferocious ...
"We can say with assurance that in the Chinese type of humanity there is nothing treacherous, hideous, or ferocious. A real Chinese may be coarse, but there is no ferocity in his coarseness; a real Chinese may be ugly, but there is no hideousness in his ugliness; a real Chinese may be cunning, but there is no treachery in his cunning ...
"The fundamental impression that the Chinese makes on the world is that he is moderate. By moderation we do not mean softness, timidity, or submissiveness. By the word 'moderate' we mean absence of harshness, vehemence, or violence. Moderation as here conceived is a way of action that avoids going to extremes, or a state of mind in which human reasoning and feeling reach a perfect harmony of calmness and soberness. The quality of moderation in the Chinese people is the product of faithfulness and sympathy—of what may be described as true and unselfish love or singleness of mind, leading to positive efforts for the good of others.
"The Chinese have this love because they live a life of the heart, a life of feeling ... feeling in the sense of human affection that springs spontaneously from the deepest part of the heart."
Presuming the complete sincerity of the authors, it is difficult to understand why they do not proceed to the inescapable conclusion that for the Chinese people, the days of Communism are strictly numbered.
The Changing Society of China has a modest bibliography, six pages of dynastic chronology, and an index.
COMMUNIST CHINA'S FOREIGN POLICY
By R. G. Boyd
Frederick A. Proeger, New York
147 pp., US$1.75
Reviewed by Gu Po-shen
An Australian who served with SEATO and who did research on Communist China at the Institute of Advanced Study, Australian National University, Mr. Boyd has dedicated this brief volume "To the people of China, the misguided, and especially the courageous ones." In the preface, he writes: "The use of the word 'China' throughout the text is not to be taken as a criticism of the position of the Chinese Nationalist Government on Taiwan, or as an implied plea for wider official recognition of the Chinese Communist government. The formal title of the Chinese Communist regime, viz., the Chinese Peoples Republic, is not used."
To this extent, Mr. Boyd shows good sense. His book is about Communist China and its external relations. Only a few citations refer to the Republic of China, and these are primarily related to Communist aggressions or threats in the Taiwan Straits. He covers the events from 1911 to 1949 in three and a half pages. If he mentions the broinide of corruption in connection with the national government, he also suggests that the United States showed "lack of wisdom in attempting to promote cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communists, and withholding of U.S. military aid from the Chinese Nationalist government after 1946 .... "
Mr. Boyd points out that the Korean War belligerency of the Communist Chinese frightened the countries of South and Southeast Asia. After 1954, however, Peiping began to talk of peaceful coexistence, and entered into new relationships with India, Burma, Indonesia, Ceylon and Cambodia. Now Laos has been added to the list. But also since the writing, the Indian border disagreement has become a sizable brush war.
The author fails most seriously in his section on the economics of Communist China. Although writing in 1961, when the statistics of Peiping already had become grossly suspect, he seems to accept them at face value. He gives no strong indication of the near-collapse that was to afflict mainland agriculture and industry in late 1961 and early 1962, although his researches should have led him to realization that such was inevitable. At the time of his study, many other scholars were arriving at such a conclusion and saying it out loud. This is not to question Mr. Boyd's scholarship, which is good and unquestionably sincere, but to suggest that he stuck so close to the sources he was using that he did not put two and two together.
Chapters are devoted to the foreign relations record of Peiping, to the ideology and to the "national interest" of the mainland regime. The author then turns to alignment with the Soviet Union. Most of this chapter is a factual record. After October, 1961, he says, (Red) "China and the U.S.S.R... seemed to be on the verge of a complete break. From China's point of view, the situation called for a decisive assertion of her right to contribute prominently to the leadership of international Communism. On the other hand, the U.S.S.R. was clearly under a compulsion to affirm more effectively its primacy among the Communist states, especially by more vigorous pressures against China. Yet both sides showed restraint, and outwardly their collaboration in the world revolutionary struggle continued. The U.S.S.R. was no doubt very conscious of its commitments to that struggle, and the Chinese, whose position seemed to be the weaker, may well have decided to observe caution, pending the acquisition of allies, especially in Asia."
Mr. Boyd says the Communist Chinese are concerned for their own security and wish to avoid a major war while draining military strength and promoting divisions among Western allies. An interesting footnote to this conclusion is the shooting along the Indian border. India is about the only foe the Chinese Communists could have picked with a view to reasonable certainty the United States would not be among those shooting back.
In terms of both capability and strategy, Mr. Boyd believes that Peiping is closely tied to Moscow's coattails for a long time to come. He does not think that the cooperation will go as far as it might, however: "This chauvinism" (of Peiping), he writes, "combined with what appears to be an intensely 'sectarian' and doctrinaire commitment to her side of the ideological dispute with the Soviet Union probably tends to result in a certain blindness to the practical advantages of sustained cooperation with the Soviet Union."
Mr. Boyd has read too many books and has had too little practical experience in the matter of the Chinese Communist relations with some of the free Asian countries. He says that "China's popular diplomacy (has exercised) considerable influence on Pakistani public opinion." That does not appear to be borne out by the facts. He says that publications and films from the mainland have "exercised much influence" in Thailand and Malaya. Not so, and such materials have not been admitted to Thailand for a portion of the period about which Mr. Boyd is writing. Malaya discourages them, too. He is quite correct in noting the influence that Peiping has been able to wield in Indonesia-including the more recent barring of free Chinese athletes from the Fourth Asian Games.
Australia is far from Geneva and Poland, and Mr. Boyd therefore may be excused for saying that "The absence official contact certainly renders it difficult for the U. S. A. to negotiate with the Chinese Communist Government." The difficulty lies not in the absence of formal relations, which Mr. Boyd seems to approve, albeit reluctantly, but in the intransigence of Peiping, which has been given every opportunity (in free China's eyes, all too many opportunities) to provide even a facsimile of reasonableness.
In the end, Mr. Boyd either proves himself a dreamer or is carried away by the power of his own words. After admitting that the Chinese Communists will continue to attempt expansion, he suggests that the Western example may "inspire the Chinese leaders to seek in a more human political philosophy the ideals of justice and fraternity which have been invoked so powerfully and yet distorted so tragically by Communism."
It is a temptation to say that anyone who can find prospect of a "human political philosophy" in Communism has never studied the practice of those who profess that ideology. Nor is Mr. Boyd's explanation of hostility to western "imperialism" sufficient. The Chinese Communists are bad because they are Communists, not because they are Chinese.
Even more alarming, this Australian scholar accepts the continued reign of Communism as a fait accompli. In this conclusion, all his seeming objectivity falls on its face. He shows that he does not know China and the Chinese. Even if Taiwan should sink beneath the sea tomorrow, Communism could not win China.