by Franz H. Michael and George E. Taylor, H. Holt & Co., New York, 1956
Franz Michael and George Taylor have written an extraordinary and stimulating book, 688 closely printed pages in length.
For two reasons, it is an important book. In the first place, it is a rich storehouse of useful information about the Far East, so rich that one is tempted to use the adjective "exhaustive" in describing it. I think this is one of the aims of the two writers, and they have been successful. In the second place, it is sound in its views on the subject of Russia and the Communists, about whom Michael and Taylor harbor no illusions. "Totalitarian Russia," they say, "has stepped into the place so recently filled by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan; the wartime ally was now identified as the main enemy (i. e. of the United States.)" About the political organization that brought Mao Tse-tung, Liu Shao-chi and Chou En-lai into power, they say: "The Chinese Communist party was a creation of the Communist International and was closely controlled by Moscow from the first." The Communist party "is not a political party in the usually accepted sense of the term but rather a new kind of political weapon well designed for the specific purpose of carrying out the design of a small group of men to seize state power and to force through a social and political revolution." The so-called "democratic centralism" of the Communists is the opposite of being democratic, because "there is no free discussion in the cells, ... even the topics to be raised in cell meetings are prescribed from above and the outcome of the debate is predetermined." In the exploitation of slave labor and cruelties to prisoners, the U. S. S. R. is really worse than Czarist Russia.
A correct understanding of this basic issue, however, has not prevented the authors from serious aberrations on other subjects. One of these is a dismal inability to understand the late Dr. Sun Yat-sen and President Chiang Kai-shek. They disparage Dr. Sun because he relied on the support of secret societies. They charge that he was not "a believer in the open political party and the parliamentary system." They also charge that in seeking support from abroad, he "had never been reluctant" to offer economic con cessions in exchange for foreign financial assistance. Their most extraordinary charge says that in the "warlord struggle" of the north, he had "sided with T'uan Ch'i-jui's Anfu clique." Regarding Generalissimo Chiang, suffice it to say that he is now the undisputed leader of the Free Chinese in their struggle against the Communist plague, and the Free World has need of him as a mainstay in a possible showdown fight with the Communist regimes in China, Korea and other countries. The topsy-turvy charges against Dr. Sun Yat-sen, however, require a careful re-examination here.
It is true that Dr. Sun Yat-sen accepted the support of secret societies. It was no sin, nor crime, to do so. Judging from the fact that the support of secret societies did no harm, but a great deal of good to the cause of the Chinese revolution, we cannot even consider it a mistake. In fact he had been quite right. Likewise with his so-called "siding" with the Anfu clique, when the latter offered opposition to the warlords Wu P'ei-fu and Chang Tso-lin. When he could not avoid making a choice between two evils, he had chosen the lesser one in preference to the greater evil. Again, it was neither a crime, nor a mistake. Regarding the offer of economic concessions in exchange for foreign assistance, our verdict is: there was nothing wrong with it if the concessions did no harm to the nation, and if the financial assistance went to a worthy public cause. Most surprising however, is the charge that Dr. Sun Yat-sen was not "a believer in the open political party and the parliamentary system." The fact is: he was the author of San Min Chu I, the Three People's Principles, which is the charter for the "open political party and the parliamentary system" in existence in Free China. Michael and Taylor simply have not bothered to seek the truth and to understand that Dr. Sun only opposed the open system while the military and political struggle against Yuan Shih-kai and his warlord successors was in progress, when there was no possibility of maintaining the "open political party and the parliamentary system." They have simply ignored the all important time element in making the absurd charge.
As these charges are based upon ill-digested and misinterpreted facts, they are especially misleading and damaging. What Messrs. Michael and Taylor fail to realize is that in rendering an opinion on Dr. Sun Yat-sen, they are passing judgment on a great national leader who has inspired the people of China to embrace the cause of "national salvation," to overthrow the Manchu monarchy, to organize a republic and to practise democracy. His mission in life was national salvation or national regeneration, and his goal was constitutional democracy and economic development. This is point one which the co-authors have failed to bear in mind.
Next, Dr. Sun Yat-sen was a pioneer in his field of endeavor in China. He had no teacher to show him how to go about his work, and no rule to guide him, and tell him what to do and what to avoid. All that he could do was to improvise and feel his way along. He was a medical student. He did not have a Ph. D. in political science or history; he did not finish a course in military training or strategy. And after a difficult start, luck was against him all along the way until the day he died in Peiping, mourned as a national hero all over the country by friends and foes alike. In view of all this, it is surprising how few mistakes he did make. This is the second point our two authors have failed to remember or chosen to ignore.
"Futile" I think is the adjective which Michael and Taylor chose to apply to the life of China's George Washington. If this is the way they felt about him, it must be because they thought the arduous labors of his life had ended in complete failure. If the life of Dr. Sun Yat-sen a complete failure? It is true that on the day he died in Peiping in 1925, China was a divided country ruled, or rather misruled, for the most part by ignorant warlords. But two years after his death, his disciples and followers under the leadership of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek came out of Canton on their North ward Expedition. In less than two years' time, China was liberated and reunited. When the Japanese invaded China, his disciples and followers assumed the leadership in fighting the enemy off in a war of resistance that lasted for eight years. When the flood of Red aggression inundates mainland China, and the sorrow-laden Chinese people fight for their freedom, and recovery of their mainland home, it is his disciples and followers again who fight in the forefront. In all three cases, the fighting was, and is, done under the leadership of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. In all three cases; the fighting was, and is, done in the name of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, of his Three People's Principles and of democracy.
A recital of these facts leads us to an important distinction. There are at least two kinds of great men in history. One kind of great men live to see their labors crowned with success. A second kind die before they could reach their goal; but they continue to exert an influence after their death, and their posthumous influence might well be greater than anything they could achieve in their lifetime. Such a great man was Confucius. Such a great man was Jesus Christ. I make bold to suggest that Dr. Sun Yat-sen was another great man who exerted a major posthumous influence. '
Aberrations of the same kind are shown also in the authors' treatment of Dr. Sun's Three People's Principles. Commenting on the principles formulated in 1924, Michael and Taylor say tartly: "Sun's lectures were full of commonplace statements, of inaccuracies, and of naiveties. Sun liked to show his knowledge of affairs of the world, but in trying to do this, his limitations became apparent. In a political speech to an uncritical audience his ideas must have been effective but as a political philosophy, they were woefully inadequate .… There was nothing else to express the beliefs for which the Nationalist leaders stood; and the Nationalist party continued to suffer from this ideological weakness." Apparently when they studied the Three People's Principles, they had expected something startling, sophisticated, and novel. They were disappointed and disappointment led to contempt and disparagement. Little did they realize that it was these very Three Principles that had kept the love of democracy and. republicanism alive in China and helped to build up resistance against Fascist as well as Communist totalitarianism. San Min Chu I, the Three People's Principles, or Sun Yat-senism, is a form of electicism. Dr. Sun's intention was to create a political plan that would combine the best features of western democracy and socialism without containing any of their defects: He succeeded. He had honestly, and modestly, admitted his indebtedness to others. He was not afraid to give credit to Maurice William and Henry George, though they were not fashionable writers. The component parts of Sun Yat-senism were not new, but the resulting synthesis was original, and specially designed to fit the Chinese nation. The test of a doctrine, or ideology, is not whether it contains commonplace statements, inaccuracies and naiveties, but whether it will work and whether it inspires confidence in the people. It is enough to point out here that the Chinese people have confidence in it and believe that it will work.
Of course, this is something about which Messrs. Michael and Taylor could not bother. "Although Sun may have aroused the nationalist feelings of his audience, his varied ideas can hardly be described as a political philosophy," they say. Our answer is: no more can we so describe "the varied ideas" of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. But that does not hurt the standing of Washington and Lincoln in the history of the United States. Nor does it hurt the position of Dr. Sun Yat-sen in the history of modern China.
The case of Franz H. Michael and George E. Taylor in The Far East in the Modern World is a peculiar one. Their detraction of Sun Yat-senism is not motivated by any pro-Soviet, pro-Japanese or even pro-British feeling, though G. E. Taylor was a Britisher. They are quite impartial. In fact, they have spared neither the Communist Imperialism of Soviet Russia nor the Capitalist Imperialism of Great Britain. About Imperial Japan, they are equally caustic. Regarding the Japanese bureaucracy, Messrs. Michael and Taylor have made a few bold and sweeping remarks, one of which reads:
"There were few Japanese politicians who did not accept bribes, and corruption was taken for granted as a part of the system."
In spite of their biases, Michael and Taylor's The Far East in the Modern World remains an important book, because it is a rich storehouse of interesting and useful in formation. But on account of their biases, their views and conclusions have to be received with caution.
PAUCIS VERBIS
CHINA HANDBOOK 1956-57
China Publishing Co., Taipei
851 Pages, NT$100, 1956
This is the only book in the world that has everything about China - old China, new China; Free China, Communist occupied China; China of yesterday, China as she is progressing at present toward her appointed destiny. This latest of the yearly publication on China has grown from a humble beginning to a huge tome. Its twenty-three chapters are mostly devoted to the description of the government structure and the financial, educational, economic and other developments in Free China. One fairly lengthy chapter, however, is devoted to the description of the Chinese Communists and their Peiping regime. The chapter Chronology of Major Events and Who's Who, should be extremely valuable for reference.
As is true with all its predecessors, the foreword is a brief review of important international developments in Asia. Its theme this year is neutralism, for the editors think it is their duty to warn the free world of its danger. Neutralism is of two kinds - one that is embraced through ignorance and one adopted by choice. But either form is dangerous, as may be seen from the following quotation from the book:
Hence, regardless of whether neutralism is embraced through ignorance or by choice, it poses a serious threat to the free world in two ways. First, it tends to isolate the anti-Communist nations.
Secondly, it weakens the neutralist nations till they fall easy prey to the Communists. There are those who believe that the free world should help to build up the economic and military potential of the neutralist nations so that they can ward off Communist aggression. But the sad truth is that no matter how much material aid they may receive, they lack the will to fight. Hence, to build them up is to make their con quest more attractive and profitable to the Communists. In this sense, every dollar that goes to the aid of the neutralist nations will work against the interests of the free nation of the world in one way or another .....
Chapter I is devoted to the description of the year's major developments in Free China. It rightly begins with the veto which the Republic of China cast in the United Nations Security Council on December 13, 1955, to defeat Soviet Russia's attempt to gain admission into the United Nations for Outer Mongolia under the so-called "package deal." This move is memorable in that it is the first veto used by a free nation to defeat a Soviet insidious design.
The chapter on foreign affairs tells China's increased diplomatic relationship with the world, especially with the Middle Eastern and the Latin American countries. In the former, China filled a long-felt need by the appointment of Ambassador Wu Nan-ju to Iran and the elevation of the Chinese Legation at Baghdad to the rank of embassy. To the latter, a whole panel of new emissaries were appointed.
The chapter on economic affairs shows great increases in the last few years in many important products - - rice, pineapple, orange, tobacco, fishery, copper, sulphur, sugar, wheat flour, cotton yarn, cotton piece goods, paper, caustic soda, plate glass, aluminum ingots, bicycles, sewing machines, electric power, etc. Two entirely new industries - - synthetic fiber and glass-making - - were established in the last two years.
In the chapter on land reform is a description of the most unique form of land reform in the world. As the rural land reform in Free China is nearing completion in the course of which the tillers of the soil were enabled to own the land they tilled, Free China is now carrying out another phase of Dr. Sun Yat-sen's land reform policy, the equalization of land rights in the urban areas. All the legislation and preparatory work have been completed; and it is expected that in the next few years this phase of the land reform would be fully implemented.
Some new material is added to the chapter on the Communist regime. The observation on its first five-year plan is worth noting. For this reason, I quote the following:
To carry out the five-year plan, the Chinese Communists have slaughtered innumerable innocent people, impoverished 450,000,000 people. The net result is some production increase on paper by the juggling of statistical figures anti the creation of a number of white elephants that will serve the interests of an alien master at the expense of their own countrymen. The Who's Who chapter is greatly enlarged. If this increase goes on, the editorial board of the Handbook may have to make a separate book of this chapter.
B. C. FAN