Taiwan Today

I hope, if war comes to Taiwan itself—it could, if the Chinese Communists blunder enough, in the form of air attacks—that there will be recaptured on this island the spirit of Chung­king. The spirit of Chungking, in the war against Japan, was a grand and glorious thing, some­thing epic. And yet, recent though the Sino-Japanese War is, the spirit of Chungking is something which seems almost forgotten. It should never be. The spirit of Chungking, brave and valiant and undaunted, sustained China in the darkest days of Japanese aggression. When I first became a reporter in China, thirty years ago, I had in mind, possibly subconsciously, that I was not a politician, but mere­ly a chronicler of events. I was not out to influence Chinese history—that would have been extravagantly presumptuous—but to record it, as I could see it from the sidelines. My present attitude is the same. Yet, if I were a politician, there is something of which I would never cease reminding the people of Free China: the spirit of Chungking. Maybe I have not read all the Nationalist pronouncements since Soviet Russia conquered China by proxy, but I do not recollect many instances in which persons in high position here in Tai­wan have referred to the spirit of Chungking. If I were a statesman, or a politician—and I realize that the term "politician" has not the same good connotation as that of "statesman"­—I should never cease referring to the spirit of Chungking. I know in my bones that if war comes to Taiwan, the people of Free China will respond with the same spirit; but I do think that if more of the people of Free China and sympa­thizers abroad were to remember it, they would have greater faith, greater hope and greater courage when the supreme trial comes. The civil war is now one of sporadic incidents, but the danger of full-fledged war is there; and what is needed today, before the real, anguishing ordeal begins, is the spirit of Chungking. I know it exists latently. But, in my very humble opinion, many people still do not have a true apprehension of what it really was. I have said it was grand and glorious and epic, but these words only poorly express its transcendent nature. I haven't the ability to describe it adequately, but—if the suggestion is not too venturesome—I think that the Chinese who lived in wartime Chungking and, from the lit­erary point of view, are far more generously endowed than I am, should recall and write, again and again, about the spirit of Chungking. That grand and glorious and epic spirit could well be a rallying cry when the final battle between Free China and Communist China comes.