Youth Day in Nationalist China is a most important occasion. It commemorates a number of youthful revolutionary martyrs who date back to the great days of Sun Yat-sen and the revolution of 1911. As I entered the enormous and beautifully designed Stadium, patriotic songs were being roared in harmony by the immense crowd. Addresses were read by girls and young men. The Stadium was packed to capacity and the crowd present was a revelation. All well dressed, all good-looking, with various uniforms, including Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, they were the cream of their generation. Let me say here that Formosa has a larger population than Australia, over 10,000,000, in an area comparable to the State of Victoria. It has flourishing industries, sugar, oil-refining, fertilizer, grain. On the mountain sides, after the terraces of the rice fields, tea is the first consideration. Then comes the sugar cane, then thickets of bamboo, and finally trees which are turned into lumber. The name Formosa was first used by Portuguese explorers centuries ago. It means "Beautiful Island" and deserves the title. The great park on Grass Mountain, called Yang Ming Shan, compares with the Villa d'Este, outside Rome. A river has been tamed and controlled, converted into a series of flashing cascades extending over hundreds of acres of lawns and flower beds. But this is by the way.
The arrival of the President was heralded by the playing of the National Anthem, a hymn-like tune that aroused enormous enthusiasm. It was beautifully sung. Then Chiang Kai-shek mounted' the rostrum. He is much younger in appearance than his 70 years, very much better looking than his photographs suggest, and a slow, solemn speaker with a suggestion of harshness in the Mandarin Chinese which he invariably uses. This is not at all noticeable in private conversation. He was received by the vast assembly with absolute adulation. Someone has suggested to me that this same spirit was manifested by Nazi Germany twenty years ago. I would deny this-there was something so spontaneous in this rapturous welcome that moved me to join in the cheering. It was not pre-arranged and it was not mass hysteria. It was very much closer to the spontaneous tributes paid to our own beloved Monarch when she visited Australia. The President made a great appeal for loyalty and patriotism—he recalled the sacrifices of those earlier years and demanded the same spirit from the Chinese of today. He evoked it. As he left the Stadium with his small entourage, he was wildly cheered and the brass band once more challenged the cheers with the National Anthem. It was a memorable occasion.
As I sat in the great reception hall of the Residency-a magnificent building dating back to the period when Formosa was occupied by the Japanese-I allowed my mind to run back over Chiang's career. Throughout his long life he has been an implacable hater of Communism and Communists. This is the criterion by which every action must be judged. Probably no man living has been subjected to such bitter criticism or struck so many sparks of antagonism as the man I was to meet. He has the reputation of being a remote, aloof individual, giving his confidence to few and rarely ever seeking the advice of others. To some he is a discredited Dictator, who lost China through his own shortcomings. To others, and I am to be numbered with them, he is, in the words of an American Ambassador, Leighton Stuart-the man who knows the Chinese character better than any other living individual-he is "a devotedly patriotic, incorruptible, resourceful leader." Almost as soon as I stepped off the plane on my return to Australia I was met with the question; "Surely you are not going to try and sell us Chiang Kai-shek?" I replied: "No, but I do hope to do him justice, as I saw him, and the administration over which he presides." It is not necessary for any salesmanship as far as appreciation of Chiang Kai-shek is concerned, once you have been to Formosa and when once you have talked to the man himself.
I recalled the fact that Chiang Kai-shek, and the name means Firm Rock, was the son of a small salt merchant in an obscure province. He left school to join Dr. Sun Yat-sen and the revolution against the Manchus. Sun Yat-sen sent him to Moscow for further revolutionary training. It is not always remembered that he had this firsthand experience of what Moscow stood for then and for which it still stands. On his return he said: "What they call 'internationalism' and 'world revolution' is nothing better than German Kaiser imperialism". In the great days of 1928, Chiang followed up the death of Sun Yat-sen by establishing the Nationalist Government, by purging some of the Communists and expelling the Russian advisers. He started a fight which still continues-remember that in Formosa he is still fighting a war, although not, at the moment, with guns.
I recalled his marriage with the beautiful Mayling Soong, one of three famous sisters, one of whom is Mme. Sun Yat-sen. She has given him magnificent support. She shares with him a deep and sincere belief in Christianity. She usually joins him for morning devotions-he rises before six and starts the day with an hour of prayer and meditation. Sometimes they sit speechless and wrapped in deepest meditation for the full hour. Chiang Kai-shek is a very spiritual person-he carries the aura of this with him. He is stubborn because he never yields unless he believes that his course of action is in accordance with God's will. His home life is simple-he usually lunches alone with Mme. Chiang and he is devoted to his grandchildren, the sons of Chiang Ching-kuo's Russian-born wife. He is a non-smoker and non-drinker-he takes only water and very weak tea with his simple meals. He is an enormous worker and he is also a master of the difficult art of writing the Chinese characters. The inscription brushed in on the photograph which he presented to me is a perfect example of Chinese calligraphy. The man I was to meet was the President of China, Director-General of the political Party known as the Kuomintang, commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He may be considered a one-man government but if this is so, it is because he commands reverence, respect and deep affection, because he inspires fear on the part of those who have reason to fear him.
And then, quite suddenly, I found myself in his presence. I was introduced by the President of the Kuomintang Party, whom I had met in Manila some weeks earlier. He rose from behind his big desk, removed the small black skull cap which he wears and advanced towards me without hesitation, with outstretched hand. I was waved to a seat and our conversation proceeded with the aid of a skilled interpreter. His features seemed sculptured, so fine were they, his thin angular face is full of spiritual power. He suggests something of the monastic life of a monk. Yet his face lights up, his black eyes brighten, as he hears some comment that merits his approval. Our conversation was off the record and my questions and answers may not be recorded. This I can say-I received the most frank and complete answers; in return I endeavoured to answer the questions of the President with equal frankness, although perhaps I lacked something of the rare courtesy which marked every utterance on his part. After half an hour I was able to make my adieus, starry-eyed and filled with the memory of an experience which will, in all probability, never be mine again. As I retired the President said to me, "I hope you will come and see me again .. come and stay with me for a week when you can manage it." I replied that I hoped I would live long enough to pay my respects to him on the Mainland of China, preferably in Peking, that is, if I lived long enough. He said: "You will live long enough-shall we say five years?" And I want to use that as the expression of a sincere belief not only on the part of Chiang himself, but of his Ministers, hard-headed, shrewd men, who know exactly what is involved. They honestly and sincerely believe that the Nationalist Government will be reestablished on the Mainland, and within the foreseeable future. These men are not dreamers living in the past. Whether or not they can succeed if the great adventure is undertaken is not for me to say. But they know what they are doing, the calculated risks that are involved, and of this I am firmly convinced, that if ever a third world war eventuates, or perhaps even a smaller war, the attempt to regain the mainland will be made.
And this is what Chiang Kai-shek and his government are trying to do. They are building up Formosa-Taiwan, as they call it, as a show window exhibiting what democracy can do, showing a standard of living that the Red Chinese can never hope to emulate. The scheme of giving land to the farmers, the Land-to-the-Tiller programme, as it is called, is one of the best ever devised. I went half way across Formosa to watch it in operation. I went into farm houses and talked freely with the new owners. They are enthusiastic. It is the exact opposite of the Collective Farming methods of Russia and satellite countries. It is free and independent ownership in the fullest degree. The dispossessed landlords, allowed to retain sufficient land for their own needs, are not faced with confiscation-they receive an amount of shares in established industries and in Government bonds to make certain that they do not lose any of their capital. It is not confiscated, but diverted into other channels than just ownership of the land. I was tremendously impressed by the way in which this great scheme is being implemented. Rents are pegged at 37.5 per cent of year's crop. Formosa has always enjoyed a high standard of living. It was second only to Japan before the war. Under Chiang this standard has been raised still higher. Electric power has been doubled, fertilizer and textiles have been increased by the hundredfold. I inspected a textile mill where the amenities amazed me; I saw also at Keelung the great fertilizer works which would compare with anything in Australia. The Formosan dollar is the most stable currency in the East; it is worth more than the Japanese yen. Nine out of ten Formosan children go to school and literacy is very high. Chinese newspapers are read by millions and magazines also. Political freedom is wide-the Mayor of Taipei opposed a Kuomintang candidate and won handsomely in a secret ballot election.
There are many difficulties which it has not been possible to round out; many very difficult problems which are still to be solved. Taiwan is no island paradise. It has dragons which have to be faced and fought-economic, social and political. But there is the strength, the courage and the resource to do this. The tall, frail· looking leader, determined to return to the Mainland, should not be written off as a total loss. Formosa must be saved as a bastion for the defence of the free world. As Robert Gordon Menzies said in Washington, almost exactly a year ago- "There are far too many people who have been taking the easy way of thinking about these things in terms of some man or some name. We don't defend a man, we don't defend a system of government-we defend a nation against tyranny from abroad."
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King Ho Chien of the Late Wei Dynasty had a maid servant by the name of Chao Yun. When the tribes in Sinkiang rebelled and came to attack Wei, the king had Chao Yun disguised as an old woman and told her to play the flute at the frontline. When the invaders heard the music, they grew homesick and pulled up their tents and went home.
Retold by Edward Y. K. Kwong
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Editor's Note—This is the script of a radio broadcast by Mr. J. M. Prentice on the Swell of Music program in Sydney, Australia.