Correspondence
A LETTER FROM PEKING.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR"
Sin,—The union of North and South China (consummated after a brief divorce in 1912-13) was commemorated recently by a national bank holiday. The irony of celebrating the event in the midst of a first-class war between the parties concerned probably struck the foreigner more forcibly than the Chinese, not because the latter is a whit behind in his sense of humour, but because his mind is less obsessed than ours by the passing events of the moment. He knows by experience how easily his countrymen go from peace to war and back again. When Chinese fight together there is . always a " compromise " waiting round the corner, and even now a sudden stoppage of the war by arrangement between the leaders would surprise nobody.
It cannot be said, however, that the latest developments point in this direction. Sun Chuan-fang--who had just issued a proclamation in the best Mukden style denouncing the Can- tonese as Communists, a deadly danger to the country to be stamped out like the plague—has been driven neck and crop out of Hangehow, and is falling back on Shanghai. This sudden unheralded success of the Nationalists in Chekiang suggests a repetition of the tactics which served them so well last year in Hunan and Kiangsi, where they held back their troops until the ground ahead had been thoroughly worked by their trained propagandists and then launched an attack which carried everything before it—an example of warfare in the modern Russian style which deserves careful attention.
Shanghai is the "big plum " of China. It not only con- tributes some 40 per cent. of the whole Customs revenue, but it also supplies whoever holds it with tens of millions of dollars a year " squeeze " on the illicit opium traffic (con- ducted, of course, almost entirely outside the International Settlement). This fact may at any time create an embarrassing situation, since, in defending the foreign Settlement, we may become malgre nous the protectors of the man on the spot, and so incur the charge of partizanship.
The Western " front " is also waking up. There (in Honan, that is to say) the position is obscured by the usual Chinese complication of desertion among subordinates. Raving waited the whole winter for Wu Pei-fii to launch his pro- mised campaign for the recapture of Hankow, Chang Tao-lin has lost patience and, regardless of Vu's objections, is sending his own troops across the Yellow River. Meanwhile several of Wu's generals have veered to the Cantonese and now threaten to fight the Mukden men instead of joining them in a march against Hankow. If they unite with Peng Yu- lisiang and the Cantonese troops which already hold the southern edge of the province, and if at the same time they can collect sufficient ammunition (always a difficulty for the South who are cut off from the sea-board), the Northerners may find the tables turned on them and have to defend Peking instead of advancing on the Yangtze.
In the meantime the O'Malley-Chen negotiations continue to see-saw. An agreement regarding Hankow would serve as the first step towards the general resettlement of our relations with China. The Hankow conversations deal prin- cipally with the question of the British Concession, and as such very distorted pictures of the foreign Concessions generally have been appearing in the Press, it may be well to try, so far as space allows, to show these spots on the map of China in their right proportions.
Over-emphasis of the historically true, but not very essen- tial, fact that the Concessions and Settlements arc mostly reclaimed mudtlats is only a degree less misleading than the blatantly false, however well-sponsored, assertion that they consist of flourishing cities wrested from the Chinese. What they were to start with has, in any case, little importance compared with what they are to-day. As regards their origin, suffice it to say that in the early days of the China trade a foreign enclave at a treaty port was almost essential on account of the dissimilarity between Chinese and foreign habits and modes of life, and that segregation was a matter of mutual convenience.. If any reproach in the matter • is to be levied against bur predecessors, it must be on the general ground that their efforts to break down the wall built against the foreigner and to compel China to open herself to inter. national trade was an immoral proceeding. Perhaps it was, but that is another and a very wide-reaching question.
The extraordinary importance since acquired by these enclaves, in spite of the fact that they are mostly diminutive annexes of large Chinese cities—Shanghai being an exception —is simply the index of foreign superiority in mercantile enterprise, technical skill and the art of administration. The foreign administered areas have incomparably better buildings wharves, roads, sanitation, and police, than any native city. The gap tends to grow smaller on the purely materia: side and modernization is proceeding, especially at Canton, though the improvement there is very far short of what the Kuomintang claim. But Chinese conditions in regard to municipal government, public health and the protection of civil rights remain infinitely far from our standards. A test of the difference is the land values in foreign Concessions, which are kept sky-high by the pressure of well-to-do Chinese seeking the security which is obtainable only within the Con- cession boundaries.
Such an anomalous state of affairs has naturally bred evils, not the least being the use of the Concessions as political sanctuaries and, it must be added, the engendering of the exclusive "treaty port" spirit which is one of the principal bars between foreigners and Chinese. The very existence of these extraterritorialized areas of which only the soil is Chinese naturally irritates China's younger generation and hurts their amour propre even while they take advantage of the security and other benefits that foreign Concessions offer.
The British Government's proposal for converting the British Concessions into special administrative areas with municipal representation (a thing unknown in Chinese cities) and joint financial control is the common-sense solution, though it is necessary to realize that such an arrangement will mean at the best a great falling away from existing standards of honesty and efficiency with loss to the foreigners concerned. Be it mentioned, however, that the British Concessions number only four and cover in all sonic fifteen hundred acres.
One thing that is a really hopeful sign in an otherwise dark situation is the certainty that our Government at home have at last adopted a fixed line of action. Nothing could work ti better effect than their clear determination not to be side- tracked from the policy they have laid down of giving China every possible chance of recovering sovereign rights by peace- ful negotiation while fulfilling the elementary duty of pro- tecting life and, as far as possible, property. The King. Speech and subsequent Government statements have helped to clinch the position and ought to go far towards destroying the fable of Britain's "Imperialistic aggression." There can from now onwards be little genuine mistrust regarding the Shanghai defence force in the minds of our Chinese friend', who know all too well the grim reality of the danger when an unprotected city falls into the power of Chinese soldiery.- I am, Sir, &c.,
- YOUR PEKING CORRESPONDENT.
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