Correspondence

A LETTER FROM PEKING.

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]

may be not long before your Peking Correspondent is subscribing himself your Nanking, or else your Hankow Correspondent. The removal of the capital to the Yangtze has always been on the Southerners' programme and their Commander-in-Chief, Chiang Kai-shek, included it in the statement of the Kuomintang' aims which he recently made to the public.

This wish on the part of the revolutionary party to shift the capital is very understandable. In the first place, Peking is an utterly illogical site for the metropolis of China. Jenghis Khan's empire, when he made Peking his capital, stretched indefinitely northward and westward, but to-day the city lies on the very edge of China, hard up against the Mongolian border. Furthermore, it has been associated during half the period of its existence as a capital with alien domination, first Mongol then Prianehu, -aild-although the latter have now been finally evicted, their vast palace i and palace-grounds occupying the entire centre of the city still give the _keynote to its whole character. After so many centuries of emperors and mandarins it has become steeped with the conservative spirit, and such seeds of the modem nationalism as find their way over its sixty-foot walls fall mostly on rocky soil. True, we have our ultra-radical students hire every place in China, but the whole tradition of Peking favours the old order and it is no wonder that the Nationalists want to cut adrift from the past and found a new centre in a less reactionary environment.

For the diplomats and other satellites of the Government the prospect of a change-of capital is a grievous one. Peking is, taken all round, the most desirable living place in China. It has a very endurable climate (if you can shut your eyes to our fearsome Gobi duststorms), it is full of beautiful buildings and landscapes with its acres of lakes, temples and palaces, it has the dignified, mellow atmosphere which attaches to old historic towns, lies in pleasant country with hills near at hand, and for Chinese and foreigners alike has great social charms and an abundance of cultural interests. To leave it for one of the Yangtze ports would be a sorry exchange. Nanking would have some compensations. It is surrounded with very delightful scenery and is only a stone's throw from Shanghai—as we count distance in China-- and by that much nearer to home. (We still chiefly depend on the sea routes. The trans-Siberian railway is, it is true, working its way back to normal, but the military interruptions are so frequent at this end that it is a broken reed to lean on.) Before the Taiping Rebellion the "Southern Capital," as it has been called since the days of the Mings, rivalled Peking in magnificence and surpassed it in the matter of size, but the Taipings having reduced it to a mass of rubble, the modern Nanking is a featureless town of no very great importance, lost in the vast space encompassed by the old walls. The alternative choice, Hankow, is 400 miles further up river, has almost the worst climatic reputation in China and little to set against it ; transplantation to the banks of the Han holds forth no attractions.

It is quite on the cards, of course, that instead of a change of capital, China will find herself endowed with two. At present the country is split into halves, north and south of the Yangtze. Leaving out of account the far western provinces which are taken up with their own little civil wars. the Cantonese hold everything south of the river excepting wedge enclosed between the lower reaches and the sea and containing Shanghai, Hangchow and Nanking. At any moment this remaining piece may fall into their hands either by force of arms, or, more probably, through the defection of some subordinate general on the other side. If the Powers should then make up their minds to recognize the Southern government, there will be two independent Chinas. This may be the temporary solution, but it is not one that can last.

In no sense at all is the Yangtze a natural frontier. If you are looking for such, the Yellow River has the best claims from

an economic and ethnological standpoint, but a real line of

division between the north and the south does not exist. The oneness of the people in mentality, habit and character 'throughout the whole stretch of two thousand miles from Manchuria to Kwangtung is among the most striking things in China. Peking is full of men from the southern provinces, but it takes a foreign resident a long time before he can dis- tinguish them with any certainty from the natives. A clean

division into two parts like the present is accidental and artificial ; in the long run China will either preserve her integrity or else break up altogether.

The recent revival of interest in China affairs at home in Parliament and the Press, not to mention one's friends' letters: has done a good deal to hearten the British community. Coupled with the arrival of our new Minister, Sir Mlles Lamp son, with his reputation for energy and initiative, it leads us to hope that the whole Far Eastern situation is about to he treated in a more positive fashion than during the last fess years, and that something like a concentrated effort will be made to rescue the British interests in China out of the slough of despond into which they have fallen. No doubt the arousal of public interest is helped considerably by the fact that the newspapers are now able to present a plain black. and white picture of the position in terms of "North" versus

South," instead of a mere jumble of party feuds involving a rigmarole of names. The situation is comparatively simple if you think of the " South " as standing for nationalism, democracy and the abolition of foreign privilege (Sun Yat Sen's fundamentals) with a layer of Bolshevism on top, and the " North " as identified with " satrap " rule, traditionalism and a pragmatical attitude towards foreign relations. The danger is that one may simplify too much.

The antithesis is real as between individual leaders and limited number of their followers and on the southern side the Kuomintang programme certainly commands the almost fanatical allegiance of large bodies of students. But to the vast majority of the Chinese this war is hardly distinguishable from the succession of private " tuehun " wars that have been racking China for the past several years and this view is much truer than the distant onlooker might think. Many, if not most, of the military commanders are fighting in reality for their own hands in the good old style as they show by their readiness to " switch " at any moment, and there is actually a rumour current at the present moment, though of uncertain authenticity, that the prot- agonists, Mukden and Canton, are planning to stop warring against each other and to make an alliance against all third parties. In China it is rare for the game to be played out to its logical end and one must always be prepared for a reshuffle which will upset all previous calculations ; wherein lies one of the chief difficulties of foreign diplomacy in China.

Although the nationalist movement camouflages so many personal rivalries and ambitions (a decent cloak for one's motives is a sine qua non in China), I am far from suggesting that it is not a very real thing. In a somewhat rudimentary form nationalism has permeated China as it has nearly all the more advanced peoples of Asia and Africa. It is especially strong in Canton, which is more highly developed politically than the northern provinces. It was bound to bring a good deal of anti-foreignism in its train, and one must admit that there was a basis for grievance in much that the foreigners have done in and towards China in the course of the last half- century, but with friendliness and foresight we might have coped with the change without any very serious consequences. The Bolshevists, however, saw their chance and leaped in. Under their guidance, aided by a profuse expenditure of funds, Chinese nationalism has been wedded to Chinese militarism and transmuted into raging Anglophobia. The Communists art. openly determined to boycott our trade to death and to drive us out of the country. The measure of their success is the semi-paralysis of Hongkong, the withdrawals of British subjects from many places inland and our present situation in Hankow. The British Legation has recently published the Government's memorandum addressed to the other Treaty Powers proposing a radical readjustment of the joint attitude towards the treaties, the tariff and extraterritorial jurisdiction, but with the tragic experience of the past one is unable to feel much confidence in the Powers pulling together even at this critical juncture. The best hope lies in the Nationalists themselves coming to realize that they are being made a mere tool of Bolshevist antagonism to England and of their revolting against their Russian mentors.

Fcng Yu-hsiang has had a mention in most of my previous letters and I must reserve a paragraph for him on the present occasion. After his eviction from Peking in the spring his army went into the desert, i.e., retired to the remote regions of Kensu and the western Mongolian border, while he himself became a willing exile to Moscow. The Cantonese success brought him again into the open. He has marched his small but well-trained army back through Shansi and is already threatening the Peking-Hankow railway, one of the only

two lines of communication between here and the Yangtze. If he joins up with the Southerners, the nationalist forces will receive a powerful addition, but the result may not be quite plain sailing. Feng has great personal character, Possibly more than any other commanders, and it will remain to see how—to use 1...a American phrase—he " clicks " with the Cantonese.—! am, Sir, &c., YOUR PEKING CORRESPONDENT.

December 28M, 1926.