The British Stake in China
In a cool, objective but inevitably gloomy survey of the situation confronting British interests in China, Mr. W. rj. Keswick, the chairman of the China Association, has made it clear that these face imminent extinction. Encouraged by their own authorities to stay at their posts and later, when the Communist armies arrived, assured by the Peking Government that they had a useful part to play in the reconstruction of the country, the British merchants, bankers and industrialists, not without personal risk and hardship, stuck it out. The year which has since elapsed has shown no wavering in the policy of restriction and exaction which the People's Government has applied to the foreign business community. Trade has been at a standstill, a continuous flow of funds has had to be pumped in, at an unrealistic rate of exchange, to pay staffs and to meet the arbitrary fiscal commitments imposed by the Chinese authorities. This drain on their resources has already proved too much for some of the smaller firms, and even the larger ones are near the end of their tether. Of the alleviation which was, reasonably enough, expected to follow our,recognition of the Peking Government five months ago there are no signs, and our emissary in the capital is as powerless to conduct diplomatic negotiations as his compatriots are to conduct business transactions. Complaints about the British attitude over Chinese representation at Lake Success and about the seventy transport aircraft detained at Hongkong pending a decision of the courts serve by implication as an excuse for Chinese policy ; but it seems likely, since this policy is contrary to Chinese interests, that it is largely dictated froin Moscow. There is a very faint ray of hope to be seen in the recent evacuation by the Nationalists of the Chusan Islands at the mouth of the Yangtse, which must mean the partial lifting of the blockade and should ease conditions in Shanghai. But the outlook as a whole is unquestionably sombre.
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