Chiang Kai-Shek

by Emily Hahn

  We would not like it at home—all those stern, important young prigs in power bustling about—but the Generalissimo liked it. Something in him has always responded to the voice and spirit of Lord Baden-Powell. One of the confusing aspects about this far from simple story of Red eradication is that although the Communists had long been claiming to have wiped out gambling and prostitution from all their occupied territory in Kiangsi and Hunan, the lads of the Special Movement Force claimed that they put down gambling and prostitution, which they found in a flourishing state at the take-over. We can therefore conclude that, at any rate, whoever chased out vice, it must have been well and truly eradicated by the time both armies finished with it.

  But this is a comparatively minor point. A more important one is that when the conquering troops marched in they found a cruel state of starvation among the people, and the Special Movement Force was efficient in carrying relief to them.

  Chiang Kai-shek grew confident, then cheerful, then exultant. The new tactics were working like a charm. Reds evacuated town after town, retreating further and further, from Hunan and Fukien and Hupei, until they had been pushed at last into an unhappy huddle in Kiangsi and Juichin itself was threatened. Nanking left them no chance to play at the old game of luring vanguards into mountain ambushes. The Reds abandoned their guerrilla technique and adopted positional warfare, and continued to lose ground at an even swifter rate. Mao Tse-tung, struggling for mastery over his fleeing troops, blamed his rivals the Returned Students for this shift in the old pattern, but it was probably inevitable.

  By October, Chiang’s forces had chased one large contingent of Reds, who broke out of the circle, into Fukien. In Kiangsi they captured two thousand prisoners in one battle. A month later they were preparing to close in for the kill. They were outside Juichin, the last stronghold, and expected to find the main part of the Red Army there. But the Communists outwitted them.

  The southwest part of the cordon was at its weakest point, where Hunan and Kwangtung troops were stationed. Ninety thousand Communists—men, women, and children, carrying whatever they could of arms and machinery and supplies—had secretly replaced their army lines with local partisans, and themselves slipped to the south of Kiangsi. On the fifteenth of October they suddenly attacked the belt that had held them in its grip for so long, and the surprise and ferocity of the onslaught carried them through, bursting into freedom out of Kiangsi. Then they set out on the famous “Long March” that was to lead them, after a year of wandering over at least six thousand miles, to the Northwest. They did not march as one band of brothers, however. There was a lot of bickering, and many were the angry messages telegraphed to Moscow. Accusations and self-defense crowded the air, but within four months, at the beginning of 1935 at a party conference en route, Mao won out.

  There was no more competition in the Chinese Communist ranks, at least none that counted. Mao was the acknowledged leader of his band, for what leadership was worth at that low ebb of their history. The conference disbanded; the Communists continued the Long March; and in Kiangsi, Chiang Kai-shek set to work on the next phase of his program, reconstruction.

  In 1934 several governmental crises swelled up and broke. The earliest of these was a hang-over from the year before—dissension not only within the government, but in the Soong family itself. In this, T. V. Soong, the white-haired boy of treaty-port banking circles, was a victim of his Western education.

  He had a tidy mind to begin with, and Harvard had made it tidier. When T.V. came back to China and took up in turn the various appointments culminating in his ministership of Finance, the most outspoken critics of the “Soong Dynasty” among foreigners could find no fault with this choice. They had their grievances against the other Soongs, especially Mayling herself; people do hold grievances against other people in power. But T.V., they told each other, knew his stuff. You could deal with T.V., he talked your language, the language of American banks. You could depend on him. T.V. was always on time for an appointment, and this in a country where two hours one way or the other made no difference to most natives was noteworthy indeed.

  But the qualities that made him popular among Americans and British brought trouble upon his head. He was so American that Chinese methods of finance, or what they fondly considered methods, drove him as crazy as they drove native Americans. He started out full of energy and determination to put China on the map as a sensible, solvent country. Almost before he knew it he was running into that great stone wall, his brother-in-law Chiang Kai-shek. Chaing had no use for facts and figures. When he meant to spend money on army equipment, he didn’t want his Finance Minister coming in and making a scene and telling him it couldn’t be done. When he planned to start government schools in the hinterland or construct roads for the Army or build up his air arm, it irritated him to be told the nation couldn’t afford it. T.V.’s alternative plans for money didn’t interest Chiang.

  The friction between Mayling’s husband and her brother could ordinarily have been smoothed over, for family spirit was strong in the Soongs. But it so happened that the old clan cohesiveness was under a strain about that time. It grew out of the fact that T.V. was quite a man for the ladies. He was tall and broad and good-looking, the most eligible of all the government crowd; naturally he was much in demand. New Life Movement or no New Life Movement, the moneyed young ladies of Nanking and Shanghai had begun to indulge in the joys of independent life. T.V. was said to have got mixed up with a girl. Madame Kung was a friend of this girl: she tried to interfere and put a stop to what she considered a disastrous relationship. T.V. resented the interference. He said there was nothing to interfere with anyway. There was a quarrel. He who quarrels with Madame Kung quarrels with Madame Chiang, and so the next time T.V. was at outs with the Generalissimo, no devoted little sister stood ready to pour oil on the waves. When next Chiang demanded extra money for the anti-Red campaign T.V. resigned, and his resignation was accepted. He went abroad, and H. H. Kung took his place in the Ministry.

  So it was more than a routine upheaval, and it was also part of a long history of trouble among the Soongs on the subject of political beliefs. In the purge of 1927, T.V. had havered between sisters; Mayling and Eling on the Right, Chingling on the Left. Because they nearly got him the Communists have always looked upon him with a certain proprietary fondness. There, they feel, with just a little more push, goes a man who could be saved. His American briskness, his Babbitt-like exterior, never put the Reds off. During all their propaganda campaigns for foreign consumption they condemned Kung and built him up in their cartoons as a great fat devil, but T.V., whose weight at that time was at about the same figure and whose background is even more damningly Wall Street, has always been left a loophole. There were many times when in a burst of anger against Mayling and Eling and their husbands he nearly made up his mind to step across the line and join hands with his other sister. He never quite did.

  While he tightened the bonds of co-operation between southern war lords, Chiang tidied up a few other matters, as, for instance, what face China should now show the world in foreign affairs. The nation was becoming a respectable entity and he thought she held enough rank now to support embassies rather than mere legations. Hitherto most of the foreign powers had not agreed with this estimation. Only Russia maintained an embassy, and that was a dubious compliment at best. Now the attitude was changing; Mussolini’s Italy was especially keen to take her place in world trade, and that meant grabbing some of China’s custom from the other foreigners. Already Shanghai was thronged with Italian munitions salesmen: in March 1934 it was announced that thenceforth Italy’s legation would be an embassy. Japan promptly followed suit, jealous for her enormous market. Rather more majestically, Great Britain and America followed, and then Germany. There was an exciting reshuffle in various foreign offices, and social life among the foreigners in Nanking received a jolt in the arm, though this made small difference to Chiang and his immediate circle.

  At the same time that Japa
n was exchanging such diplomatic compliments with her neighbor, unfriendly goings on were clearly visible north of the Wall. A Japanese adventurer, Major General Kenji Doihara, had finally carried out the old plan formulated in Tokyo, years before, and “restored” Pu-yi, the former child Emperor of China, to a throne in Manchuria, which country the Japanese had by this time renamed “Manchukuo.” The enthronement made the Chinese boil with rage, and Chiang was just in time to keep the Southwest Political Council from sending a “manifesto” off to Japan and Manchuria on its own bat. No, no, said the Generalissimo, the autonomy of Canton was all very well but it didn’t go as far as that. Nanking, and only Nanking, was empowered to deal with foreign countries in that way. Wonder of wonders, the Cantonese submitted. The manifesto was signed by Nanking. This was a negligible matter, as diplomatic exchanges so often are, but it was also a triumph of a new sort. The lords of Kwangtung and Kwangsi were actually beginning to be reasonable.

  Chiang followed up his victory with a suggestion that the whole lot of them—Chen Chi-tang, Hu Han-min, Pai Chung-hsi, Li Tsung-jen, and all—get together and talk things over at a Fifth Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee. Hu Han-min still held out, muttering about dictatorships and Blue Shirts. Pai Chung-hsi was dubious. But there seemed no harm in mere discussion, and the plenary session was held in December and plans laid for a Party Congress on November 12, 1935. At the same time it was agreed that Nanking should thenceforth be the central point for all economic control. It was a long step toward unification.

  Donald and Madame had long been cherishing an idea to jog the Generalissimo loose from his grim routine of conference-cum-war; to make him travel far and wide, to see for himself and be seen. They got their chance at a moment when they were able to join forces. In October the Chiangs stopped at the Young Marshal’s headquarters in Hankow and whisked him off—with Donald, of course—to accompany them on a voyage of inspection to a new military academy at Loyang. There, instead of going back to Hankow, Donald persuaded the Generalissimo to take his train in the other direction, to Sian in far-off Shensi. After all, he had never seen this ancient place, Donald reminded him, and it was one of a ruler’s fundamental duties to know his own country.

  Chiang didn’t need much urging; he liked sudden action, change, and swooping down to get information fresh and hot. They arrived in Sian, then, with little advance notice. In China people make speeches at the drop of a hat, and that is what happened; everybody made speeches—the Chiangs, their hosts, and the missionaries who eagerly rushed forward to meet Madame. There were so many speeches that the Chiangs stayed in Sian three days. It was agreed that first on the list of abuses to be reformed was the suppression of opium raising, selling, and smoking. The missionaries could not have been more enchanted: a captious lot after all the years of war and mismanagement, they felt that here at last was the reward. And to think that Mayling was one of their own girls! Her manifest popularity with these foreigners pleased Chiang, though he was a little overwhelmed. He decided that foreigners, after all, were not so bad.

  From Sian it was easy to coax the truant farther. They flew everywhere to save time and get in as much as they could—to Lanchow and Ninghsia and Peking and Kalgan: they stopped in on Yen Hsi-shan at Taiyuanfu; it was a packed and busy time, forty days in all.

  Madame suffered grievously from airsickness. It was suggested that she carry an oxygen tank with her on long high journeys. Fortunately there was no crystal-gazer to tell the poor lady how many, many miles she was going to have to fly in the course of her subsequent life.

  At last Chiang had seen for himself the mysterious Northwest. Having viewed Yen Hsi-shan at home in his fastness and inspected the famous cave dwellings of the loess mountains, he was never again to be narrow or unimaginative about other people’s ambitions. He developed a new pride in the country, and a new confidence in himself. In Lanchow and Kalgan he had felt safe. The fleets of cars, the dozens of bodyguards, could be forgotten when he traveled. Only one incident marred that sensation of escape; between Chahar and Suiyuan a bomb was thrown into the train. Were the throwers pro-Japanese? Pro-Red? Nobody admitted they knew, and the news was suppressed, but two arrests were made.

  All in all, it was decided, these trips were better made by air, and after that the air age arrived for good in China. Crowds gathered on the airfield whenever the Chiangs appeared. The difference Chiang’s personal appearances made is incalculable. Through the centuries the Chinese peasants and workers had been ruled by some mysterious far-off figure away in the capital, and it never occurred to them that they would ever be close to one of their great men. As a result they did very little thinking about such great men. Law and order, or oppression, as the case might be, was bound up for them in the local mandarin or taxgatherer. With actual vision of the Generalissimo, actual hearing of his voice and his words, came a stimulated interest in being Chinese. Realization of nationality brought pride. Chiang Kai-shek was the first man the Chinese could be proud of; not a village hero, but one of their own people in a bigger way.

  The Japanese liked to start their operations early in a new year, and 1935 brought no change to the old routine. Chahar, adjoining Jehol, was next on their list. They had left the situation there alone since the Tangku truce; now in January they suddenly presented a complaint against Sung Cheh-yuan, the Governor of the province, demanding that he withdraw his troops from the districts near the border because they had been trespassing on Jehol ground in the Tatan district. Nanking retorted (a) that they hadn’t, and (b) that the area in question wasn’t in Jehol anyway, but in Chahar. The Japanese promptly did the usual and attacked across the Great Wall, after observing the formality they never omitted, of accusing the Chinese of firing first. A battle took place on January 23, the Japanese moved in, and after that nothing was heard from the Chinese defenders for a week. At the end of that time it was announced by the Japanese that a treaty had been signed between Sung and themselves. There was nothing Chiang could do unless he wanted a showdown.

  Worse followed. It was not always completely imagination on the Jap side that “incidents” occurred. The Chinese could not refrain from a stray shot now and then; a large number of these soldiers near the Wall were Chang Hsueh-liang’s dispossessed Manchurians. Hopei, the danger area, was staffed with these Manchurians, taken over by Nanking when the Young Marshal joined forces with Chiang, but still resentfully, staunchly loyal to their home country. Every bit of news they got from “Manchukuo” stimulated their anger, against the Japanese first, but also, secondarily, against that stubborn man in Nanking who wouldn’t let their Young Marshal lead them back. Chang Hsueh-liang had been shifted to Sian. He was in touch again with his men; there was a strong feudal bond between them, and he was just as homesick as any of the others. He was becoming less starry-eyed about Chiang Kai-shek and his promise to co-operate, and he had lost Donald. Madame Chiang had taken the Australian away. He now lived in the Chiangs’ house and worked as her secretary, and gave his pungent advice to the Generalissimo whether or not he was asked for it. The Young Marshal felt the loss of his mentor.

  The anti-Red campaign was over, the new publicity drive was started, various gestures had been made toward reconstruction projects, and all would have been smooth sailing if it hadn’t been for Japan. But Japan was there, crowding ever closer. She had Jehol, she had some of Chahar, and now it looked as if she meant to move in on North China altogether—Chahar, Hopei, Shantung, Shansi, and Suiyuan. If you were a Japanese looking at the map, it would seem obvious where the country should next expand. The chief militarists who were running Japanese foreign policy, however, could not quite bring their home government to take such a big bite openly. However, if the provinces themselves could be induced to demand “autonomy” like that enjoyed by Manchukuo, there would be no awkward moments explaining things away. Doihara set to work persuading the Chinese that they wanted independence.

  From one province to another he made the rounds, talking, promising, explai
ning, and threatening in turn, and wherever he went, whatever he said, Chiang Kai-shek got to hear of it. That Japanese activity had branched out in this direction instead of taking its usual form of thinly veiled aggression, the Generalissimo figured, was significant; evidently they weren’t quite sure of their backing in Tokyo. If he was very careful and gave them no shadow of a chance to pick an open quarrel, it might postpone the day of reckoning, and Doihara’s plans, indefinitely.

  He set to work padding all the places where friction could generate sparks. Ruthlessly he muzzled the noisy students in Peking. The turbulent Manchurians were sent to garrison towns in Kansu. He disbanded the Peking branches of the National Military Council and the National Political Council, and sternly put down all the demonstration processions organized by Doihara, with their signs demanding autonomy. He persuaded the northern provincial governors to defy Doihara when the conspirator tried to force them to demand independence. He called the Japanese Government’s bluff by reporting Doihara’s doings to their Foreign Office. He asked in hurt tones if it was on their orders that the major general was acting in this matter, or was it merely a private enterprise? The Japanese hastily assured him that they knew nothing of Doihara’s activity in Peking, and soon afterward it ceased abruptly.

  The final outcome was satisfactory in a negative way, for North China heard no more of autonomy, but the Japanese were still determined to get in sooner or later. They managed to occupy Peking by peaceful methods. Unofficially they were all over North China. Chiang hadn’t even scotched the snake, and he had made crippling concessions.