On August 16, 1937, three days after the Japanese attacked Shanghai, the lead article in Life magazine—“Mei-ling (‘Beautiful Mood’) Helps Her Husband Rule China”—featured a three-quarter-page picture of the generalissimo’s wife, asserting that she was “probably the most powerful woman in the world.” The author credited her with giving foreign correspondents a free hand in dispensing the political news from China (untrue) and noted that she was “not only China’s censor” (also untrue) but secretary-general of China’s air force and a prime mover in the Chinese Red Cross. The article included pictures of May-ling at Wesleyan, May-ling at Wellesley, and May-ling with the “crude, brash warlord named Chiang Kai-shek,” who, after his marriage to her, had miraculously graduated to adjectives like “matured” and “gentle.” The author of the piece* referred to Chiang and May-ling as “China’s George and Martha Washington.”
This was just one of “innumerable” articles on May-ling that appeared in 1937 in magazines and newspapers all over the United States. The Boston Herald and The New York Times Magazine, as well as papers in Charlotte and Cincinnati, carried enthusiastic pieces in which reporters described the physical and mental attributes of Madame Chiang. “The greatest man in Asia is a woman,” wrote Fulton Oursler, editor of Liberty magazine, who called May-ling “the real brains and boss of the Chinese government” after interviewing her in Nanking. “A fabulous woman: a legend of fearlessness, beauty, and wisdom hard to believe,” Oursler gushed, adding that although he had met “many of the great persons” of his time, he had “never met any one else who affected me quite as did Madame Chiang Kai-shek.” This feeling was no doubt encouraged by Donald, who escorted him to his interview, letting him know that he was “very fortunate to be having tea with Madame.” The generalissimo’s wife, he told Oursler, was “on the verge of a nervous collapse. Madame now sees almost no one. But she defies her doctors!”
Donald’s publicity campaign also had a decided effect on the Russians, who collected and collated materials on May-ling throughout the 1930s and ’40s. Their information came from the CCP, the NKVD, miscellaneous journalists, the Comintern Executive Committee, and anywhere else they could gather tidbits. There is even an article in a confidential file, entitled “The Person Chiang Kai-shek Trusts,” by Chou En-lai; in it Chou rightly contended that May-ling was far more democratic than her husband. In another file she was characterized as “an active woman with a will of steel.” Still another called her “very aggressive and arrogant,” stating that luxury was as important to her as it was to her sister Ai-ling and arguing that she used a “mixture of authoritarianism, selfishness, fake liberalism and charitable activities to conceal her reactionary politics.” Most of the Soviet files, however, simply stressed her effect on the diplomatic stage, internal Chinese affairs, and her husband.
“Almond-Eyed Cleopatra Is ‘Power Behind Power’ in War-Time China” read an article in the Cincinnati Times-Star, published in the spring of 1938. The author, a female journalist known for her own beauty and wit, had first interviewed Madame Chiang in 1928, the year after her marriage, and reported that the generalissimo’s wife had grown more dignified and sure of herself in the intervening ten years. Lady Grace Drummond-Hay wrote that the reason Madame’s “name and fame is vastly greater throughout the world than it is in China” was that for the Chinese, “there is no greater reproach to a woman, whatever her rank, position or wealth, than that she is childless.” She also claimed that Madame sought no “glory for herself” but “turns it all over to her husband,” characterized by the author as “medieval-minded” and “no military genius.” Whatever glory the generalissimo’s wife might or might not have sought, she was still living in a country inhabited predominantly by tillers of the earth, men and women who did not think beyond the farm, the neighbors, or the village. One Chinese peasant, asked what he thought of Madame Chiang, answered, “Well, he’s got to have a wife, doesn’t he?”
When friends and enemies were not collecting information on and writing about May-ling, she herself was producing dozens of articles and speeches. Some of these were directed to the Chinese, especially women, outlining their obligations during wartime, but most of her exhortations were aimed at the Western democracies. In these, she detailed the horrors of war and the unfairness of the Allies—particularly the United States—which continued to supply the Japanese with gas and oil to fuel their bombers.
At the same time that he was promoting Madame Chiang and her message, Donald was conducting his own private campaign aimed at friends and acquaintances. In answer to a letter from Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.,* Donald blamed the fact that Americans did not understand the situation in China on Japanese propaganda. “It is advisable,” he wrote, “to discount Japanese reports by fifty percent, if not more.” The Japanese “seem to think that their success will be assured if they can only make people in the outside world believe that… [they] are really super-men,” whereas “the Chinese have successfully exploded the myth of their invincibility.” Japan’s only chance to win the war, Donald claimed, would be if the democratic nations of the world “refuse to help China secure the equipment and munitions which will be required by her to continue her defence.” To which T.R. Jr. sent a discouraging response: “Our people are sympathetic but only willing to help to the point that this can be done without embroiling themselves… the United States has no intention of being drawn into war unless it be necessary to defend her own shores.… Mme. Chiang still continues to be the figure in China that has caught the American people’s imagination. A visit by her to this country would, of course, have an excellent effect, but I don’t believe the effect produced would counterbalance what she is doing for China by being with her people now.”
Seven months later, Donald wrote Roosevelt another letter—this one covering thirty-nine single-spaced typewritten pages. In it he described the Chinese people’s ability to face disaster with the inborn knowledge that what is down will inevitably rise and vice versa—a life-enhancing virtue often envied by Westerners, along with the sense of humor that usually accompanies it. T.R. Jr. was so impressed that he sent copies to Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times, as well as editors at the Associated Press, The New York Herald Tribune, and other major outlets. The letter read:
Since I last wrote innumerable cities in China have gone up in smoke and dust, and veritable rivers of blood have flown on various fronts… the Japanese have, with vicious ferocity, desolated vast areas of China, have massacred hundred of thousands of innocent Chinese, have demolished their homes and their businesses… have been guilty of unparalleled rape and rapine, and have, with calculated remorselessness, set about the demoralization as well as the impoverishment of survivors by destroying or removing means of livelihood and setting loose a deluge of opium and narcotics upon the land… “military establishments” is the terminology understood in Japan… to indicate the homes of the population.… Most of these towns had nothing to do with the war, contained no military objectives, and had nothing at all with which to defend themselves.… What becomes of the people of all the bombed areas? Thousands of them are blown to fragments, of course, and those who die… are fortunate in the sudden death that overtakes them, for there are continual thousands being maimed and who live with their terrible wounds, while millions more are made destitute.… They take what they can on their backs, or on barrows, or any wheeled vehicles that they can use.… People in flight fill the highways, and they crowd the mountain trails, climbing like ants… hoping to achieve immunity from raiders and find safety from the tortures of war.… The remarkable and outstanding feature of this great migration is the fortitude of the sufferers in their adversity. They live or they die, as the case may be, but they do not complain. The philosophy which they exhibit in the midst of crushing calamity approaches the sublime.… It is this inherent faculty for enduring desperate suffering, this power of recuperation, that makes it impossible for Japan to subjugate or conquer China. Natural calamities… have
bred in the blood and bone of the Chinese race these powers of survival that enable them quickly to subdue and overcome the effects of appalling catastrophes.
Japan’s soldiers apparently fared little better than those they were sent to destroy. One member of the Red Cross observed that the Japanese put only a few soldiers in a field hospital near Hankow and that they were only slightly wounded. The same observer noticed a large burial ground nearby. “There wasn’t a shadow of doubt that the Japanese were doing away with their badly wounded men,” he said. “Crippled men back in Japan would have spoiled the picture of easy conquest the High Command was painting.”
During 1937 and 1938, the generalissimo’s wife turned out more than a hundred articles, speeches, press dispatches, and statements, not counting interviews and letters, written to be circulated into monied or powerful hands. No occasion was allowed to be lost, especially gatherings of women, missionaries, any group that might listen to her complaints, respond to her calls for help or bow (in the case of the Chinese) before her demands for sacrifice. It was an impressive output—an opportunity for May-ling to use her love of writing to produce something more essential than the Chinese tales she had once dreamed of creating with Emma.
Although the bulk of her pronouncements were self-generated, every so often she wrote in response to a request, like the speech broadcast to a convention of YWCA delegates in Columbus, Ohio. Not surprisingly, she could not resist the impulse to compare and contrast: “To the delegates of the Fifteenth National Convention of the Young Women’s Christian Association… the women of war-torn China send greetings. Because my country is at war and because so many thousands of my fellow women have met a fate worse than death, it seems almost unreal that several thousand American women should be able to hold a convention in peaceful surroundings to discuss such subjects as leadership, religion, and democracy.”
Two weeks earlier Emma had written May-ling that Americans had become more interested in and informed about the war. “The Panay* did more… and Hitler’s seizure of Austria has shocked the most indifferent into some thought on the matter.… Importers have cut the prices on Japanese dinner ware to such an extent on account of the boycott, domestic manufacturers are worried. So many lisle hose are being made, there’s a shortage of thread.… Boys at the University of Washington have declared a ‘boycott’ on girls who wear silk stockings. Student groups are beginning a campaign to prevent American participation at the Olympics scheduled for Tokyo in 1940.” By the end of the year, Emma could report that both du Pont and the Celanese Corporation had announced that they were building plants to produce an artificial fiber that would have all the attributes of real silk for the manufacture of ladies’ stockings. “It will be a year before large scale production begins,” Emma said, “but the Japanese are already reported worried.”
In May, Emma told May-ling that what was needed to galvanize the American public into contributing money were concrete examples and human interest stories. “Not atrocity material… not bare statistics… but definite accounts of what is being done to meet the huge refugee problem, particularly by the Chinese themselves… eyewitness accounts and specific needs are much more appealing than general.” As to May-ling’s campaign for war orphans, the agency hired to help raise money for China told Emma that it would “prefer pictures of individual children, with names on the back, to be given to prominent adopters when the time comes and reproduced in the newspapers. Glossy prints at least 4x4 inches are best for that, or the negatives themselves.”
Later in the year, Emma wrote to complain about the publicity releases issued by the Chinese government. They were, she said, “too long and too frequent… most of the stories should be cut to about a half or a third… and certain types of stories are not really useful to us here.… One letter I have says, ‘We don’t want… student essays… or general speeches or general denunciations.… What exactly are conditions under Japanese occupation?… Specific details about dismantling of Chinese factories, about impressment of coolies, about burning of villages, specific name, place, etc. What is life like under Japanese occupation?’ “
THE YEAR 1938 turned out to be almost as bad for the Chiangs as 1937, although it started with Time naming them “Man and Wife of the Year,” putting them on the cover of the magazine, and stating that “Through 1937, the Chinese have been led—not without glory—by one supreme leader and his remarkable wife.… No woman in the West holds so great a position as Mme. Chiang Kai-shek holds in China.” Lovely words from Mr. Luce, echoed by the Missionary Review of the World, which declared some months later that “China has now the most enlightened, patriotic and able rulers in her history.” Unfortunately for the Chiangs, this much-lauded leadership did not translate into more than a few victories for the Chinese army. Having captured the coastal city of Tsingtao in early January, the Japanese advanced south through the province of Shansi, reaching the Yellow River in early March. They now controlled about one seventh of China’s approximately 4 million square miles of territory and were still on the march.
In the spring of 1938, there was a sudden reversal of mood in Hankow when word came through that the Chinese had scored a big victory over the Japanese at a town in the province of Shantung, lying on the enemy’s road to the interior. The battle, which lasted for seventeen days, cost the Japanese 16,000 casualties plus 200 military vehicles. The victory had been achieved by pursuing a plan developed by Chiang’s German advisers, which involved bringing up reinforcements from the rear and cutting the Japanese infantry off from its source of supplies. But Chiang refused to follow up the victory by advancing or pursuing the enemy. The head of the German Military Mission in China, General Alexander von Falkenhausen, was said to be “tearing his hair” in frustration. “I tell the Generalissimo to advance, to attack, to exploit his success. But nothing is done. Soon the Japanese will have 8 or 10 divisions before Hsuchow. Then it will be too late.”
General Falkenhausen was right. The Japanese broke through the Chinese defenses, and Hsuchow fell at the end of May. Meanwhile, another Japanese army was advancing from the north, putting the entire region between the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers in danger. Chiang ordered one of his generals to blow up the dikes on the Yellow River behind the Japanese vanguard. The locals were apparently not warned, and 2 million people were rendered homeless, eleven cities and four thousand villages flooded, and the farms in three provinces ruined. This massive destruction held the Japanese back for about three months.
Meanwhile, moving westward from the coast, the Japanese army continued its advance, occupying the old walled city of Kaifeng in the province of Honan, capital of seven former dynasties, along with the capital of the province of Anhwei and the port city of Amoy. Four months later, in October of 1938, the Japanese occupied Canton, China’s last outlet to the sea. Some 3,000 Cantonese had already lost their lives in five months of bombing, and 860,000 residents, terrified that the Japanese would repeat the barbarity they had exhibited in Nanking, had fled the city. But one wartime visitor noted that when the government offered a reward to anyone who could bring down an enemy plane, “anti-aircraft defence… became a local sport, like duck-shooting. When the planes came over, everybody blazed away—even the farmers.”
Chiang had made little provision for the defense of Canton, relying instead on the presumption that the British, across the bay in Hong Kong, would never allow the city to fall. But Britain could elicit no promise that the United States would help if it ended up in a war against Japan, and Canton fell on October 21. Donald, who had been ill and away for the past four months, arrived in Hankow two days later. He saw an ambulance, which had been purchased with funds from the United States, stop in front of a bank in which one of the high government officials had big interests. A crowd had gathered to watch the ambulance take away a part of the official’s huge fortune, and Donald could hear people murmuring that this was proof that Hankow was about to be taken over by the Japanese.
“When I got into Hankow I found
it completely changed,” he wrote Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.
The evacuation of thousands of people, the crowding of thousands more into the ex–foreign concessions, and the daily raids by Japanese bombers, made the erstwhile clean bund look like a back alley of a poverty-stricken town. Refugees were camped there, men, women and children, their belongings scattered higgledy-piggledy everywhere.… Canton’s collapse meant withdrawal from Hankow, and late on the night of October 24, we flew out, “we” being the Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang and myself. At 2 o’clock the next morning we landed in Hunan province, and then began a tour of all the fronts which lasted until December 9, when we got to Chungking.*
If the Chinese were ever going to fight the Japanese or even sustain themselves in their new wartime home in Chungking, their resistance and sustenance depended on heavy industry, which was now far more important than the production of pricey consumer goods such as tea and silk in which the country had traditionally excelled. Although China had produced only 100,000 tons of steel before the war, whatever equipment there was had to be removed from the cities. In Shanghai the Chinese packed machinery from the factories into rowboats, covered it with branches and leaves, and sent it up the Yangtze, hiding the boats in the reeds along the river at the first sound and/or sight of Japanese bombers overhead. In what Crozier called “a staggering achievement of primitive muscle power and equipment,” whole factories were moved to the province of Szechuan, home of the wartime capital, where munitions plants were set up deep in caves. By the end of the migration, some $3,448,275 in equipment had been transported. “We moved whatever we could of our factories,” May-ling said. “We moved our arsenals and all available machinery. We even marched our Jersey and Guernsey cows from Nanking. We used every conveyance imaginable: trucks, rickshas, wheelbarrows, litters, palanquins, sedan-chairs, carts, and the human back.”
The Last Empress Page 40