News Chronicle
Our Prosperity is L
China,
„MANCHURIA
N
A
BRITAIN ON
SAME SCALE:
JAPAK
CHINA SEA==
land of 450,000,000 souls, or one out of every five living human beings. Land area 4,000,000 square miles, more than 40 times the size of
the United Kingdom
HE most critical and sig-
tory of modern China has begun.
Before it ends we shall have witnessed either the beginning of China's rise to the status of a major sta- bilising force in world affairs or the beginning of the end of China as an ordered entity.
Britain's concern is real. We cannot afford to look the other It way should China flounder.
disin-
was
weak, partly а tegrated China that set the wheels of World War Two in motion. A similar situation might well result in a similar catastrophe. A strong unified China, on the other hand, offers the best guarantee for the secur- ity and peace of the entire western Pacific region.
BRITISH MARKET
A thriving China, moreover, would become the world's greatest market for foreign ex- ports and enterprises of almost every description. And for Britain such a market could spell full employment and full production for many decades to
come.
The cardinal factor holding China's fate in the balance revolves round the critical need to bring to a speedy conclusion the state of civil war between the powerful and well organised Chinese Communists, who con- trol sizable part of
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the country, and the Kuomintang or National party who have dic- tatorially held the reins of Government without a break for the past 20 years.
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Unless the political deadlock is soon broken and the Com- munists induced to enter Coalition Government the situa- tion cannot fail to go from bad to worse.
EXPENSIVE ARMY
"At present," confessed Finance Minister O. K. Yui, 'eighty per cent. of the national revenue and a large proportion of the national productive effort is being expended on the Armed Forces.' What is left-and the problem is magnified by the wild inflation which gets worse month by month- woefully
is
: 1
Fate of
CHINA
Gerald Samson, author of "The Far East Ablaze," has recently returned from a fact-finding mission to China. On his 25,000-mile journey he visited Yenan, the beleaguered Communist cave-city capital, travelled as far north as Tsitsihar... talked with Gen. Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Tse-tung, the legendary Communist chairman, and Gen. George Marshall, now U.S. This is the first Secretary of State. of four short articles he has specially written for the News Chronicle on China today
illustrates the need for fewer files and more field work.
Standing out in bold relief against this
back- general ground are a number of en- lightened, self-sacrificing men and women (official and un- official) who are doing magni- ficent work in their respective fields. Given the encourage- ment and support, their achievements can be greatly expanded to the nation's eternal benefit.
A pre-war lack of communi- cation facilities, accentuated by the depredations of the Japan- ese and the Communists, who continue to destroy railway lines and bridges, is strangling all possibility of a trade revival, as well as choking the distribution of basic supplies of food and clothing to the people.
HOPEFUL STEPS
Available transport is mostly used for the movement of Government troops and equip- ment, which means that the products of one region cannot reach the markets in another. Here is one reason why im- ported American oranges sell cheaper in Shanghai than the native growth.
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The outlook would be gloomy indeed but for the new situation created by the adoption Christmas Day by a National Assembly in Nanking of Constitution which, if imple- mented, guarantees the liberty of the individual and transforms the one-party (Kuomintang) dictatorship of President Chiang Kai-shek into a demo- cratically elected regime.
The Constitution is to come into operation on December 25 this year. Meanwhile, General- issimo Chiang has undertaken to broaden the basis of the Government "to include all party and independent elements willing to assist in carrying out of peaceful programme reconstruction."
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A further attempt is also to be made to come to an agree- ment with the Communists,
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to the Communists to infiltrate into this region ahead of the National forces and lay hands of substantial quantities
ammunition Japanese
andi stores, has become shrewd and circumspect. It may be de- as one of watchful scribed waiting.
American policy, which was based on fulfilling her war-time obligations and, at the request of both sides, acting as mediator between them, is now likely to harden. Unless the Nanking Government makes an all-out effort to achieve national unity and put its economic house in order, America will probably withhold further material aid.
HER DESTINY
Gen. George Marshall, the inspired architect of the Joint Executive Headquarters and the field Truce Teams, which under the
of chairmanship American Army officers over- came the most intricate and try- ing obstacles in order to reduce the scope of the fighting, hast returned home. The heroic band of officers he has left behind, as well as the Military Advisory Group he set up to assist in the integration of all China's armed forces, may follow him.
China's destiny in any event, if she so desires and determines, is, in the final analysis, un questionably her own.
TOMORROW:
Democracy, Chinese style
23/1/47
08
તાપપ ww provide for the administrative, educational and social welfare services.
Costly inefficiency, wide- spread corruption and a low physical fitness,
aly among students and rs who are suffering from trition, are the result.. Lack of funds is the Govern- nent's stock excuse for the slowness of rehabilitation work
the failure to take radical surės to come to the active asance of the sorely dis- tres farming community- foundflies of the nation
Official, endeavour Koli roine
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a tour of the