RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063
126

D.L. MICHALK

by governors and generals striving to grasp independent power, and China was plunged into bloody civil war. Guangdong Province, the birth-place of the republican movement, immediately proclaimed itself independent. Sun Yat-sen, the "Father of the Republic", was elected generalissimo, and in 1924 the Kuomintang (the People's Party) was formed. Upon the death of Dr. Sun in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek, backed by his modernized army, emerged as the Kuomintang (KMT) leader, and with assistance from Communist factions began campaigns against the north which culminated in the fall of Shanghai in 1927.

Choosing not to expropriate the capitalist bankers in Shanghai as demanded by the Communists, the KMT and Communists became bitter rivals which re-ignited armed struggle in south China. Fuelled by Communist propaganda, there came a genuine uprising of the peasantry against the KMT for failure to deliver promised tax and land reforms throughout the southern provinces. As part of this general uprising, the first group of “freedom fighters" appeared on Hainan in 1927 and staged guerilla warfare on the island until Liberation, twenty-three years later (Fairfax-Cholmeley, 1963).

Although armed conflicts between Peking and southern forces had occurred previously on Hainan such as those which led to the capitulation of General Lung's army in 1918 (Moninger, 1919), fighting was confined to the soldiery. However, the Communist tactics brought the conflict to the common citizens by inciting peasants to take up arms against the oppressive gentry and greedy merchants. The effects of lightning raids caused havoc in northern Hainan: numerous villages were abandoned, others sacked and reduced to ash-strewn rubble, and large tracts of farming land were deserted (McClure, 1934b).

In fact, the revolutionary play, Red Detachment of Women, was loosely based on incidents which occurred in Hainan in 1931. At a bridge about one kilometre south of the present Xinglong Overseas Chinese State Farm, a guerilla band led by Hong Chang-qing assassinated Nan Ba-tian, a cruel landlord. In reprisal, the landlord's forces captured and executed the guerilla leader. However, a slave girl, Wu Qing-hua, took his place as commander and
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1993
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833t302
17

++

Very often, we designate terms such as “family”, “social class”, "teachers", "experts”, “democrats”, “Tibetans”, “Chinese”, “Americans” etc to delineate a social aggregate. It is because members in a group share some functional commonality, ascribed or achieved. They share some norms and beliefs which bind them together. They hence behave in a way as expected from a member in that particular group. If face is bounded by the three elements of status, role performance and moral conduct, then there is no reason why a group cannot have the right to a face basing on the status, role performance and moral conduct of its members in general.

Furthermore, if members in the family share the same properties, status, prestige, outlook, surname, moral codes and a face in an ascribed manner, then there is no reason why members in a nation, sharing the land, the physical features, the economic achievement, political rights and so on, cannot share a face as well. The picture seems that there can hardly be any argument against leaving open the limit to the size and scope of a social aggregate within which its members can share a face. Face, theoretically speaking, can be societal, racial, national, continental and if interaction opens up among planets, planetary.

While a global face may appear surreal, the hypothesis upon the presence of a nation's face may not. In fact, some scholars have found that an individual's sense of self may vary according to the prosperity or poverty of the nation to which the individual belongs (Volkan, 1985: 231). If an individual's face correlates with an image of self, as in Goffman's definition, then there is reason to believe in a relation between an individual's face with the fortunes of the nation in which he is embedded.

People may share a sense of self, rising and falling, insofar as their nation does so. People may share a face, prestigious or notorious, dignified or unscrupulous, if that is what their nation appears. Images of nations are nothing new in the social sciences. Many scholars have already studied them. What is awaited from scholars is the research on a nation's image with a focus on the concept of face.

Moreover, a nation's face does not seem to be an irrelevant topic of study and particularly regarding China. King and Myers have pointed out that the primary source of identity of people in the country has gradually shifted from family or village to nation. They have reported Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek as speaking of a nation's face and the
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278
164 

laconically states that, even on what was actually his honeymoon visit, Boxer had not lost his 'powers of observation.' 

In accordance with the policy of withdrawing resources to Singapore, supposedly an impregnable fortress, the FECB was downscaled and most of its men and resources moved. Boxer was promoted to Major, with a small staff, which included his close friend and best man, Alf Bennett. Ironically, this gave him greater flexibility to use his own initiative. 

4 

Unable to make much headway with London, Boxer flew to Chongqing to see the British Ambassador, Sir Alexander Clarke-Kerr. Boxer then made contacts with key figures in the Chinese military. He was received by none other than General Dai Li, head of the formidable Juntong or Bureau of Statistics and Military Intelligence. After the Generalissimo himself, to whom his loyalty was almost feudal, General Dai was perhaps the most powerful man in China. An extremely shrewd strategic thinker, he was in many ways the power behind the throne. His organisation, fiercely secretive and ruthless, has been described as a sort of Chinese Gestapo, prepared to use any means, including murder, to achieve its aims. Dai was fanatically devoted to Chiang Kai Shek, and shaped the Juntong to be a dreaded political as well as military machine, spying on all perceived enemies of the state, Communists and fellow Guomindang as well as Japanese. The Juntong organisation was highly effective, operating through cells united by family and social bonds, whose members were expected to subsume all private needs to the pursuance of state aims, however lethal. It has been demonstrated that General Dai and his followers modelled themselves on folk heroes from Chinese history who operated through secret societies and who believed that extreme action such as assassination, was justified in the interests of the common good. Dai was known to be anti-western, for he believed that western countries with their imperialist policies were the cause of China's humiliation, and were exploiting its weakness for their own aims. Many assumed that Dai's anti-British stance was on the personal embarrassment of having been mysteriously arrested in Hong Kong, thus conveniently sidestepping questions raised by decades of opium and gunboats. Dai also believed that any western country operating in China should function under Chinese control, an idea anathema to westerners used to extraterritoriality and getting their own terms. Boxer, however, found Dai co-operative and willing to ...

based
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-2002
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278
165

talk, but was well aware of Dai's sinister "Blueshirts," and thought it wise to return somewhat evasive and non-committal replies since terrorist activities would only be a source of embarrassment to us at present. Still, he held open the prospect that Dai's 'local agents may come in useful later as a check on fifth columnists and pro-Wang Ching Wei activists.'*

Boxer also met a Chinese general whom he described as an 'exceptionally well-educated and much travelled individual who speaks fluent German and English in addition to being a famous classical scholar.' This was General Yu Ta Wei, who had amassed a huge store of ordnance seized from the Japanese, photos of Japanese weapons and bases, other material both of a military and intelligence nature, and chillingly, evidence that the Japanese were using chemical warfare against the Chinese. This he candidly showed Boxer, who was concerned enough to recommend that a British technical officer be sent out to examine them. General Yu, a more cosmopolitan man than Dai, had been trained in the Prussian military academy and was an urbane, well-read man, up to date with the latest developments in Europe. He wanted to develop a munitions industry in China and needed foreign help. Boxer was meeting two of the most influential men in the Chinese hierarchy.

On the evening of 10th October 1939, the Double Tenth, that most sacred celebration in the KMT calendar, a date chosen deliberately to signal how the Chinese viewed the meeting, Boxer was ushered into the presence of the Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek. This was an important meeting, for it was perhaps the first sign that the British were making a concerted effort to help the Chinese in their long struggle with the Japanese. Boxer proposed that the Chinese and British set up a joint intelligence network to get a quicker and more efficient system of exchanging information. He proposed that a network of wireless stations be set up all along the Chinese coast from Hainan to Taiwan. Moreover, it would be financed by the British, but independently operated by Chinese to monitor Japanese troop movements. All information was to be 'equally at the disposal of Chinese and British staff,' although the Chinese could not enter the British military code system. He compounded the tribute to the Chinese war effort by suggesting that Hong Kong could learn from the efficient Chinese system of predicting air raids, whereby agents reported bombers taking
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