Mr. Hintze, formerly German Minister to China, understands perfectly. the situation in China, and having for eight years. been charged with a special military mission to Russia he has established a large number of acquaintances in that country. He speaks English, Russian and French wonder fully well. Above all he is an adept to new ideas, full of energy und tact.. His plans are in keeping with the current trend of democratic opinion. He is, in short, a man of whom one could find but very few in Germany.
Before my arrival in Berlin, Von Hintze had already thought of concluding a "Triplice" between China, Germahy and Russia, a plan which would conform to your secret objects. Since I have taken up the negotiations with him, he has put aside all other matters to devote his attention specially to this question.
In two months' time, when all the arrangements have been made, he will ask the authorization of the German Prime Minister to leave for China.
On my humble advice, Hintzo will be appointed Director-General of the Bureau which we intend to establish. The heads of the different departments will then be nominated: As to the officials required, the decisions to be taken, the materials necessary, the heads of departments will confer. The Director-General will specially fill the rela of your councillor.
The heads of departments will also decide what agents to send immediately, what materials will be necessary, what materials will have to be imported later on, what measures are to be taken without delay, and what measures have to be taken and enforced - at some later date. Upon all these points, the final decision will rest with you agreement with Director-General Hintze.
The entente being from that time completed between ourselves and the foreigners and the principles having been well established, our project will make rapid progress.
Above all, because of his great notoriety, Hintze must assume a false name and his participation must be kept in the dark from the German public.
Von Hintze's forthcoming arrival in China is then announced and a request made that he be met at Hongkong and conducted to Canton. The last document is a letter from Dr. Sun Yat-sen, dated Kueilin March 8, 1922, to his secretary at Canton, ordering money to be sent to Chu in Berlin and that arrangements be made to meet Von Hintze, whose arrival should: be kept as secret as possible, even, if it may be, from other members of the Canton Government.
It is difficult to comment on this correspondence in face of Dr. Sun Yat-sen's assertion that has been inaccurately trans-dated. How far this assertion will serve to explain away the repeated emphasis laid on the necessity for secrecy both in Germany and China, is open to speculation. But apart altogether from the letters, there is in Dr.
Sun'g own statement abundant food for thought. He scoffs at the idea of his wishing to intro duce Communism into China, which we may. believe, because Dr. Sun cannot be ignorant of the appalling calamities "that Communism has brought upon Russia and, as he rightly says, China certainly has no appearance of providing the sort of soil for a flourishing growth of Bolshevism that was found" in Russia. On the other hand, Dr. Sun is prepared and even anxious for a sort of triple alliance between China, Russia and Germany and, from the point of view of China, that is surely playing with very sharply edged tools.
If we accept, for argument's. sake, the distinction between aggressive and non-aggressive Powers which Dr. Sun. draws; if we accept his apparent implication that, say, all the Powers enjoying extraterritorial rights in China are merely interested, in grabbing from her everything they can, then it is not unnatural that she should seek to ally herself with other Powers which find themselves in antagonism to the rest of the world. But is this distinction a correct one?
After the Washington.. Conference one might think that it could have been revised with a little more appreciation of the Great Powers' attitude towards China. Furthermore can Soviet Russia truly be classed as a non. aggressive Power.'' Her practical appropriation of Mongolia, which she is administering today as if it were her own, proves that Dr. Sun's belief in the Soviet's non-imperialistic policy is misplaced. In point of fact, the Soviet's foreign policy is a more fearful form of aggression than any imperialism ever dreamed of. For, as we know from countless statements by Soviet leaders, written and spoken, it deliberately seeks the corruption and ruin of all other lands, the destruction of all government and social order, the exaltation of the lowest, even of criminal, elements to the seats of
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.