To the Editor of the "Nonra-Cuiva Datiy News" renders remember the visit of the!
Sm—I doubt if many of your!
"Anti-War delegation to. Shangh: ast autumn. In case some do, may one of the delegates be permitted to pass a foi remarks on the recent events in China?
Your weekly issue of December 2Tth, 1993, reached mea week ago. When I was living in China in 1908 and 1909, French friends used to complain if mail from France took more than sixteen days to reach them," Such, however, is the rapidity of progress, after the lapse a quarter of a century, that w> must now learn to expect a delay, of forty or fifty days before mail From Shanghai Fonehes Paris. This goes. by air-mail via. Saigon,
report from your correspondent the sai ie suc," the" exedent the events in' Fukien, of the bomb: ing of Changehiow and of the benevolent neutrality of the Canton government confirm me in my theory, already four years old, that the Central government of Nanking central only in name, and as time! goes on, its disruptive influence will Make iisolf more and more felt.
'Students of Chinese politics, who-Right or to on one point, namely,'that if continue a3 they have been doing during the last year or #0, China will soon break up. into a' number of independent states, which again would, no doubt, subdivide. into smaller autonomous areas. 'There seem, however, to be! only' three possibilities of averting this catastrophe. The first of these, fortunately not yet within the realm of practical politics, must however ho included as a possibility, however phomeral, namely, the restoration of Pu-yi to the 'Dragon 'Throi 'The second possibility is the division of China. into. zones of influence under the auspices of one or the other great' European powers; in other words, the cutting up of China Tike a eako'and the handing round licen to there who can force their claim to one.
The third possibility is the gradua}, sovietizing of China. It will be naturally supposed that it is with this solution that my sympathies: lie. That, however, is not necessarily tho'case, since T have always een at pains to view the situation objectively. It is an undoubted fact that the articles recently. contributed'by the "Times" special corres: pondent, Mr. Fleming, to that paper about the Soviet districts in China, as well as reports from other well-known European journalists, have opened the eyes of Europeans for the first time to the power and cohesion of the Soviet districts, In your weekly issue of November 8 You published a long news item concerning the number of desertions to the enemy from the 19th Route Army, sent to combat the Commumits in Kinga class all Communists as "bandits" '28 once was the fashion. Genuine Bandits.aro dealt with more sum: marily in the Soviet districts China than in, those districts which acknowledge the Central government and where gangsterdom flourishes, An article. by Agnes Smedley in the current issue of the "Weltbtichne," entitled "Shangh Auto 4223,"" concerning the advenuires of one Li-Chi-Chen, has. done a great deal to arouse public opinion in'Europe as to events in Shanghai. Not that the habit of labelling Gem munists as. bandits is limited to China. In the recent disturbances fu. Paris, which were particularly violent in the street in which I Jive (so much s0, that one evening] no-one was allowed to enter or leave the house in which T have a flat, and 1 was compelled to emerge from a conl-hole at the back giving onto a neighbouring street in order to keep an Important engagement), a num of pillagers, as might have been expected, taking advantage of the lots, smashed "shop windows and stole' much of what was displayed. They were immediately" dubbed -as "Communists". by the entire Press until, on the third day of the riots, during a Communist' demonstration, number of the pillagers at. work eraialy broke away from, their colleagues Rand over the pillagers to the police, T have, purposely. only touched very lightly'on the three possibi hat occur to me without suceumding to the great temptation to Mevelop the various consequeness that might follow in the wake of each. My Wife, who is French, when on her first visit to London, marveled at the number of churches find chebels belonging. to. aitteren acts and. remarked "You English have incised so many religions, bat last only one sort of sauce in your fctehen,"" So" one "might observe that in Chinese' polities the number of theories as to how to govern well beyond count, but. there is only wort of ore tat is employed fin the long run ings the feslinge of " large murlier ings the feelings of a large mar fof people late rested in Chinese polities In Europe, that the time has dome for measures to be taken cor-expanding to the wishes of the forty of the Inhabitants. of China {ov oka the present anarchy and chaos by' accepting and envisaging a more stable future, How many of us, who really know China, would say we have not learnt Yo respect the Chinese? Very few indeed. Chinese power of en: Jdurance, patience, skill, honesty, are 'a source of admiration to all. those
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.