kai shek vang

Behind Mao's Red RuJe
THE 100 VÍOLENT YEARS
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Pt 11
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ZÂMBIA
Shortly after the Boxer RebeJiion
the Imperial magísírate, íiigír ciril
ojjicial o/ iíanchung (in brocade,
aí Jefí), stands in China's Shensi
Province with hispersonai guards
VOL. 41. NO. 11
g f t AM.ftIO x-=!.0 t C l , A C L , 4
BEGINNING A NEW SERIES
100 violent years thrust an ancient empire
into tiie modem world and led to
the turmoiJ of Mao's Red rule
CHINA
I
For centuries the great walls of Peking, proudly and confidently
sloping into the bare earth, were a symbol of China's permanence
and the inviolability of her ancient culture. Yet within those walls the
young fanatics of the Communist Red Guard recently were harassing
or attacking whatever could be called "foreign" or "feudal"—embassies,
churches, the graveyard of victims of the Boxer Uprising, art treasures
from China's own past. Within the context of China's long history, even
these bizarre rampages make a kind of sense. In China, perhaps more than
anywhere else, present events are interlocked with the past. China today, as a
í
distinguished scholar explains on page 60, is a prisoner of her own history. For
2,000 years the Chinese considered themselves the center of the universe—and,
unchanging, had slipped out of the changing world. In the mid-19th Century, the
West came in and its inexorable onslaught tore the ancient kingdom apart. At
the very moment the picture above was being taken in 1860, French and British
" b a r b a r i a n s " were within the walls. The Emperor of China was in ílight. In the chaotic
decades that followed. China experienced dynastic collapse, revolution, invasion and civil
war. The three-part series beginning here takes up the 100 violent years that created
m o d e m China and illuminates them with rare photographs, many previously unpublished.
47
m
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Mhi.^^.lO X ^ i . O - t S l . í í C L 4 / ( i ^ „ , 5
PARTI
joiig before roads were built, rivers
carried China"s freight. Junks were
warped upstream through the Yangtze gorges (aboie) or raii free downstream (right) with wind and current.
Jjooking niuch as it had for centuries, Peking's Ch'ien Men Street (6eloiv) in 1872 was hned with booths,
flagged with stone blocks and ornamented with painted wooden arches.
fj.Í8 8on bcside him, his womenfolk
overhead and his concubine discreetly apart on a balcony of her own, a
rich merchant named Yang sat in
his Peking courtyard {right) in 1872.
A.
Lulled hy centuries of tradition, China
helieved itself impervious to change
48
LS the 19th C e n t u r y got iinderway, the scale and grandeur of
China'8 ancient cultiire seemed
proof enough against any radical change. A wealthy gentleman
could sit at ease in his courtyard,
snrrounded by ali the things t h a t
m a d e life pleasant for him, and
On Eve of Trouhle
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liave no reason to doiibt t h a t the
familiar order would go on forever. Nor did the peasants who
tilled the fields and paddies liave
anv reason to imagine t h a t things
would ever r h a n g e .
Kiit elsewhere in lhe world,
rommerce was in its golden era.
w
T h e Westerners—soldiers, merr h a n t s . savers of souls — were eonverging iipon China; their roming
wonld bring the Chinese i d \ l l to
an end. "\othing in the enipire
was prepared to stand tíie outsiders off, least of ali its rulers.
T h e Manelnis, themselves al-
iens from ^fan^h^lria in tlie nortlieast, liad taken o\ er (^hina in
the ITth Centiir\ . Their emj)erors
K'ansf lísi and Ch'ien í-iiriE. «lio
between theni riiled for more tlian
a hundred vears. had hronght
jieace and iinparalleled riihes to
the coiintrN . I?iit the heroic strain
now ran tliin. The Maiichus and
tliose who served lliem had sunk
into a lethargN of corriiption.
Mechanicalh the\ continued the
rituais ofrule «hilc Western guns
aimed at the gates and eivil unrest
— a sure sign of dvnastic decline
— Ilared aeross the loveK lanil.
Remote, Self-Centered
CONTINUED
49
&P) A/J, ?)(0 X<^.0. é s i ,ACL.4lV6r^-^
A t Hong Kong in 1860,10,500 British and Indian troops encamped in
readiness for attack on Peking. In
background of this sectional photograph, their fleet rode at anchor.
Uisembarking on the North China
coast in August, 1860, en route to Peking, the Anglo-French force first
captured the small Chinese fort
above. Then, moving cross-country,
50
The opening wedge—wars
they attacked the strong forts at
Taku. To their surprise, the Chinese
defenders put up a stiff fight, using
lances, muskets, cannon (including
some made of wood bound with leath-
er and iron), even croesbows. At ríght,
after surrender, the interior ofone fort
was strewn with Chinese dead. French
scaling ladders are still in place; a
Chinese crossbow lay atop parapet.
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for opium and privilege
lhina's association wilh the
West in the 19th Century consisted mainly of heing shot at and
humbled. The British struck the
first blow in 1839-42 with the
Opium War. In a series of engagements thev proved that nohody — least of ali the Imperial
government, could stop them
from peddling narcotics, or anv
other profitable trade goods,
wherever a good market existed.
T h e use of opium was originally not common in China. But
Britain discovered that opium
was very saleable in the port city
of C a n t o n . By 1836 opium was
pouring in at the rate of 2,000
tons a year. The Imperial gove r n m e n t decided to crack do^wn.
T h e British responded b y seizing
Hong Kong in 1840 and using it as
a base for trade and to a t t a c k
Chinese forts along the coast.
^ hen the Chinese yielded, the
U.S. and other countries happily
joined in the t r a d e . Four thousand tons a year entered China in
the 1850s.
T h e main result of the Opium
W ar was the opening of five
t r e a t y ports where foreign merchants could live and do business under their own consuls. Missionaries were p e r m i t t e d too, although thev were not supposed
to proselytize outside the boundaries of the ports. Soon most of
the Western powers had secured
similar privileges.
T h e Westerners wanted still
more concessions. In an attempt,
to affirm and extend the treatv
system, France and Britain
patched together a casus belli
out of a number of small incid e n t s in 1856. But the stubborn
Chinese refused to knucklc under to their demands for permission t o station diplomats in Peking—and sank four British gunboats to prove the point. France
and Britain then m o u n t e d a joint
ex{)edition and shot their wav
into the capitai in 1860. Vk hen
t h e C h i n e s e seized a n d killed
members of a British negotiating p a r t v , the British in revenge
burned down the enormous I m perial Summer Palace outside Peking. In the end China was compelled to open more {>orts, pay
the expenses of the expedition
and accept ^ estern legations.
T h e y also gave missionaries access to the entire interior, thus
sowing seeds that would sprout
into the bitterlv anti-Christian
Boxer Uprising 40 years later.
CONTINJED
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1 he foreigners," remarked the Empress Dowager, "are Uke fish in the
stewpan." The fish, however, fought
back. Fire-fighting brigades (oixwe)
countered Chinese attempts to raze
the Legation Quarter by firing adjoining buildingg. Matching the attackers' firepower was more difficult.
One day a rusty old gun barrei (6cUno) left over from the 1860 Anglo-
French Expedition was unearthed.
Mounted on an Italian carriage, loaded with Russian aminunition and
aimed by an American Marine, it became Betsey, the International Gim.
R
Io event in Chinese history
ever shocked the West quite so
deeply as the Boxer Uprising and
the siege of the legations in Peking
in 1900. The Boxers were members of a secret sect that sprang
up in 1898 against the tradition-
Boxev
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ai background of peasant unrest:
floods. (Irouglit. famine and handitrv. It was lhe presenreof W (>slcrn missionarics in tlie c<)iintr\side tliat gave a fociis to liieir
hatred and fruí^tralion. At first
opposed by the old l'",inpress Dow-
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ager. then enrouraged when she
saw in ihein a nieans of ridding
China of foreisner;;. lhe lioxers
slaiightered scores of missionaries
and tlionsands of their nalive conv é n s . F i n a l l \ . aided hy Imperial
forces, they besieged Western dip-
lomais wilhin Pek.ing"s legation
c o m p o i i n d s tlial a l r e a d v were
jammed willi refngees. Fiftv-five
terrible days laler. aflcr ali had
been givcn iip for dead. an allied
column reached IVking. raised lhe
siege and reseued the snrvivors.
i iicir fa(i'> stiowin^ lhe slrain of
coiifiiifiiicut. Aiiieriran and British
niissionaries imsed hofore retiirning
to their posts after the siege. Several
of lhe childreii, siieh as Carringlon
Goodrich {frnnt roír. snnnd from
richi). laler liecaiiie C^hina srlinlars.
Uprising: inside the hesieged legations
CONTINUED
53
BP> A/J, P)\o)^^i.o.esi
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An allied expedition to the rescue
l h e allied armies that carne to the
rescue of the legations besieged by
Boxers in Peking included troops from
no less than eight diiferent foreign
powers—the U.S., Japan, Rússia,
Britain, France, Germany, Italy and
Áustria. The Taku forts fell to shelling by the vessels of five navies (a di-
Abe first rescue column set out for Peking by rail on June 10, 1900. Heavily attacked by Boxers en route, its 2,100 men
fell back on Tientsin. More troops landed
at Taku, seized the forts and moved up
to take the walled city of Tientsin on July
] 4 . . B u t , overestimating enemy strength,
the cautious commanders of the International expeditionary force delayed the advance to Peking for another full month.
54
rect hit on an ammo dump scattered
the debris sbown above) and bayonet
assaults by men of six nations. Such
internationalizatiou led to unusual
scenes. Below, an American gave water to a wounded Japanese as (right)
Old Glory floated above Japanese iníantrymen at the gate of Tientsin.
Bf^ /VNJ^ ?M O y ^ . O 55 Í , 4 C L
4
In
t h e g l o o m oi' t h e
great Ch'ieu Men gate
on the Peking walI lay
the flag-draped body of
C a p t . Henry Joseph Keilly, U.S. A n n y . surrounded by lhe nicn of hi# battery. While directing fire
in sitpport of a futile,
bloody American a l l a c k
on the Forbidden City,
he was killed bv lni{)erial troops the day after
t h e allies entered Peking
to Jift the Boxer siege.
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Armies
from afar,
a dynasty
disgraced
-L rior Io the final assaiilt on
Peking's Forbidden City, no one
could ride a liorse witliin its prccinrts witliout a rarciy granted
Imperial dispensation. \ o w the
clop of cavalry echoed frecly
tlirough the coiirtyards. and the
Empress Dowager, humiliatingly
disguised as a peasant woinan,
was fleeing in a covered cart to the
west of China. T h e d y n a s t y liad
gamhled on the Boxers and lost.
The first result was that Peking suffered j e t another looting
by foreign troops and Chinese inhabitants. ( ^ e s t e r n e r s niaile a
distinction between " c a s u a l " and
"serious" looters, the latter being
those who spoke Cbinese and liad
local contacts.) Troops continued
to poiir in until by the end of
1900 they totaled 45,000. These
included Germans dispatched b y
the Kaiser with the injiinction
t h a t they, "just as the l l u n s a
thousand years a g o , " m a k e " t h e
n a m e of Germany known in siich
a inanner in China, t h a t no Chinese will ever again dare to look
askance at a G e r m a n . "
T h e Hoxer Protocol, as the settlement was called, was signed by
representatives of the \ I a n c h u s
and eleven foreign states in September 1901. I t denianded the
punishmcnt of Chinese officials
and otlier arts of contrition, and
required the p a v m e n t of an indemnity on siich (•ri[)[)ling terins
tliat the Manchu governinent became (as one historian put it) "little more than a debt-collerting
agency for the foreign powers."'
T h e empire liad reached a natlir.
Jjowinír in the niiserv of thcir disfirare, a palace euiiuch (/'•/() and a
scholar-ofíiclal arrested for Boxer coniiections were leashed to an Indian
soldier helonging to the British force.
58
Ourrounded at right by his haughty
oíTicers in their boots and spiked helmets, Count Alfrcd von W aldersee,
^^ho was appointed supreme coinmander of the aUied forces at Kaiser
W ilhelni"s liehest. proiidlv reviewed
German luiits in PeLing. Abovc, German and otlier contingents paraded
in the Porbidden City t«o months
afler the Boxer mohs vere subdued.
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The probJems Chairman Mao faces today have
roots that reoch hack 2,000 years
?ffifi
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i his map of Ali l nder Heaven {i.e.
lhe world). produred in l'Jlh Cenlury
horea.Juilhjiillyjollmis
ancient Laslern Iradition hy allotting China lhe central place of honor, surrounded by a
variely of moslly mvthical
coiintries
pliis afcti real oncs siich as Korra itself
and Japan. The Vcllow Kivcr and the
Yangtze can he discerned aboie and beloivthereddish
{"China") in tlwccnler.
A Nation Imprísoned
A,
by JOHN K.
FAIRBANK
. riirions conlradiction haiints
Cliairman Mao's revolution: lhe
more he seeks to make China new,
the more he seems to fali back
on old Chinese ways of doing
60
it. Two thirds of a century ago,
in the midsummer madness of
1900, the Boxer bands who were
ofiiciallv commissioned to exterminale foreigners in N o r t h
China were composed largelv of
peasant yoiith — and they pursued their ends wilh the same zeal
displayed today by Chairman
M a o ' s officially c o m m i s s i o n e d
" R e d G u a r d s " in their attack on
ali things foreign. Hut where the
Boxers wanted to do away merely with Western infliience in China, the Red Guards express a double frustration: they also want to
wipe out China's "old ideas, old
customs, old h a b i t s . "
Chairman M a o is struggling
not only against Western influcnce biit also against the hold of
China's anrienl past. First, he is
try ing to rcvolutionize the world's
biggest polilical unit. N o one
lias ever beforc even tried to govcrn 700 million people through
a singie unitary regime, let alone
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i ypifying Chinese confidence in ihcir
otin cultural superioritv. lllh C-ciiturv
scroll shous a Tang dvnasly f<pneral
sinplehandedly subduing armed barbarian reMs by simple force of lirtue.
by Her Hístory
remake their whole way of life
and thought. But this is not ali.
In the seoond place, China h a p {H"ns to be the oidest political
iinit with a continuous tradition.
Chinese history Hsts 25 dynasties.
Where M a o stands todav on the
Gale of lleavenly Peace facing
Red Square in Peking, dozens of
emperors. Sons of Heaven, ruled
for hundreds of years, building up
the m o n u m e n t a l inertia of Chinese tradition. When M a o wants
to strike down this tradition, he
can find only methods used before. China's long history has him
in quicksand—as he struggles, he
becomes more immersed in the
attitudes and dreams inherited
from China's past.
T h e reader may be warned that
this is an historian's view. But I
think the great influence of history on events in China will be
piain enough to anvone who
looks into it.
T o start with, there is the fact,
CONTINUED
I
61
w
A Rehellion that
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ihreatened from outside h\- the West,
Imperial China was shaken even more
severely in the mid-19th Century by a
series of hiige peasant uprisings.
The
first and greatest was the Taiping Rebellion. It began in South China aroiind
1850 and w^as led ?»' afrustrated scholar
and religious mystic (he considered
himself the younger brother of Jesus
Christ) named fíung Hsiu-chuan. Before they tvere finally crushed in 1864
(with British help), the Taipings controlted most of central China and nearly
took Peking itself. In these remarkable
paintings, probablv executed on the spot
by Imperial order, government forces
reduce Taiping strongholds near Tientsin with fire, cavalry and siege guns.
^MÍSTÍ^I
62
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CHINA
CONTiNUED
elementary b u t central, t h a t for
more t h a n four thousand years
the Chinese have lived in the same
área. While t h e center of Western
civilization moved from the eastern M e d i t e r r a n e a n
through
Greece a n d R o m e , across France
and England and out over the Atlantic, the Chinese stayed at home
in E a s t Ásia—isolated, •walled in
by mountains and deserts to the
west, jungle t o the south, steppe
and t u n d r a on the n o r t h , and
boundless ocean on the east. T h e
same m o u n t a i n ranges and river flood piains t h a t shaped their
long history are still around t h e m
today. T r y to imagine ali of our
Western past having occurred
within the present United States
and you will get a faint idea of
China'8 self-centered experience
down t o a c e n t u r y ago. I t is as
though we could go and see the
E g y p t i a n pyramids along the
Mississippi above Cairo, Illinois,
or could h a v e the acropolis lit u p
every night on Capitol Hill in
Washington, or had excavated
the Roman F ó r u m in downtown
Philadelphia and marked the site
of Magna C a r t a in a field between
Lexington and Concord.
Within these natural confines
the Chinese ^ a y of life gradually
expanded, from the Yellow Ri ver
t o the Yangtze vallev and on over
South China. While Westerners
became seafarers, colonizing dist a n t shores of the Mediterranean and Atlantic, the Chinese remained farmers and administrators in their continental empire.
Their development was invvard
rather than o u t w a r d , a n d stressed
the social order more t h a n the individual. Staying at home, they
80 well perfected their own sociopolitical order t h a t by about 1000
A . D . they led the world in the art
of g o v e m m e n t .
T h e geographical separateness
of China was reinforced by the
growth of a series of distinctive
institutions, beginning with her
ideographic writing system. T h e
strength of this kind of writing
lies in its being understandable as
symbols of meaning, as numerais
are understood, rather t h a n as
symbols of sound, as alphabetic
writing is understood. T h u s , as
Chinese writing spread out from
N o r t h China, it could be learned
and used in the Shanghai, Foochow, Amoy and C a n t o n áreas of
South China and in Vietnam, K o rea and J a p a n , even though the
dialects or languages these people
spoke were quite different from
t h a t of N o r t h China. T h e Chinese
characters gave t h e m a common
bond of classical leaming and
m a d e for cultural and political
unity within a subcontinent far
larger t h a n Europe.
G
lhina's unity was achieved
early, and when broken—almost
in a cycle of unity-disunity-unity
— always revived. W i t h no outlet in seafaring. the scores of
small city-states t h a t grew u p on
the N o r t h China plain competed
instead in war and politics. By
the 6th C e n t u r y B.C. about 10
big States had absorbed ali t h e
rest, and in the great unifícation
of 221 B . C . the W a r r i n g States
were finally conquered b y t h e
State of Ch'in, from which came
the Western n a m e . C h i n a . T h e
administrators of the H a n d v n a s ty (202 B.C.-220 A.D.) Consolidated the centralized empire. T h e
ideological cement they used was
Confucianism.
Confucius lived around 500
B . C , a philosopher-adviser t o
the rulers of his time on m a t t e r s
of statecraft and how to achieve,
and then maintain, power and political stabilitv. As it finally develojjed. Imperial Confucianism
added a good deal of Realpolitik
t o the original teachings of the
sage, although the gap between
founder and institution was hardly as great as t h a t between, say,
Jesus of N a z a r e t h and the medieval P a p a c v . Confucianism gave
the Chinese despot ethical respectability. I t supplied the central
m y t h of the Chinese state, the political fiction of rule by virtue.
Even so, this Chinese political
theory was a good deal more raCONTINUED
63
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CHINA
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tional tFian tlic l'iiro|»<>an theory
of the divine right of kings. First,
the cveles of nature and of life —
the lunar month. tlie solar year,
planting and harvesting, birth
and death — ali demonstrate t h a t
the huinan soeial order is part
of the order of n a t u r e . T h e Son
of Ileaven was viewed as funetioning wliere they met, at the
very top of the human scene, and
kcpt man and nature in harmony.
The einperor eondueted the eosniic rituais at the altar of Ileaven or atop the sacred mountains.
H e s e t the ralendar. He took personal responsibility for drought,
flood and other aets of nature,
as though his own virtue had been
at fault.
Seeond, he set the moral exaniple for ali men—and this was
felt to be the real seeret of his
power. His supremelv virtuous
conduct inoved ali civilized mankind to awe and obedienee."Vt hen
a prinee's personal eonduet is correct," Confueius said in the Analects, ''his government is effeetive
without the issuing of orders. If
his personal eondnct is not eorreet, he mav issue orders but they
»ill not be followed."
Chinese power holders ever
since, down through Chiang Kaishek and M a o Tse-tung, have
claimed a moral leadership. Even
if thev lacked it in fact, they have
still preserved it in the reeord.
But when such a paragon loses
power, sure enough, the reeord
will later show that he had already
lost his moral stature.
In this system, a ruler's policies were an inseparable part of
his virtuous conduct. T o criticize
his policies was to undermine his
prestige (or face) and therefore
his power. T h e ^ estern idea of a
"loyal opposition," which could
criticize a policv while still expecting the policv maker to stay
in ofíice, never took root in China.
M a n v political inventions buttressed the strong monarchv. The
examination system, for example,
opened official careers to the talented and ambitious some 13 centuries bcfore we got around to
civil Service examinations in the
West. For century after century
the Chinese examinees indoctrinated themselvcs in state orthodoxv bv memorizing the official
commentaries on the Confucian
classics. A successful candidate
sjjent 10 or 15 vears' hard work at
this task. INot surprisinglv, he
seldom thereafter produced a novel or rcbellious idea. Yet he had
put himself through this intellectual wringer bv his own choice
and at his own exj>ensc. W h a t
a neat device!
Equallv neat and useful was
the legal system of mutual or
collective responsibilitv: By it,
ali familv members were responsible for one another, and ali
neighbors responsible for neighCONTINUED
A Prize Sought hy Japon and Rússia
/ \ s part of a Mdted profiram of modernization. China liuill a navy in lhe
ISHOs. But, hamstriinfi hy corruplion,
it was no malch for tlic neu Japanese
64
flect uhcn lhe Iwo mel in 1894. Contendingfor conirol of JSorth China u a ters—and Korea—a dozrn vessels from
each navy clashed off the Yalu Rivcr.
The Japanese won, ihen allacked lhe
fortified harbor of Weihaiuei in Shanliinp, uhere lhe rest of lhe Chinese fleet
holed up. In ihis irnaginativc wood-
hlock prínt, made in lokyo.
Chinese
defendera (ripfit) cotver Ixfore lhe siiccessfiil Japanese assaiãt. China has
had virlually no navy since that day.
J
?h A/
-^ i
0^ I
íressinfi
dnun friim Silteria. czarist
liiissía seized the opporltinity
ojjered
hy lhe lioxer I pri\inf! Ia lake over lhe
uhiile (ij Mancharia in I90U. Troops
rruned in Io praleil Kussian-ouned
enterprises and then. despile
diplomaiic
pressure froin lhe M eslern pouers and
Japan. rejused to leave. The Russians
Joufíhl lhe lioxers; ihey aIso Jmiflht
hripands like ihose shoiirt in lliis print
(Icft) hy a Chinese arlist uhose iinderslandinç. of H eslern //«Cs i(«.s a liltle
shaky. l'inally in
I90ltheyhadlojifíht
lhe Japanesp, tiho aIso jeanted Mancharia. 1 rounced at sea. lhe Russians
poiired troops (Ix-low) into the har
l.ast lia the Trans-SHx'rian
Railuay
and engaped in a series of hitge land
Ifottles. In one encounter—lhe
Ballle
oj Mukden—iheir
casualties
tolaled
lOO.OOd. Statemated.
in 19().y they
aflreed tii icillidraic Jrom
Mancharia.
X^-o,
CHINA
The Old
CONTINUEO
boring households. If your b r o t h er did wrong and absconded, you
would p a y . So you kept an eye
on him. I n the result, everybody
watched evervbody—again at no
cost to the State. This ancient invention hes behind the networks
of informers t h a t operate in China
(and on Taiwan) today.
Innumerable other administrativa devices and self-balancing institutions helped to keep society
in order. AH were the handiwork
of the scholar-official ruHng class
—the mandarins—who were the
inheritors of the art of statecraft
and supervised the activities of
peasants, merchants and artisans.
Indissolubly wedded to Confucian principies, dependent on the
imperial patronage, they became
the 'world's most formidable establishment, highly conservative
in Outlook, highly skilled in manipulating people.
..r. f
T
.oward surrounding States, including Turkic and Mongol tribes
from the Inner Asian grasslands
w h o s e powerful c a v a l r y s o m e times broke in through the Great
Wall, the Chinese develojied not
what we think of as normal foreign relations b u t the institution
of " t r i b u t e . " Though the "outer
b a r b a r i a n s " w e r e o n l y on t h e
fringe of the Chinese world order,
the awe-inspiring example of the
emperor made them acknowledge
him as the center of civilization.
" H e nourished them like their
father and m o t h e r , " WTOte a Chinese enthusiast in 1839. " H e gave
them illumination like the sun
and moon. When thev were starving, he fed t h e m . . . . When they
came to him, he took them to bis
bosom. . . . " And, it might be
added, when they brought tribute and kowtowed—three kneelings and nine prostrations—at
Peking, the emperor's gifts to
t h e m made it well worth their
while. In short, when China was
strong militarily, the barbarians'
tribute could be exacted. When
China was weak militarily, she
was still strong economically, and
the barbarians' tribute could be
bought and paid for. Either way,
the ceremonies of tribute and the
eniperor's prestige were preserved.
T h e final achievement of the
mandarins was the capaeitv they
d e v e l o p e d t o let n o n - C h i n e s e
conquerors—the Mongols (12791368) or especially the Manchus
(1644-1911)—come in and rule
66
ecí,ACL.A,
China as emperors at Peking
while the empire went on being
govemed through a Chinese bureaucracy in the old familiar Chinese way. This assimilation of
ahen dynastic rule, sometimes
oversimplified as " C h i n a absorbing ber conquerors," tended to
emphasize the universal, nonnational character of t h e monarchy. T h e alien emperors stressed
Confucian culturaUsm and so
held back the growth of Chinese
nationahsm.
N o t ali these political devices
were unique t o China, nor did
they always function well. T h e
Chinese polity h a d its share of
corruption, intrigue, greed and
dirty work. B u t t h e t o t a l effect
was t o give China t h e world'8
most stable, skilled and sophisticated government b y t h e time
the D a r k Ages were engulfing
E u r o p e . W e s t e m e r s who m a n aged to reach China could well
be amazed at t h e enormous size
and stability of the Chinese s t a t e .
I n the 13th C e n t u r y , M a r c o Polo
noted t h a t in the scenic old capital of Hangchow, one of t h e
world's great cities, "persons who
inhabit the same street, b o t h men
and women, from the mere circumstances of neighborhood, a p pear like one family." As late as
the 17th and 18th Centuries, during the 60-year reigns of the great
K'ang Hsi and Ch'ien Lung emperors, Jesuit missionaries at Pe-
w illful and dever, the Empress Dowa^er Tz^u Hsi in effect ruled over the
dying empire almost from the day that
she became a concubine to the Hsien
Feng Emperor in 1852. But the '"Old
Buddha," as she was called, knew little
o/ the world outside thefaded red palace
walls. She refused to siipport her loyal
minister Li Hung-chang (above) when
he tried to industrialize and build modem military forces. China remained
medieval and vulnerable. At right, supported by two ladies-in-waiting, Tzu
Hsi posed in 1903 for a Manchu nobleman whose hobby was photography.
king could hold u p China's m a terial peace and prosjjerity as a
model for Europe t o aim at. On
this point the rulers of China
agreed with them. When E n g land sought diplomatic contact
in 1793, Ch'ien Lung wrote a
famous edict t o King George I I I :
" T h e virtue and prestige of the
Celestial D y n a s t y having spread
far and wide, the kings of the
myriad nations come by land and
sea with ali sorts of precious
things. Consequently there is
nothing we lack. . . . We have
never set much store on strange
or ingenious objects, nor do we
need any more of your country'8
manufactures."
Yet this Chinese self-image of
sufficiency and condescending superiority masked the fact t h a t
China's development had fallen
behind t h a t of Europe. The ambitious, quarrelsome Europeans,
CONTINUED
I
BP,
Clt-d , P,tO X ^ . s . ? ^
Empress Dowager Who Wou]dn't Lisíen
e>Pj 4 ^ / , ^ f O X ^ . O . cC\
CHINA
CONTINUED
Shijiing Borders of
an Ancient Empire
off on the #mall westernmost
[x-ninsulasand islandsof the great
I"urasian land inass, had been developing the dynamism of mode m life, evideneed in forms of
growlh and violent expansion
that we tag for eonvenience as
n a t i (> n a 1 i s tn. i n <1 i v i d ii a 1 i s in,
Chriítian niissions, seience, eapitalisní. industrialism, eolonialiíiii and so on. By the end of the
18th Centurv the Europeans had
alreadv overrun niuch of the
earth. Biil tlie Chinese. in thcir
own ample cornor of lhe world,
had reniained contentedly iinaware of their inadeqiiacies and
of the polential danger to tliem
in these new developinents. As
:
George l I E s envov. the Earl of
Macartnev, noted in his joiirnal,
" T h e Empire of China is an old.
erazv. firsl-rate Man of Vt ar. . . .
...:'
She niav, jK>rhaps. not sink outright: she mav drift some time
as a wreck. and will then be
daslied to píeres on the shore;
^•'
b u t she ran never be rebuilt on
the old b o t t o m . "
In the earlv 19th Century, China was suffering from a great population explosion. One symptom
of her weakness and demoralization was the growth of opium
smoking. Far from being an old
Chinese custom. this vice had
been practicallv unknown in China hefore 18(K). jiist as it is ali but
unknown loday. Yet the 19th
Centurv saw it become widespread, stimiilated and suppiied
bv opium imports from índia
sold by British merchants to Chinese distributors. T o suppress the
opium trafíic China's rulers tried
to roerce the British within the
framework of the outworn tribute svsteni. But lhe British seized
the opportunily Io allack (Jiina's whole posture of isolalion
and superiorilv. In íighting lhe
Opium W ar of 1840-42, they felt
themselves the righteous champions of modern (Western 1 civilizalion against China's hackwardness.
I
n a general wav. this war set
a paltern thal still a[)|(lies to our
relations with China, for the British were demanding that China
join the international order aceonJing to Western rules. In lhe
1810s th<- demand. to whicli the
-Maníhu enn>erors were ullimate-
68
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s.
500
M,LES
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--
.-•'' •••,
MONGÓLIA
PEKING*
J
TIENTSIN
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NANKINCl»
VX",.^
".•••
•••"
INDlA
<
CHINA
T I B E T
CANTON •
\ ^ V
,^CL.^I\'^,Y^''
lization had become a semicolony
of s m a l l e r foreign c o u n t r i e s .
W h a t had happened?
China's rulers could hardly
comprehend lhe rising flood i h a t
was slowly engidfing them. In the
1860s, while reasserling the tried
and true principies of Iin{)erial
Confucian governinent, they
went oul and bought Western
arms and gunboats. Yet even
this was done over conservative
objections: " T h e fundamental
efforl lies in the minds of people,
nol in teehniques . . . why is it
necessary to learn from lhe barharians?" In lhe 1870s and ]880s
leading ofíicials began movements
for \'í estern-tvpe industrialization and governmental reforin.
Juslification for ihis was, of
course. cuUed from lhe classics
but lhe dassical examination svslem. which provided the base for
the eslablished order, was left
unchanged. It was ali loo little,
too late. The old Chinese stateand-society could not be jacked
u[) and modernized. Instead. the
whole structure had Io be lorn
down.
L
Ihron^hoiit ils lonp hislory llic Chinese
Emjiirc cxpdiideit (ind ciintracled numy
timrs. [)urinf> lhe reifin of lhe hmpcror
Ch ien Liiiifíin lhe IHlh Cenliiry, China
emhraeetl Monfiolia. niiich of Cjmlral
ísid and ^reat tracis of SilxTia (rcd
shadiiifíj. Ollwr coiinlries (iiulicated
l)y diagonal lincs) ,si/f/i as ISiirma.
f ieliiam. Siam and 'Sepal acknoitledped Chinese j>re-eminence hy sendirip
Iriliiile. Presenl-day China (oulliiied in
rcdi slill chiinis cerlain áreas losl since
lhe IHlh Centurv. parliailarlv SUn-ria
norlh of Mancharia and paris of índia.
ly obliged to accede, was for free
Irade ( 1 ; in a free m a r k e t without offieial monopolies, (2) t o be
laxed bv a regularly enforeed
[)ublished tariff, (3) ai porls
where foreigners would enjoy the
proteetion of ^ e s t e m law adminislered bv foreign eonsuls funclioning on Chinese soil. These
[)rivileges—plus the right to seek
Christian converts—wcre gained
by the " u n e q u a l " treaties t h a t
remained in force for a fuU century from 1842 to 1943. Meanwhile the opium t r a d e , though
still j)rohibited by the Emperor
ai 1'eking. was left for him Io
preveni as best be could. When
this proved impossible, it grew in
volume and vajue, and was made
legal after 18.58, crealing more addicts and further corrupting Chinese life.
By and large, however, China
remained self-concerned and unresponsive to this new barbarian
invasion from the W^est. Until
1860 the Vi esierners were kepl Io
the southeast coast, where the
earlv missionaries made few converts. ^^ hen violem doinestic rebellions after 1850 mobilized Chinese peasants againsl lhe M a n chu-Chinese ruling class, lhe dvnasly at Peking saw the rebels,
with their strong anti-Confucian
bent, as a more basic ihreal to the
traditional way of life t h a n lhe
commercial-minded foreigners.
\\ eslern help was even accepled
in sujjpressing lhe most import a m of these movements, lhe
Tai{>ing Rebellion. Allhough this
made sense to lhe Confucianminded ruling class of the ]860s
it is,of course, denounced in retrospectby Chinese p a t r i o t s o f t o d a y .
But lime was nol on the side
of Confu<'ianism. The foreign encroachmenl continued inexorably. ^ ilhin Iwo generations, the
once great ancient center of eivi-
ike ali historical accounts,
the above is, of course, an interprelalion. Many Chinese patriots of loday prefer to stress, instead of China"s weakness, the
foreigners' aggressiveness. Likc
Chairman M a o , they are tempted
to ascrihe the old China's downfall to the monstrous evils of im[x-rialism, including in this catchall nol onlv foreign trade, wars
of aggression, and economic exploitation by the imperialist powers, b u t also the "cultural imperialism" of the missionary movement. Obviously, a great deal
hinges on how one interprets the
decline of the Chinese Empire in
the 19th Century.
I wovdd not underrale lhe avarice, enterprise and self-righteous
aggressiveness of our Aictorian
ancestors of the age of imperialism. I merely doubt t h a l thev
were able to lireak down the Chinese Empire ali alone. They tried,
of course. Western m e r c h a n t s
did seek a fasl buck and Vi estern
missionaries looking for "heai h e n " converts did indeed undermine Confucianism and begin
China's modernization in manv
ways. But lhe real key was the
(jualily of China's resjjonse to
Western contact. T h e foreigners
CONTINUED
ti'P! fí-Al, P)IO
X ^ . O.
€C
A Mortal Challenge
from a New Order
CONTINUED
The FE 226 ST
has just one disadvantage...
it doesn't look like a TV set!
Quite rightly too. You don't want to have your
elegant living room ruined by a cold TV screen.
Thafs why we've put a sliding pane! on the
>FE 226 ST<. When the sefs not on, just slide
the panei over... and your TV set is immediately
transformed into an impressíve piece of
furniture. Your friends may think that you
haven't got a television but they will beenvious
of your distinctive piece of furniture.
made byTELEFUNKEN...
means a world of progress
acted mainly as catalysts. In Japan in the same period, foreigners
set up the same system of privilege by t r e a t y and found t h a t
patriotic samurai, when they were
angered, had a tendency to draw
their long swords and cut foreigners in two rather t h a n acquiesce.
In J a p a n , loyalty to feudal leaders c o u l d — a n d did — d e v e l o p
quicklv into nationalism, much
as it had in E u r o p e . B u t the
Chinese loyalty was n o t t o leaders b u t t o their ancient culture
and institutions. And when these
proved inadequate for m o d e m
life, their lovaltv was left without a focus. J a p a n westernized
with amazing speed. China fell
apart.
I
think most historians would
agree t h a t t h e Chinese in the 19th
Centurv were undone by the very
factors t h a t had given t h e m such
early success in the art of govemment. Over the centuries they
had solved one problem of stabilitv after another, b u t always
within t h e framework of E a s t
Ásia. When the West broke in
from outside and presented new
problems, t h e old solutions were
produced and tried again b u t
they would not work. For example, the Chinese ruling class of
the 17th Century was compelled
to let the M a n c h u " b a r b a r i a n s "
move into the power structure as
emperors at the very t o p . Nevertheless imperial Confucianism
s u b s e q u e n t l y achieved new
heights. I n much the same w a y ,
the Manchu-Chinese ruling class
of the mid-19th C e n t u r y was
readv to let the powerful British
" b a r b a r i a n s " participate in the
power structure of the empire,
and after 1860 m a n v British administrators did indeed become
Chinese civil servants under the
emperor. B u t the British, imlike
the Manchus, did not try to learn
and perpetuate t h e Chinese w a v .
T h e y r e p r e s e n t e d a different
scheme of things entirelv, and
their presence only helped t o underraine the Chinese system.
Little in the Chinese model
was suited to the dynamism of
modern Europe. I n a world j u s t
entering the heyday of nationalism, the Manchu rulers, being
non-Chinese, had t o soft-pedal
it. In a world just undergoing the
Industrial Revolution, China—
for ali her earlier achievements
in Science and inventions like
p r i n t i n g and g u n p o w d e r — h a d
little innate interest in scientific
technology or the substitution of
steam machinery for muscle power in t r a n s p o r t and tnanufacture.
Again, in an era when mass literacy, the press, democracy, and
representative government were
fueling t h e a g g r e s s i v e n e s s of
Western nations, t h e great peasant mass of China remained politically inert. T h e small elite
continued t o monopolize literacy
and learning, politics and power.
I t was still as the classics said:
" S o m e m e n labor with their
minds and govern others, some
labor with their h a n d s a n d are
governed b y o t h e r s . "
T h e very writing system also
served to slow do^\Ti the assimilation of foreign ideas. T h e J a p a nese, the Koreans, the Vietnamese had ali developed phonetic
systems of writing to supplement
their use of Chinese characters.
T h e y could t h u s i m p o r t foreign
words by sound as new additions
to the language. B u t Chinese was
still written only in ideographic
characters. Foreign words like
" r a d i o " could not easily be t a k e n
in by imitating their sound b u t
only by usingcharacters toexpress
their meaning. Since traditional
meanings were already attached
to ali the characters, ambiguitv
could result and Chinese readers could cling to the old r a t h e r
t h a n t h e new meanings. Moreover, the kind of language reform
that E u r o p e had achieved in the
Renaissance—the writing down
of language as it was spoken in
the vernacular—was not pushed
until 1917. The ideographic characters themselves, unchanged
since the time of the First Emperor, h a v e only recentlv been
simplificd and are still an obstacle
to rapid literacy.
Finally the Chinese were stuck
with their proud traditions and
their inborn conviction of sujjeriority. They had never thought of
CONTINUED
72
One of the victorious Fords (with Shell Oil) in the 24-hour race at Le Mans this year.
I^fi^j,^
You benefit
It would be surprising if you did not
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On six continents there are more
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And at every one you can be sure of
getting products with ali ShelFs
care and scientific ingenuity built
into them.
Invitation
The next time you drive in for a fill-up,
or an oil change, you probably will
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be. But if you would like to know
more about gasoline and oil, or any
of the Shell products
describedon theright,
please get in touch
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will be pleased to help.
L
But Shell is more than gasohne and oil:
A. The Shell Toroidal Burner is a new
oxy-fuel burner which produces a flame
very much hotter than that of conventional burners. In steelmaking furnaces
its use has resulted in improved production, and the suppression of red oxide
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A By the 197ü's, supersonic airliners will
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Two milk containers are dropped: the
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BP) A / i , £^/o x ^
The Proud People
Sink in Humiliation
CHINA
CONTINUED
themselves as borrowing cullure
from "outer b a r b a r i a n s " cr acknowledging their cultural equality. T h e Chinese could not now
accept the idea t h a t they t h e m selves were a cultural minority,
out oi step with the world a t
large.
How far t h e times were out of
joint can be gauged by the frustrations of China's chief modernizer in t h e late 19th C e n t u r y ,
Li Hung-chang. This outstanding
bureaucrat rose to power as commander of a new a r m y whose foreign guns he paid for with trade
revenues from the rising port of
Shanghai. D u r i n g four decades
he tried everything—building arsenais and steamships, opening
mines and railways, developing a
n a v y , trving to pacify the French
on the Indochina border and to
keep the Russians and Japanese
out of Korea. Until the new J a p anese fleet sank much of the new
^Chinese fleet in 1894, in one of
the first modern naval battles, Li
-remained the big official of the
>day. But consider bis difficulties
—he bad to keep the favor of the
M a n c h u ruler at Peking, the E m press Dowager, whose penchant
for court amenities led her to set
u p a widespread system of corruption. Her officials even diverted
funds from the n a v y to rebuild
her Summer Palace. T h e establisbment often torpedoed Li's projects, and he himself played the
game of corruption. When the
Japanese negotiator of 1895, I t õ
Hirobumi, asked him, " W h y is it
t h a t up to now not a single thing
has been changed or reformed?"
Li Hung-chang could only reply,
"Affairs in m y country have been
so confined by tradition. . . . I
a m ashamed of having excessiva
wishes and lacking the power to
fulfill t h e m . " H e lived j u s t long
enough to negotiate the protocol
t h a t ended the Boxer incident
b u t mortgaged China's revenues
to the foreign powers.
Looking back over China's experience as an out-of-date civilization coming late and awkwardly, like a mastodon left over from
a bygone age, into t h e rapidly
changing modern world, one can
begin to appreciate the modern
task of metamorphosis. One of
the great leaders, Liang Ch'icb'ao, wrote in 1922, " C h i n a during the last 50 years has been like
a silkworm becoming a m o t h , or
a snake removing its skin. These
are naturally very difficult and
painful processes."
T,
-he effort to modernize was
aided by foreigners who swarmed
over the prostrate empire after
1900, b u t their helpfulness was
often humiliating to t h e new Chinese nationalists. M e a n t i m e the
old Empress Dowager, intent on
preserving the M a n c h u power,
could find no wav to modernize
China without fostering revolutionaries and digging the dynastv's grave. By the time the collapse came in 1911, three years
after her death, t h e s t r u c t u r e of
Imperial Confurianism was already rotted out. T h e end of the
examination system in 1905 had
broken the educational monopoly of the classics. Overtbrow of
the M a n c h u dynasty in 1911 also
threw out the Son of Heaven as
an institution. A government
which for more t h a n two thousand years had centered on the
monarchy now h a d no monarch.
As Mongólia and Tibet broke
away from the Chinese Republic,
the empire disintegrated.
NEXT ÍSSUE; P A R T íí
A Revolution that Brought
the Age of Warlords
In rare photographs LIFE telis the story of an empire's coJJapse
and the tragic struggíe to construct a modern nation.
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m a maifs world.
Give a num a Lucky
A man's world. A thousand horsepower goes to sea. 50-60-70 knots.
Strong hands on the wheel fight the kick of the waves.
In a man's world, a man's cigarette. For man-size flavor, man-size satisfaction—Lucky Strike.
^pi ;Q^). í^io x^.o.e^i ,/^CL.4M,^.^?
PART íí
L_/pring sunlight gleamed through the
dust and incense. Except for the wail of
priests, there was silence as the catafalque, borne by 120 cooUes, moved away
from the walls of Peking toward the Imperial tonibs at Hsi-Hng. It was M a y 1,
1909. Emperor Kuang Hsu was dead.
Last issue Part I of this series told how
the old dynastic order in 19th Century
China, enfeebled by decay, was shaken
by repeated Western assaults. This instalment carries the story into the chãos
which the death of K u a n g Hsu presaged.
T e n y e a r s before, as a p r o g r e s s i v e
young ruler, Kuang Hsu had actually
supported a series of reforms t h a t — h a d
thev been carried out—might have saved
the imperial system and eased the passage of China into the modern world.
For his pains he lost control of the government and was clapped under house
arrest by his aunt, the old Empress Dowager. She also canceled the reforms.
Now she too had died—on nearly the
same day as Kuang Hsu—and on the
Dragon Throne sat a 4-year-old boy
named P ' u Yi. Buffeted by foreign imperialists, discredited within by the Boxer fiasco, the Manchu government was
ripe for the coup de grace: revolution.
In Canton, in J a p a n , in Singapore and
Saigon, plotters were already at work.
Unsuccessful uprisings had taken place;
the arch-conspirator Sun Yat-sen—later
to be revered by Communist and Nationalist alike as the founder of the Chinese Republic—was at that moment on
his way to Paris to seek more funds.
But in the upcountry city of Hanchung there was little thought of revolution. The old ways would linger long
enough for a young Italian priest with
a camera [nexl page) to record them.
Blown into
the modern world
on winds of
violence
40
A Dynasty Died and
0P>. AM , PjiO yC^-0.
6 S i , P,C-
fíevolution Swept China
fr-^Sr^
Upcountry,
the old ways
lingered on
i n 1903, v h e n F a t h e r Leone Nani arri\ ed, carrving his caraera, fresh froni
the seminary in R e m e , t h e CathoUc
mission at H a n c h u n g in Shensi Province was already one of t h e oldest in
China. In 1636, t h e local inandarin
had invited a French priest to come
and see what he could do about relieving a plague of locusts. Apparently siiccessful, the priest was allowed
to s t a y and m a k e converts.
H a n c h u n g itself, as Nani saw it
(above) during t h e 12 years he spent
there, was a comfortable, moderatesize provincial city, situated in t h e
middle of a rich íarming region with
a Catholic population of more t h a n
10,000 o u t of a total of 5 million.
T h a n k s to the good land and the stilliiitact system of peasant handicrafts,
iiiost people in the área had enough
to eat, and on special occasions, such
as a funeral, could afford to have
a feast (/e/f). Like most Catholic
missionary priests, F a t h e r N a n i
customarily wore modified Chinesa
dress and ate the same sort of food
as his parishioners. B u t he balked
at the use of chopsticks, favoring
his familiar fork instead {below).
I
5P) -AM.P^íO X ^ . 0 , c 5 \ , A C L . 4 ;
1 he village life which F a t h e r Nani
saw while touring through his 30.000sqiiare-mile territorv conformed to
a very ancient p a t t e r n . On m a r k e t
davs (six or twelve d a v s a m o n t h . or
more often depending on t h e size of
the settlement) íarmers would b n n g
produce to sell or to barter. Traveling opera companies, small circuses
(above). conjurers and other entertainers carne to town regiilarlv too.
and the priest photographed t h e m .
T o destrov such a settled wav of
life woidd take more t h a n t h e fali of
a d v n a s t v in Peking. In fact—except
for the unhicky to«n« that lav in the
p a t h of marching armies—traditionai village life would not be radically
altered in m a n v parts of China until
the Comnuinist takeovcr. But as 1911
approaehed and a n t i - M a n c h u disorders increased, the l l a n c h u n g missionaries were understandably nervoiis. Fresh in their minds was 1900.
when Boxer mobs niartvred one of
their colleagues and s l a u g h t e r e d
scores of native Christians. Prepared
this time. thev posed with F a t h e r
Nani (seateil at right) for his springtripped camera on the front steps of
their niission headquartcrs. armed to
the teeth «itli rifles and a rapid-fire
cannon dismounted from a gunboat.
CONTINUED
43
L/rillin;; witli ilicir anli<|uc caplock
muslvets in 1911. a Itallalion of Imperial soKliers iii Hancluiii!; lookcd
fiercer ihan tliev reallv were. T h e
Manchu forces at the time of the
revolution included evervthing from
swordsníen and lance-l>earers to Yuan
Shih-k'ai's modern Peiyang Iroops.
U n d e r an American fia;:. Imperial
forces an<l white-scarved re\olutioEiariea held a parlev at Nankinf; in October, 1911. I lie American cônsul (;«
rifilil ojflaft, wparinfi plug hat) supervised the Imperial surrender. Meanwhilt;, heavv fii;lilÍMf: at \\ uliaii
was going agaiiist lhe revolutioiiarics.
f
BP> AM, PiiO X'^. O. eZ) ,>^.CL
The Sun Yat-sen Repuhlic
and how ít was lost
ihough verv much a civilian, ?un
Vat-?en {center. acconipanied liv his
cal)inet iiiinislers) wore a uniform to
visit the Ming Tom!)s at Nanking
in 1912, foilowing his inauguration.
w ith two other palace officials,
^ uan Shih-k"ai (center. belou) posed
inside the Forhidden Cilv hefore the
revohition. Hedied in 1916. soon after
trving to e?tal)liíih a new dvnastv.
T h e uprising tliat was t o topple
the Manchus and bring the long
cliain of Chinese dvnasties to an
end finally broke out in October,
1911. It was an improvised affair
that would have snrceeded no
better than the numerous earlier
a t t e m p t s except for one thing:
the Chinese were at Jast ready to
turn against Im|>eria] rule.
I t started with an explosion in
a clandestine workshop in H a n kow, where revolutionaries were
making bombs and preparing for
a coup a week hence. A t t r a e t e d
by the blast, police searched the
place and confiscated incriminating (loouments. T h a t night t h e
revolutionaries managed to make
contact with svmpathizers in the
local garrison. and next dav a contingent of engineers rose against
their officers. Loyal troops put u p
some resistance, then ran away
or joined the rebels.
From then on, across mnch of
China, revolution spread spontaneoiisly. But in the norfh still
loomed the powerful Yuan Shihk'ai. builder of China's best miiitarv force, premier of the Imj)erial government, a m a n to be
reckoned with. Sun Yat-sen, who
had been in the U.S. when the
revolution started, became president of the RepubHc of China on
Janiiary 1, 1912, with the proviso
t h a t if Yuan would recognize the
revolutionarv government, Sun
would step aside in his favor. ISot
a m a n to miss an o p p o r t u n i t v .
Y u a n soon did so. T h e young
E m p e r o r P'u Yi. now 6, abdicated under prcssure and in
March 1912 Yuan Shih-k'ai took
over as president.
At the time it seemed best. Sim
was the most famoiis revolutionary. l i e had spent decades in
the anti-Manchu cause. IJut civil
war woidd almost certainly have
brought foreign intervention, and
Y u a n , far more ihan Sun, represented unity. Moreover, his repiitation abroad meant that recognition and loans for the new
regime would be more casily
forthcoming. There was onlv one
calch: the onl\ kind of governm e n t Yuan knew about was government bv fiat and force. Once
the revolution had fallen into
his hands. it had as good as failed.
CONTINUED
•i
45
e>y^, ^ ) , t^tO X^.O.e^/,ACL.4//)3^p,.
Ways of the West hegin to take hold
i
t^
46
í
i
VVestern leariiiiig began
filtcring
into China long i)efore 1911. largelv
througli mission schools where a studeiit (Ic/t) could contend with plane
geometry in his own wav. T h e revolution m a d e the ^ est high fashion.
and F a t h e r N a n i photographed these
dressed-up lads (above) around 1913.
i h e revolution brought onc radical
change—the end of the queue. M a n chus had forced Chinese to « e a r long
queues, and the revolutionaries, regarding this as degrading, lopped the
queues off (right). Among t h e voung
firebrands who returned to China to
t a k e p a r t in this activity—and t h e
more serious husiness of fighting—
was Chiang Kai-shek (ahoie, ripht).
^ hen the revolution arrived, he was
a military cadet studying in J a p a n .
CONTINUED
6(=>) f^i.P;iC
X or the great mass of Chinesa,
the destruotion of the old order in
favor of demooratif abstraotions
meant little. Famine had always
stalked the towTis and viilages,
and the end of the Manchas made
no difference. Between tlie years
1900 and 1925, there were at least
eight severe faniines, with dealh
tolls up to 500,000. Missionary
food distribiilion stations Hke the
one at ieft offered oniy slight relief. In K a n s u Province, famine.
t y p h u s , b a n d i t s and war killed
one-third of the entire popiilation
between 1926 and 1930. ' T h e r e
are districts," wrote British economist R. H . T a w n e v in 1932, "in
whicli the position of the rural
popiilation is t h a t of a man standing permanently up t o t h e neck
in water, so that even a ripple is
sufficient to drown h i m . " T h e
ripples carne frequently.
Traditional labor conditions often compounded the misery. At
X ^ . O . e s i , Ac-:
the coal fields of Mentow kow near
Peking in 1918, sub-contractors
achieved a production rate estim a t e d to be onlv 1.2% of the
U.S. average. They did it with
h u m a n labor exclusively—no machinery, no aaimal-^. T h e bov
above was 14 years old when this
picture was taken. He ciit the coal
from the mine face aml dragged it
to the surface in this fashion 12
hours a day. seven davs a week. If
he died, his kin gol a free coffin.
No escape from ancient hardships
CONTINUED
49
II
^HJ. PMO X ^ . O . t - \ , A C L . ^ ^
Chiang^s
Oooii after the Kus»ian Kevolution
in lOlT, C o m m u n i s t influeiice begaii
to he felt iii China. In 1010, resentment ajjainst Vi estorn and Japanosr
encroaohnienls on China hrought on
a new wave of revohitionarv fervor.
Sun Yat-sen, submerged in the confused weller of wariord pohticí tliat
followed \ i i a n Shih-k"ai"s d e a t h in
1916, seized this opportunitv to reconstitute his Kuoinintang; (Nationalist P a r t y ) . H e gradually hecanie
synipathetic to the idea of a Soviettvpe partv dictatorship. In the early "20s the Coinintern .sent Michael
Borodin {right, with a warlord general) and others to help organize
the Kuoniintang. and incidentalK
t o ereate a native
Commnni.st
movement. For a time t h e two parties worked together—in 192.3. a 29year-old Communist p a r t v worker nanied M a o Tse-tung was a eoordinator. B u t Sun died in 1925, sphts
developed in t h e K M T , and C h i a n g
Kai-shek, « h o as leader of the rapidlv growing K M T arniy was S u n s
logical successor, came to power. H e
had no love for the C o m m u n i s t s .
' 0^
f-<V
L j h i a n g Kai-shek's great Northern
F.xpedition against lhe warlords (sce
p. 52) started from C a n t o n in July
1926. T a k i n g over armies as they advaneed, his forces swept north. By
the end of the year thev had more
than doid)led in size. But in early
1927 Chiang hegan meeting serious
opposition from the Communists.
Convinied that thev reallv meant
to doid>lccross him and suhvert tlie
p a r t y . Chiang launehed a shattering
purge in April, first in Shanghai, then
in Nanking (where t h e ahove l)eheadings took plaee) and elsewhere. Boro(hn and otliers fled to the l .S.S.R.
Sun Yat-sen'g young widow [at left
with her brothers and Chiang at
Sun"s funeral) wcnt to Moseow too.
50
jBP, ^4.
í^io X<^.0. 5 2 I, A O L . 4
reckoning with the Communists
NI
fe
'Jãf
..^
iULaiij"(t
. '»«': .
w
Stei^^^
íhe lireak lietvvefii Chiaiifr and the
CoinmuiiiAts foon liecaine opeii war.
Mao Tse-tiing headed into Hiinan
and directed an uiií^ucoessful peasant
revolt. Othcr Coinmunists tried and
fani'd tosei/.f Nanclianf; and Swatow.
I.ike Mao, niany of tliein t'\<Miluallv
retreated Io a fornier handit niountain hani;out. Tlic last major (^oniiniinist tlinist of llu' [icriod look place
iii DfCfnílxT l')2T «luMi CÁ»inniuiiist
uorkcrs and rcliollioii? troopí. led hv
Sovict apents, got coiilrol of C a n l o n .
Kxorution ^((uails rangcd llirougli the
streets. Hut two davs hiter ciack Nationahüt forres nioved in and |)ut
(louii the revolt « i t h a slaufihter estiniated at 6.000—and cooHes haiiled
awav tlie dead In tlic cartload (lejl).
CONTINUED
51
í ' B /:^^J, p,io X ^ . O , e--^l,ACL.4/^3,9. \w
VVith balletic footwork but modern
weapons {ahove), troops belonging to
Warlord Wu P"ei-fu (belou) trained
near Pekins in 1923. Vi u"s attempts
to take over the country politically
had failed and he was about to try
fighting. Bv mid-1924 inuch of China was under bis control—briefly.
Chaotic reign
E
ven before the 1911 revolntion, the Chinese stage was set
for vsarlords. Some of the greatest statesmen and vicerovs of the
Manchus exerrised authoritv bv
virtueof theirown private armies.
As the d y n a s t y deelined, it progressivelv vielded np more and
more power to local strongmen.
The prototype warlord was old
Yuan Shih-k'ai himself. Ilis Peiyang army liad given him the
muscle he needed to take over the
voung revolution in 1912. M a n v
laler warlords received tlieir earliest promotions from Y u a n . and
his wiliness and lark of principie
offered tlieni inspiration.
f]ssentially a warlord was an\ body who could put together a
52
militarv force and arm and feed
it. During the pcriod 1916-1928
thev numbered in the hundreds,
and their wars, alliances, treacheries and fallings-out defy description. By the early 1920s the
principal warlords were Chang
Tso-lin, an ex-bandit and protege
of the Japanese (who ultimately
killed him) with a power base in
Manchuria; Wu P'ei-fu, trained
as a classical scholar, who began
as an officer in the Peiyang armv
and rose to be a boss of N o r t h
C h i n a : and F e n g Y ü - h s i a n g ,
known as " t h e Christian Genera l " (he was baptized bv a M e t h odist minister in 1914), who during his complex career fought an
incredible variety of opponents,
of the warlords
including C h i a n j
Kai-shek.
Thoiigh the warlords took some
pains to look legitimate (control
of the diiinmv naiional "overnment in Peking was a prize), to
most, warlord armies were little
better than lorusts swarmin»
cr
arross the land. Through extortion and ingenious taxation—in
Szcciuian in 1924 there were 27
different types of taxes on sait
alone—ihey were made to pav
military expenses. Thev had to
furnish porterage and Iransport,
and thev were at tlie mercv of
looters no niatter which arniv
lost or won. Jiv the time Chiang
and his Nationalists began their
northern sweep in 1Q26, nohodv
was sorry to see the warlords go.
l h e ainhitions of Warlord Chang
Tso-lin (aí nfi/ií, holotc. saluled bv
\1.S. troops stalioned iii Tientsin)
waxed large in 1927. hi Peking {be-
lotv, loft) hc derlarod hiinself dictator of Xorth China. Hiit within a vear
he was dead. and Nationalist forces
(above) moved into his stronghold.
my-"^-'
fete*
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Victory in the
i^^l
L-;iÉ
_—.. ---íVjp^' """"^W' ^ H
vi
i
V.--V.- .'^•f-''^s^p^í^<-/. ,-W^^^^^k
iVmong the warlords, Feng \ ühsiang (íhown ahove addressiiig his
troops iii 1928) was the mosl eidij:htened. A brawny inan of peasant stock,
he was a skilled fightcr and a spell-
hinding speaker. He was also a competent adiniiiistrator. Legend says he
once hapli/.od his soldiers «ilh a fire
hose; in facl he insisted on regular
Christiaii prayer meetings (Mow).
.he
TH
N o r t h e r n ]•] x p e ti i t i o n
(iemonstrated that Cliiang Kaishek (shown above exhorting his
troops in 1926) was more t h a n
just a general. He was a eonsiimm a t e politician. Drawing the warlords into the Kiiomintang r a m p .
he used them to defeateach other.
T h e supreme example of his politieal finesse r a m e in 1927 when
a eoahtion of northern warhjrds
pushed the Nationahsts back to
the Yangtze. His leadership challenged, he promptlv resigned ali
his posts and went to J a p a n . Siiddenlv, and not for the last time.
he was found to be indispensable.
AX elcomed back to c o m m a n d .
he resumed the march north. In
J u n e 1928, Peking ("Norlhern
C a p i t a l " ) was taken and renamed
Peiping ( " N o r t h e r n P e a c e " ) . f o r
the first time since the fali oi
the M a n c h u s , China was uniled.
NEXT ÍSSUE PART ííí: THE JAPANESE
INVASION AND THE RISE OF THE REDS
54
/ v syinbolic end (right) Io the canipaign Io reunify (^hina carne in July
1928 near Peiping. Chiang"s old enemv Feng (wearing slraw hat) walked
beside hiin during memorial service.
. í^io x«. o.esi, ^rCL
>
i
North and a nation reunified
I n close order, Feng \ ü-hsiang's
cavalry cantered across a parade
ground at Kaifeng in 1922. As tiichiin
(inilitary governor) in Kaifeng, Feng
expanded his forces to 20,000 men.
t
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6^^{\^j/^•^ <').o.^^
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A t II ^urlifiw in May 1938, Japanese
Generais Terauchi (left) and Hata
toasted city's fali after 57-day battle.
The Japanese invade with fire and
The War That Turned
32
r:
. I-
\
l—liirely they had every reason to
celebrate, those beribboned generais
of J a p a n raising their f,akc cups at
llsufhovv in 1938. ^ o w , in the words of
one of them, it was only " a skip and a
j n m p " to the great industrial c-ity of
Hankow, ke\ to the whole of China.
Like any war for conquest, this one
would take its random toll.
It was the end of the first year of
the total war aimed at making China
a Japanese colony. Last issue, in the
second instalment of this series, L I F E
told of the evcnts which presaged this
bold and heartless venture—the r h a otic fragmentation of China's warlord
years, the rise of Chiang Kai-shek and
fiis hopeful reunification of the r o u n t r y
under the K u o m i n t a n g . This instalment will show a China stretched upon
the rack of war and describe the failed
hopes and bitterness t h a t brought M a o
Tse-tung's Communist take-over.
Like ali of Last Ásia, Ja|)an for renturies had deferred to Chinese cultural
superiority and coveted its n a t u r a l
wealth. This cruel process of redressing
the one and gaining the other began
in the 1890s when J a p a n , along with
other foreign powers ( L I F E , NOV. 28),
first extorted concessions from China's
decaving M a n c h u D v n a s t y . I t continued during the Boxer Uprising in
1900 (when more t h a n 5 0 % of the invading troops were Japanese) and the
1904-05 Russo-Japancse War, and culminated in the 1930s when J a p a n ' s
modern armies clanked across the nearly helpless Chinese mainland. Horrified, b u t h e s i t a n t and ineffectual,
Western nations temporized with Japan as thev were temporizing with Hitler and Mussolini. Alreadv the victim
of its own deep weakness. China also
became the victim of a flaccid world.
For the Chinese people the coming
of the Japanese m e a n t suffering and
death on a scale difficidt to comprehend. In 10 davs in 1937, for example,
the Japanese onslaught reduced the
population of the citv of Nanking from
1,100,000 to 250,000'. But even as they
suffered and died the Chinese people
achieve(L paradoxicallv, a kind of nationhood thev had never known before.
Chiang Kai-shek had imposed unity
upon them bv defeating the warlords;
the Japanese, bv trying—and failing
— to subdue China, created a Chinese nation. This, the ultiinate ironv,
was the nation t h a t would fali to M a o .
bayonet, and íhe Commwmsls vise ogain
VVoundcd in a Japanese air raid on
Chungking. a Chinese child searches
through the wreckage for her parents.
China into Mao's Príze
CONTINUED
33
P i s t s iipraiscd in a gesture of soli(laritv. delegatcs to Soviel Congress
hcaded hv M a o met in Jiiichiii in
1934, a fpw nionths bcfore the Loiig
M a r c h . Print was inade on blueprint
paper bccause there was no photographic paper in hlockaded Juichin.
P roíii the end of the Long March
to 19tT, t h e Coinmunist capital was
Yenan in Shensi Province. As peasants in the region have always done
because huilding materiais are searce,
t h e Reds hved in the caves (hclou)
carved out of t h e surrounding chffs.
V ^ ' ^
'
'
•
e/í? AM, ^jío yo,,o,esi,
-ACL.4-
- -ff>
^%w%¥m
JVlounted on Mongolian ponies
captured from Kuomintang troops
in hattle, cavalrymen of the First
Red Army Corps carried out maneuvers in Ninghsia Province in 1936.
The Long March of Chiang's
elusive Red foe
T o Chiang the Japanese threat,
even at its worst, was " a disease
of the skin" while Communists
were " a disease of the h e a r t . "
Following his 1927 purge (see
LIFE,
Dec.
12),
the
Reds
had
melted into the niountains and
cities. B u t >\ithin four years
m a n y carne together t o found in
1931 a Chinese Soviet RepubUc
at Juichin in Southeastern China.
M a o Tse-tung was its chief and
it had a population of over three
niilhon.
Bet\Neen 1930 and 1933, with
the Japanese threat growing
acute, Chiang launched four major but ínconrlusive " b a n d i t suppression" campaigns against
Juichin. Finallv, in October 1933,
using 400,000 troops and technical advice from his German adviser General H a n s von Seeckt,
Chiang combined a military
drive with a tight economic
blockade. As a result nearly a milhon people were killed or starved,
and the C o m m u n i s t s had to
I v o i i n d a h o u t route of the Long
March (siiown here liv hroken lines)
led into wild and diflicult mountain
abandon their base. Thus began
the legendarv Long March.
Shpping through the \ a t i o n ahst net, 90,000 Communists,
including some civihans, left Juichin on Oct. 15, 1934. At this
point Mao was still not boss of
the Communist p a r t v . But once
en route, he dominated pohcv
councils and, hke a voung exK u o m i n t a n g officer named Lin
Pião, led one of the oolumns.
Ilarried bv Chiang's troops, the
Red armies trekked west and
north, moving bv several routes
toward the arid, cave-pocked region centered on Yenan in \ o r t h
China. There thev would be able
t o make another start.
In October 1935, a vear after
they set out, an advance force of
7,000 men under M a o and Chou
En-lai reached the goal. More
followed. T h o u g h onlv one fifth
of the men who Jeft Juichin were
still alive, the Communists* darkest days were past: never again
would thev be so close to defeat.
terrain in \\ est China. ^ angtze Ki\ er
crossins was accomplished after wide
sweep to evade Nationalist blockade.
CONTINUED
A
one-time universitv liljrarian
who had helped lounu the pariy m
1921, Mao Tse-tung (above) was 42
and in undisputed control of the Chinese Reds after thev reached Yenan.
/ \ t 28 (almi-t). Lin l'iao—«ho is
now looked upon as Mãos prohahle
successor—wasa Red corps commander. Chou En-Iai (beloti). 37. headed
an armv guarding \ e n a n on the east.
I t was in Shanghai—far from the
Coinniunist mountain stronghold —
that foreigners got their first close
look at the inilitary juggernaut of
Japan. Shanghai's large iiiternational
settleinents were considered neutral
and a place of refuge by terrified Chinese. Once the Japanese had poured
enough troops into the citv to hreak
the ('hinese defense. thev moved
hlock by block through Chinese neighborhoods (right). The Japanese were
aided, inadvertentlv. hv (ihinese attenipts to bomb lhe Japanese warship
Idumo in the W hangpoo River. A few
Chinese bonibs fell by accident in the
Hongkew distriet, starting a panicked
rush across the Garden Bridge (helow)
into the safety of the Bund, the heart
of the International Settlement (in
background, heloic) along Shanghais
waterfront. Shortly after this picture
was taken, more Chinese bomlis fell,
this time close to the crowded Bund.
A sudden
While Chiang was preoccupied
with the Coininunists, Japan was
turning Manchiiria into the p u p pet king(]om of Manchiikuo. T h e
Japanese ihen spread to Inner
Mongólia and along the Great
Vi all,poised toseize China proper.
In July 1937 they made their
move. A put-iip incident a t the
Marco Polo Bridge oiitside Peiping gave ihem an excuse to seize
the Peiping-Tientsin área, then
thriist oiit tliroiigh North China.
As it was bound to do, fighting
broke out quickly in Shanghai,
the richest prize in East China,
crunch hy Japan's juggernaut
between Chinese and the J a p a nese troops giiarding J a p a n ' s business interests there.
Japanese reinforcements rapidIv poiired into the rity, mostly
from ships lying offshore in the
\V hangpoo River. These were attacked by one of Chiang's best
divisions and for ten davs were
stopped dead. Intense fighting in
and near Shanghai finally ended
when large Japanese amphibious
operations turned the Chinese
flank. Shanghai fell Nov. 9 and
the Chinese defenders fled w est toward Chiang's capital, Nanking.
/Ysflamesswcptacrogstheemliattled
citv of Shanghai (beloti), a Japanese
armored iinit (iiboic) headed north
along the Sliangliai-Nanking railway
in pnrsuit of tlccing Chinesc troops.
ortunately for the C o m m u n i s t s ,
their march to Yenan coincided with
rising public pressure on Chiang to
forget them and go after t h e J a p a nese. T h e incident t h a t mav have
persuaded hiin occurred in December
1936. when t h e generaUssinio (shown
ahove with his wife a few m o n t h s
later) went to Sian to deal with subordinates w ho, he felt, wera too friendly with t h e Communists thev were
supposed to be blockading. At Communist instigation, he was arrested
and held two weeks bv officers who
wanted a united íront with t h e Reds.
In September 1937 he reluctantly declared a m o r a t o r i u m on his anti-Communist struggle, and Red army l)Oss
Chu T e h ibeloic) symbohcally put
on t h e uniform of the \ a l i o n a i i s t s .
i he infamous R a p e of N a n k i n g was
not an isolated example of Japanese
l)arbaritv. Executions often involved
using the victims for havonet practice
(/p/f). T h e systematic and indiscriminate bombing of Chungking (above),
which began in M a y 1939 and continupd through 1941. was an atrocitv
of a kind then unfamiliar in warfare.
/ v f t e r capturing Hankow and landing a t ('anton in 1938, the J a p a n e s e
came to a halt. Thereafter t h e war
w as a virtual stalemate. T h e Japanese
m a d e regular forays into the riceliowl region south of H a n k o w . especiallv at harvesttime. B u t not until
19 U did they stage a major South
China drive, to neutralize airfieldg.
United front with Communists, a trade
38
1
MANDALAV
BURMA
o^ terrain for {\vs\e
A
s the Japanese struck deeper
into China, Chiang bowed to
necessitv and pubHc opinion in
1937 and formed a united front
with the Communists. It \i^& not
a triisting relation^hip—Chiang
never withdrew his blockading
forres, and the Communists underrut him wlierc they roídd. Nor
did it do much to slow the advance of the invaders. Forced to
trade terrain for time. Chiang
moved his capital iip the Yangtze
from Nanking to Hankow in
1937. only to fali back to Chiingking a year later. There, amid the
flanies of Japanese bombs. Free
China remained at ba\ nntil the
e n d o f Vtorld War 11.
Heroic a t t e m p t s had been made
to stop the Japanese, whose capture of Nanking in December
1937 was foUowed by a ghastly
fortnight of rape and murdcr.
Four m o n t h s later, at Taierhchwang 210 miles n o r t h of Nanking. Chinese troops scored a victory t h a t delayed for six weeks the
Japanese a t t e m p t to link the
armies that had takcn Shanghai
and Nanking with those driving
down from Peking. Another projected major Japanese drive south
from the Yellow Rivcr basin to
Hankow was balked when retreating Clhinese blew dikes and flooded millions of acres of farinland.
The Japanese then fought their
wav u p the Yangtze. taking Hankow at the cnd of October.
At the end of 1938 the Japanese were still far from complete
victory. Guerrillas operated behind their lines: Chungking functioned bravelv in front. T o win,
the T o k y o militarists now decided, they would have to cut
China off from the outsidc world.
CONTINUED
39
/ V r r i v i n g in China on a survey mission in 1937, Claire Chennault (at
left ahove. with one of his pilots)
staveil on to hclp (Ihiani; liuild an air
force, l i e oversaw construction of
strategic airfields like t h a t at Ilengvang (belotv), built using manpower
cxclusively. In 1911. hefore t h e U.S.
entered the war. Chennault raised his
vohnitcer group. the Flving Tigers.
At
t h e C a v o r o i i l . r t i u . m 144.1.
Chiang and his ladv sat with Roosevelt and Cluirchill. llie generalissimo
agreed to launcli an offensive down
into B n r m a . provided the British
vxMild laki- |iart \>\ niaking a major landing in the Bav of Bengal in
the south. A^ hen the 1914 AlHcd invasion of "Sormandv was given prioritv, Britain lacked landinjr craft.
BP^, ^ ^ . ^ ' O X4Í, . 0 . e ^ l , 4 C L . -
l h e campaign into norlhern Durma ultimatelv was undertaken l)y a
joint U.S.-Chinese force under the
ooininand of Stilwell (center ahove,
with aide aiul Chinesa General Sun
-4*
Li-jen). ]ts niain aini uas to reopeii
the Burma Road (right) which linked
Pree China and Burma. Built hv the
(^hincse in 1938. il «as used as a supj)ly route until Buriua"s fali in 1912.
JLrom 19.37 to 1911 Free China
fought alone. Some aid trickled in
from the U.S. and other coimtries. Bnt America's prewar isolation prevented deeper involvemenl until Pearl í l a r b o r .
Hv then it was liard to help
and almost too late. J a p a n ' s seiziire of Hong Kong, C a n t o n . Indochina and Burma virtualiv
closed the circle around China. A
Central Asian snpplv route was
impractical. T h a t left onlv í n dia, and the diíTicull air route
over the Himalayan " l l u m p "
(sec map p. 39)- Soon U.S. planes
were hauling up to 60,000 tons
of strategic material per month.
Late in the war, after Burma was
retaken, the famed B u r m a Road
carne into use.
In China as a wartime allv,
President Roosevelt saw both a
means of defeating J a p a n and a
force for the stabilization of postwar Ásia. American sponsorship
and equipnient built up General
Chennault's Flving Tigers into
the 14th U.S. Air Force and General Joseph Stilwell was sent to be
Chiang's militarv adviser. T o help
make China a great power, Roosevelt invited Chiang to lhe allied
conference at Cairo in IÇl.l. But
he tragicallv omitted him from
the summits that counted most
for China—Teheran and Yalta.
'Great power' partnership
as the conflict turns global
CONTINUED
41
BR W - J A ' Í ^
U c c l a r i n g war on J a p a n just l)efore
V-J D a v , t h e Russians entered M a n churia almost withoiit figliting and
set t o work stripping industries of
almost $1,000 million in equipment.
42
iii Augusl 1915 an ehullient Amhassador Hurley (aí right) and Nationalist General (^hang Chih-chung escorted M a o to Chungking to meet*
Chiang for t h e first time in 20 vears.
rl.ü.ti>J.,ni.t-T;''5,7>-5$
B^. 4 M . ^' O X «. O. er! ^ /ícL. 4/^-.- ^'s
CiviJ war joined again
as Japan capitulates
Tor inanv Chinese in the postwar
period the prol)lem was not to get
monev Imt to get rid of it as quickly
as possible in exchange for soniething
of value. U.S. dollars served, at least
until the Communists approached:
tlie nionev-changer above did business on a I'eiping street in 1948. Gold
was the favorite choice. \\ hen a
Shanghai bank was perniitted to sell
gold in exchange for currency—at
only half the black market price—
seven people died in the crush (/e/í)-
As the war drew to its end, the
Communists and tlie .Nationalists
moved inexorablv loward their
final oonfrontation. Militarv circnmstanres had kept the two
nominally at peace with each other and separated t e r r i t o r i a l h .
-\ow with the capitulation of the
Japanese, there was no longer a
conimon enemv to draw their fire.
The Nationahst governnient,
like China itself, was weary and
shaken after eight grueiing vears
of war. Its armies had borne the
main force of the Japanese assault
and suffered the majoritv of China'» three million battle casualties. T h e economy was in t a t t e r s ;
governnient expenditures had so
far exceeded inrome t h a t in 1941
Chungking started acrepting rice
in place of nioney for land tax
pavinents and disbursing it in
sacks to meet bureaucratic salaries. T h e country's industrial
base was gone. Inflation was raging. Before it was over currencv
that had been officiallv worth
one L . S . doUar five years before
would be worth onlv about five
trillionths of a cent.
The Communists, on the otlier
hand. having started with nothing, had had everything to gain.
Bv the time the war was over
their position was enormouslv
improved. From 40,000 p a r t v
Chia ng and Mao smilinglv toasted
each other at a banquet in Chungking (/e/f), and then negotiated for
six weeks. At the end Nationalists
charged that the Reds wanted war.
members in 1937 thev had inereased to 1.2 million. Thev now
controUed an área t h a t included
the better part of five provinces.
Their troops, from experience,
knew how to fight a guerriila war.
Most of ali. the Communists were
not identified with China's economic rollapse. By adroit maneuvcring thev could capitalize on it.
T h e L.S., slill determined t h a t
China should plav the postwar
role of a great power, greeted the
resumption of Xationalist-Communist fighting with consternation modified bv ronfidence t h a t
the rift could be papered over.
Under the auspices of U.S. Ambassador Patrick Hurlex, Mao
and Chiang met in Chimgking
and for a time there was some
dim liope of an agreement.
T h e s u d d e n n e s s o f the Japanese
capitulation had caught both
sides off-balance. \^ hile M a o and
Chiang were talking, their troops
engaged in a race to secure North
China where the Japanese were
waiting to surrender. General
George C. Marshall arrived in
Chungking to trv to head off a
new war bv bringing the Commimists and the Nationalists together in a coalition government.
It was a futile effort. By mid1946, even as Marshall worked,
the civil war was in full blaze.
i n ^ enan during his attempt to mediate the Nationalist-Coinmunist
eonflict in 1946. Marshall stood with
(from left) t"hoii Kn-lai. Chn leh.
NationaUst General Chang and Mao.
CONTINUED
43
EP> A/VI, Ç^^O X'=^.O.ECi,ACL.4/'3,p>59'
U
-LVavagi-d. bankriipt, despairing, lhe exhaiisied nation set out
to rcap the biller harvest of a
hundred years. As civil war widt-ned at lhe end of 1945, the Nalioiialisls looked strongest. Their
better-amiedtroopà outnumbered
thoseof the Coinmunistsbv about
three miHion to one rniilion, Ü.S.
weapons and inonev were pouring
in, and American Marines guardcd the criticai Peking-TientsinManclniria rail link. Tlie takeovcr of inost of ^lorth China from
the Japanese had gone satisfactorilv. Even Manchuria looked
hopeful: in March 1946 the last
of Soviet Marshal Rodion Malinovskv's troops would pull out.
The balance \>"as to change,
rapidly. Thougli Ü.S. aid never
stopped, Marshall had arms shipments to Chiang embargoed for
ten months while truce a t t e m p t s
went on. Their mission completed, the Marines left. Meanwhile
the Communists were swinging
into action. First they turned up
ín the hitter harvest of a violent century,
w.
ving a flag l)earing a iinit «lesif;-
nation, a Communist soldier (top) escorted a groiip of 500 Nationalist
prisoners captiired in Manchuria in
A[)ril 1946. Less than ihree years later
the Cominunifts held ali of Manchuria and were ready to enter 1'eiping.
On Jan. 31,1949, Mao'smenmarched
in, accompanied liv trnnks distril)uting propaganda handhills {Imtlom).
e>f^ fi-Kl , ^iíO
in Manchuria to harry transportation routes, then to chop up
stationarv Nationalist garrisons.
Swollen bv defectors, strengthened bv captured weapons, in
1948 thev eqiialed the \ a t i o n a l ists in firepower and men. Soon
ali Manchuria was in their hands.
T h e final blow fell at the end
of 1948 near Ilsuchow, which the
Japanese had seized just 10 years
before (see p. 32)• In one of the
higgest battles of niodern times,
involving halí a million men on
X^,0.cCi
^ í ^ C L . 4 '5,-5S
each side, the Communists decim a t e d Chiang's last good divisions. ^ ithin months the Nationalists had fled to the island
of Taiwan, the last pockets of resistance had heen eradicated and
Communist China was a realitv
In
Mao's goal ís gained
the countryside near Hsuchow,
foUowing the last great battie of the
civil war, an old peasanl woman
rocked her head in an afjony of loss,
an image of China'8 age-old suffering.
Õf^-j At4.P,to
CHINA
55
CONTINUED
Today's suhtle art
of China Watchíng
hy SCOT LEAVITT
S
X < í í . 0 . e - ! . ^ C L . 4/'/í
HONG KONG
eventeen vears have now
gone by since the Mainland fell
and the doors closed on China. In
t h a t time the U.S., along vsith
most of the rest of the vsorld, has
learned to live with a remarkable
proposition: t h a t to know a very
great deal aboiit this secretive,
walled-in nation, it is not necessarv to go tliere. ^ e can find out
what we need to find out by
standing on her perimeter with
our eves and ears wide open. Now
and then, a telling
firsthand
piece of reporting will come out
of China. T h e rolor pictures and
Jürgen Dennert's storv of the
Red G u a r d s in L I F E , Oct. 17, are
an example. Vt e learn more from
the small but regular flow of travelers who go in and out. And on
the technical intelligence side, information from overflights by reconnaissance planes, drones and
orbiting satellites permits us to
stav reasonablv abreast of such
matters as China's nuclear capabilitv. But the j o b of keeping the
world up to date on what is h a p pening in China has fallen primarilv to a group with enough
special knowledge, interest and
talent t o sustain the odd arrangement: the China ^ atchers.
One of the best places in the
world to practice China Watching is here in the British Crown
Colony of H Q n g t C o n g . Hong
Kong is by no means the only
suitable post, nor even the most
important one. Perhaps 200 men
of a dozen different nationalities
in a varietv of fields do their
watching here—government people, scholars, businessmen and
journalists. There are 50 American members of the club in residence here. In the U.S. there are
closer to 400 of them, and t h a t
number, which represents only
the very top rank of the specialists, is growing. Indeed, throughoul the güverninent and in Anierica's universities, an cxplosion of
interest in China is taking place.
The same is true in Great Hritain
and in scores of other countries,
and particularly in J a p a n . Although no formal diplomatic re-
lations exist between the two
countries, 4,179 Japanese visited
China last vear, more t h a n from
ali other non-Communist nations
combined, and these tourists,
businessmen and journalists have
been rich sources of information
for the W
' atchers.
For the most p a r t . China
Watching is a quiet art, best pursued in hushed offices and reading
rooms. But at short range in
Hong Kong it takes on quite a
different flavor, rather like living
next door to an a p a r t m e n t where
a violent familv fight is in progress. ^ atchers stationed here can
hear a lot of name-calling, shouting and undecipherable noise.
Sometimes they can tell who the
c o m b a t a n t s are and sometimes
they cannot. For a while the
terms of the argument will seem
clear; then the dispute suddenlv
blurs and fades. Nonctheless, it
has been verv clear t h a t the fight
next door is deadly serious. And,
simply put, the ^ atchers' problem has been to figure out what
meaning the struggle has for the
rest of the world.
CHRONOLOGY
^ herever they choose to sit.
China Vi atchers share a remarkably similar regimen. Every
VI atcher learns to treat a new
fact as a pack rat might: he stores
it away even when he sees no immediate use for it. And he reads
as much as he po'Ssiblv can of the
mountains of printed material
t h a t come out of China.
This is a peculiar exercise. The
literature must be approached
warily, for it is full of booby
traps. Ali ^ a t c h e r s have one basic rule: nothing appears in print
by chance. If a choice of words
seems odd, it is deliberate. T h e
converse is also true: nothing is
ever left out by chance, either.
If a storv docsn't appear. there is
a reason for t h a t , too.
For a good m a n v Watchers
here in the Colonv, the dav's
reading starts with the file from
Hsinhua. China's official news
agencv. This is an enormous
screed, running at times to 30,000 words.
Occasionally an item will fairlv
scream ils importancc. T h e 16
Points issued by the Central
Committee of the Communist
party in earlv August gave the
rules for the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution, the official
OF MAO'S
The following are milestone eivnts
in lhe 17 vears since Mao Tse-tung
proclaimed his People^s
Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949.
1 9 4 9 - 5 2 Large land holdings broken up and redistributed, tens of
thousands executed.
1 9 5 0 Chinese troops enter Korean ^ ar. China annexes Tibet.
1 9 5 1 - 5 2 Continuing campaigns
against "counterrevolutionary ele m e n t s " in government and populace. Intellectuals are hit hard.
1 9 5 4 Communists beirin shellins
Nationalist-held offshore island
of Quemoy.
1 9 5 6 - 5 7 Mao initiates " H u n d r e d
Flowers" movement, invites intellectuals to S[)eak out, then cracks
down on those who do.
1 9 5 8 " G r e a t Leap F o r w a r d "
inaugurated with slogan " T w e n -
REGIME
ty years in a d a v " and backyard blast furnaces. Sino-Soviet
differences
b e g i n to s h o w .
M a o asks t h a t peasants and urban workers be organized into
communes.
1 9 5 9 China lavs claim to Indian
territorv along Himalayan border. Great Leap Forward falters.
Commune movement slacks off.
Droughts, floods and mismanagement bring starvation.
1 9 6 0 Break with U.S.S.R. becomes open and Soviet technicians go home. More starvation.
1 9 6 2 Chinese attack índia over
Himalayas, then withdraw.
1 9 6 4 First Chinese A-bomb tested in Sinkiang.
1 9 6 5 Lin Pião emerges as Mao's
heir apparcnt with publication of
manifesto calling for worldwide
"people's wars of liberation."
name for the convulsion now
racking China, ]l:^inhua printed
them in full. There was no embellishment — there r a r e h is. But
thev were obviously worth a
^ atcher's fuUtime thought.
But 9 0 % of Hsinhua's dailv
file is of onlv [jeripheral interest to the China ^ atcher. He
slides bv another virulent attack on T..S. policv in \ ietnam
and charges of U.S. imperialist
'crimes" there and elsewhere.
But from a small item simply reporting the arrival in Rawalpindi of a Chinese acrobatic team,
he surmises t h a t nothing has
happened lately to disturb Chinese-Pakistani relations. A storv
claims t h a t schistosomiasis, or
snail fever, has been eliminated
from Fukien Province—so evidently snail fever has been a good
deal more of a problem than anvone suspected. A paragraph states
that a new domestic airline service has opened u p to several medium-sized cities in the northeast.
It suggests something about economic growth in that part of the
countrv, although the item includes no indication of the cause;
somedav, in conjunction with
another bit of news, il may conIribute to a pattern.
T,.
.hen there is the booby trap
that the ^ a t c h e r s call the !Vonannouncement. This may contain news of first-grade importancc—like the rise this summer
of Lin Pião and the simultaneous
fali of Liu Shao-ch'i, who had for
vears been second in the Communist party onlv to Mao. Hsinhua never reported the shift as
such. As it does on ali imj)ortant
occasions. it simplv listed, in order of importance. the party brass
who had appeared with Chairman
Mao at the gigantic August 18
rallv in Peking. Vt hen the Vi atchers saw Lin Pião in the No. 2 position, u p from No. 7, and found
Liu Shao-ch'i down from No. 2
to No. 8, lhc\ knew at oncc that
a sensational political change had
taken place.
The same Hsinhua account
held one other nugget for the
careful China Vi atcher. Combing
over the hierarchical lisl. \\ atchers were able to account for everyone on it cxcept for one Chiang
Ch'ing, who occupied 21 st place.
No Chinese biography carried
the name. Yet. as a sênior China \\ atcher later said: "Vt hen
vou get a new name on that
list —Je-si/.s.'"
CONTINUED
47
£JP,
CHINA
CONTINUED
'Plif Vi atchers began to dig.
Sincc tlie Knglish Iranslitcration
of the new (hgiiitarv's naine coidd
liave come from any two of a
ver\ hirge niiiid)er of Chinese
characters, lhe Vi atchers liirned
to the Hsinliua hst as piiblished
in Chinese. Therc somebodv with
a long memorv recognized ttie
two characters as the maiden
name of Lan P"ing, the former
movie actress, who ihese days is
Cliairman Mao's fourth wife.
This was indeed a coup. Hiit it
was much more tlian simpl\ an
engaging parlor Irick. It was, in a
wav, the precise jiistification of
this sort of China Vi atciiing. T h e
fact t h a t M m e . M a o in her own
right had become a member of
tlie power elite was a significant
addition to what little is known
of the striict\ire of the Chinese
(>ommunist government.
I
n the fali of the year small
stories dealing with the harvest
begin to show u p in Hsinhua. The
Chinese tend to describe similar
situations in similar terms year
after vear, and if ali of these stories report, without reservation,
t h a t the harvest is good and going well, the China Watcher may
reasonabl\ conclude on the basis
of past experienee t h a t the agricidtiiral vear indeed has been
good. But if small qualifiers app e a r — " b e t t e r than exjjected" or
"good despite the drought'"—
then the Watcher knows that the
government m a v be preparing
the {)eople for a serions bit of belt
tightening. This year, accounts
of the harvest have been largely npbeat, with only a few scattered "despites."
Occasionally, the Communists
will reveal something aboiit life
inside China without meaning to.
Some time ago an item in Hsinhua boasted that a million loudsf)eaker systems were in operation throughout the countrv.
T a k e n on the levei the Chinese intended, it was impressive enough
to learn that they had the capacity to manufacture that manv
loudspeakers. But on another levei, it was even more interesting to
know that in a marginal economv
they thought it necessary to put
so much effort into communicating with their people. One loud-
48
A-Ki, Wi\ o /y^[.
O . C w i , i - * C u • ^//Í5,.T>\^
vL m
China to the revohition. now sees
ali its firc being dainped down.
as it was in Soviet Rússia. b\ an
extended [)eriod of peace and bv
Ih sfxitlinfi lirr iwini' falio\ c) in (i
even the very small im[)rovelisl iij f>arl\ chifjs ai a l'(hiiifi
inents bis government has been
rully. China uatchcrs Jound that
able to bring in the standard of
\lao's uije. Chianfi C.hiiip (left),
living. Revisionism ( í . c , the Soh(i(I h)'<íim)' an imfxirlant
figure.
viet line) is seen infecting everything and evervone. Intellectuals
are suspect. Kven the party, the
Uast s p r i n g C h i n a ^ a t c h e r s
speaker per everv 700 persons—a
supjKjsed custodian of the fire, is
here were restive, not because of
marvelous insighl into the qualaffected. And the countrv. having
anv sjK'cific news from China but
itv, imperatives and practices of
because odd bits and pieces of un- - rested too loi at dead center and
life in China.
niaking onlv aarginal progress
patterned information prodded
The Hsinhua file is a basic doceconomically. is rebuffed abroad,
their intuition. In March the
ument but it does not give a comincreasinglv isolated from the
(Jomnuinist press opened a series
plete picture. For one thing, it is
rest of the Communist world. So,
of a t t a c k s on a small group of
unaccented. T o find oiit how- the
these ^ a t c h e r s speculate, M a o
intellectuals that includcd both
Communists rate the relative imand Uin Pião—bis handpicked
prominent and obscure wrilers.
portance of a story, it is necessary
successor—have undertaken to
Their " s i n s " from vears past were
to know how the mainland paset m a t t e r s right. T h e Great Prodredged up and broadcast. As the
pers, notably the People's Duily,
Ictarian (Cultural Revolution is
attacks wcnt on, increasing in
have plaved lhe news. T h e U.S.
the program designed to crush
bitterness. China ^ atchers began
consulate here, which is a good
the despised bourgeois and reto chafe. Kvidentlv a major purge
deal bigger than most U.S. enivisionist tendencies. And the Red
was being prepared. But the tarbassies and has 40 of its 175
Guards are the instrument creatget had to be much bigger than
American officers deployed on the
ed s{)ecificall\ to cnforce the prothe grouf) then being denounced.
China ^ atch, makes available to
gram because the partv a p p a r a t u s
Yet wcek after week, through
other China ^ atchers translacannot or will not.
April and M a y , the target retions of mainland newspapers as
mained hidden. Then on June
well as translations of ChineseVI hat further inference can be
2—with a spccial oblique form
language magazines and trandrawn as to M a o ' s ultimate aim?
of Non-announcement — a story
scriptions of Communist radio
Here Watchers feel most acutely
about the rcorganization of the
broadcasts. both from Radio Petheir lack of [>ersonal contact.
Peking Municipal P a r t y Comking and from the provincial staV hat really can thev know of
mittee identified Ui Hsueh-feng
tions. The magazines are useful
how Mao and the ?mall group
as its chairman.
because they carrv in extenso the
of men at the top of the j)ower
arguments that are abstracted in
structure think? Very little.
The job had for vears belonged
Hsinhua. T h e fine details in these
to P'eng Chen, who was also mayMost ^ atchers believe t h a t , at
artides — the cxact wav in which
or of Peking and a national figure.
a minimwni, \ \ h a t Maí) and Uin
an a r g u m e n t is p u t t o g e t h e r ,
In bis party post he not only conhave in niind is a convulsion on
for example—sometimes provide
trolled partv affairs in the capital
the scale of 1958's disastrous
China ^ atchers with small but
but bis people ran the Peo/j/c's
Great Ueap Forward. Others—a
important clues to the C o m m u Daily and the partv educational
minority—are very much gloominist thought process.
a p p a r a t u s at Peking University.
er. Mao, they argue, has onlv this
The China Watcher tvpicalh
To one degree or another ali of the
last chance to re-establish bis revreaches a point where the lack of
group under attack since March
olution. T o fan the fires again,
personal contact begins to bother
had been close to him. T h e firing
he needs more than just a rcorhim. In Hong Kong. the ^ atcher
of P'eng explained the ferocitv of
ganization thrust along bv Red
can decide it is time for him to
the a t t a c k s : they were aimed at
Guards. He needs something to
interview some refugees, who
men close to the ultimate sources
bring his people together indisarrive regularlv here and in the
of power.
solubly—regardiess of cost. And
Portuguese citv of M a c a o 40
these VI atchers shudder at the obThe cascade of evcnts that has
milcs awav. Most refugees are
vious answer.
followed P'eng's fali has left most
farmers or fishermen from nearbv
China \\ atchers here with a great
But British trade watchers,
K w a n g t u n g Province and know
sense of unease. Chairman Mao
wliose ears are normallv verv
little about China beyond the
—the Great Helmsman, as he is
acute, have reported no interconfines of their own villases.
called again and again in the j)arruptions in commercial relations
But from them a patient intertv's press—is clearlv Irving to
and no evasive " p o s t [ m n e m e n t "
viewer can sometimes extract a
turn China onto a new course.
of orders. In ("anton. 90 miles
worthwhilc bit of information on
But wliere?
from here. the annual trade fair
the missing human dimensions
took placc on schedule. In ShangOld M a o (so runs one stream
of China.
hai, a British tccbnical cxhihition
of t h o u g h t ) , having delivcrcd
opened and closed without any
incident. T h e V atchers note ali
these developnicnts, weigli them
— and go on watching.
World awaits
Mao's next move