CAN CHINA SURVIVE

China and the Powers by Henry Kittredge Norton '05. The John Day Company 1927.

Reviewed by HENRY DONALDSON JORDAN Mr. Norton has written a book on China which is clear, short, and comprehensive. It should serve very well to answer most of the reasonable questions that might occur to a somewhat puzzled newspaper reader in the past few months. What, such a reader may ask, is all the trouble really about over there? What exactly have the great powers to do with it, and what is and should be the policy of the United States toward China?

The author knows about China and the powers and tells about China and the powers, but he is very sure that the powers are not at bottom responsible for the present conditions ot turmoil in China. Very many evils of which the Chinese and their friends complain would not be at all alleviated if the powers were to withdraw altogether from the Far East. These evils, at bottom, are due to the fatal and inev- itable transition from an agricultural to an industrial basis which was bound to come, foreigners or no foreigners. The population of the country has for centuries been fed under a very delicate economic balance. When that balance began to be interfered with by the introduction of machine-made goods, railroad and steamboat transportation, and the accompanying manifestations of price changes, the result was to play havoc with the existing equilibrium of demand and supply. The old order," says Mr. Norton, "kept the population just above the starvation line, but the coming of the industrial age has sunk a vast proportion of the people below it. It is estimated that thirty million Chinese are continuallyattempting to sustain life on less than the min- imum required for subsistence." (p. 173) To achieve a new adjustment which will enable the people to live, there must be a period of painful transition, short or long. The period will be shorter if foreign capital and foreign administrative efficiency are admitted to the country; but in any event its successful passage must depend on a mental and social rearrangement of China. The people must abandon their procreative recklessness, must abandon the clan-family organization of society which makes honest corporation or public administration impossible, and must train themselves in the standards of western individualism. Mr. Norton assumes, probably rightly, that a modern industrial community, such as China in his opinion must become, can exist only on the basis of birth control, corporate organization, and a reasonably efficient public administration. In none of these directions is contemporary China making much progress, and the case of Young China against the powers is correspondingly weakened.

We are frequently told that China prefers to mind her own business, that her present apparent backwardness is concealing a very real renaissance, and that the powers, Great Britain in particular, are unwise and unfair to China in maintaining so sternly the imperialistic "rights" which the Chinese are unanimous in wishing to do away with. Mr. Norton is not so sure of this. He does not feel that the Chinese have as yet gone beyond destructive demands: he wants to see more leadership and intelligence in solving social and economic problems than he can at present discern. Until such time he does not believe that the withdrawal of all foreign privileges would be of any use to the Chinese people—in fact, it would do them harm. Furthermore, the abandonment of treaty rights would by no means entail the end of intrigue and foreign interference. Russia has given up a" her special privileges, but Russia is just as much a factor in the internal situation in China as she ever was. Anti-foreignism, runs Mr. Norton's thesis, is not a true guide-post to the road out of China's troubles.

Yet it is interesting to see just what is tlw position of "the powers" in China. Most vitally interested are of course Great Britain, Japan. and Russia. Great Britain's concern with China is really considerable. Her actual investment there is twice that of Japan and ten times that of the United States, while her ability to curb unemployment and to keep up the vital textile industry at home is in part dependent on the continuance of the market for her cotton goods. It is also true that Britain's position throughout the East, and particularly in India, rests to a large extent on prestige, a prestige which would be enormously damaged by her backing down in China. This consideration must play no minor part in the determination of British policy.

Japan, on the other hand, has no such reasons for standing pat. Since 1922 she has definitely given up the policy of aggression in China which reached its high point in the notorious "Twenty-one Demands" of 1915. Japan is to a certain extent the rival of England, in that she too exports largely of her manufactures to China; but her main concern, since a continental hegemony is plainly impossible, lies in the maintenance of friendly and profitable relations with China developed in such a fashion as to strengthen Japan in its never-ending resistance to the eastward march of Russia. Japan and Russia "stand face to face in eastern Asia like the proverbial irrestible force and immovable body. The Russians will never stop until they reach warm water; the Japanese will stop at nothing to prevent their doing so. The struggle may go on behind the screen of Chinese civil war for a number of years, and China will suffer accordingly. But sooner or later the real oppon- ents must in all probability stand forth and Japan and Russia meet again in a struggle a outrance." (p. 120.)

It is in the light of this conflict that all the recent events in northern China and Manchuria must be regarded. Soviet Russia's policy in the Far East is precisely that of Tsarist Russiagradual, pertinacious, constant pressure to secure access to the sea. Every opportunity is seized. Ostentatious friendship for China, support of "independent" tuchuns, communist propaganda (this is the chief original contribution of soviet- ism), "nationalism" in Mongolia, economic penetration and struggle for the control of the Manchurian railways—these are some of the methods of the Russian advance. And to every Russian move Japan opposes a counter-move. Small wonder that the interests of China are not considered. Yet it should be noted that there does not seem reason to suppose that Japan would be otherwise than courteous and encouraging to any government in China which could make itself really the master of a united country.

In sum, Mr. Norton is lacking in optimism. The most pleasing side of his picture, curiously enough, is that which deals with "China and the Powers." Great Britain will be hard to oust, but her position is not really hurtful to China so much as the xenophobia which it has provoked. Japan, one gathers, is on the right track, while Russia will continue to be a disastrous influence for as long as China cannot by herself force a stable relationship with her. American policy, long since formulated as that of the open door and the integrity of China, is sound and will continue to be so if carried out with moderation and firmness. Its good effect must be derived largely from American influence on England and Japan.

The author does not say so directly, but this profound belief seems to be that China's salvation can be achieved only by herself—and he is not at" all sure that it will be. He analyzes in detail the demands of "Young China" and sees no strength in them. Young China, he repeats, has not developed great leaders, and its program is destructive. "The students must begin to plan something constructive or they will pass from the picture as a force of any kind." (p. 240.) One would like to think that Mr. Norton views the situation too blackly. He does not seem to consider the really promising aspects of the Chinese renaissance. China must, even in the twentieth century, move slowly, but she is certainly moving. Surely the inspiring career and equally inspiring testament of Sun Yat-sen merit more consideration than the manifesto of the Chinese Students Alliance in the United States; yet Sun Yat-sen is not characterized at all, and there is bare mention of the fact that the Cantonese government was "based upon his principles." Similarly it seems that the intellectual renaissance connected especially with the name of Hu Shih is considered too cursorily and too narrowly.

Mr. Norton himself finally admits that there is hope for China. That hope "lies' in her students, in the Young China movement, now most strongly coordinated in Canton. But it is to be realized only as that movement grows to maturity and casts aside its adolescent obsessions. As long as it continues in its xenophobic activities, it is driving toward destruction for China and infinite danger for the rest of the world. If it can arrive at understanding in time, it can turn the destructive forces into constructive work before it is too late, and begin the foundation of the new Chinese state. There has yet appeared no other force in China that has the power to save China and the world from a great tragedy." (p. 242.)