The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 10, 1927, Page 7

The Recent Developments in China By TANG SHIN SHE The Flight of Chiang Kai-shek from Nanking te Shanghai. LREADY for’ ‘some fime past the news from China pointed to the approaching defeat of Chiang Kai-shek.’ Up to the last few: days “The Times,” the official British organ, reported that high offi- eers of Sun Chuan Fang had taken up quarters in the foreign hotels of Shanghai for the purpose of preparing fer the entry of Sun Chuan Fang’s troops, and there were even reports that Chiang Kai-shek and his staff wére removing from Nanking to Shanghai. The flight to Shanghai ‘ms, according to all indications, to mean the preparation for the entire rétreat of Chiang Kai-shek to his home in Chekiang. According to the o,inion of “The Times,” the Nanking government has already ceased to exist. Who has delivered this crushing defeat to the hitherto so victorious Napoleonic war-lord, Chiang Kai-shek? According to the opinion of the press the defeat is due to the ruler of Shantung, Chang Tsung Chang, who had been almost annihilated, and,Sun Chuan Fang, who has’ gone from defeat to defeat, and whom even Chang Tso-lin was pre- pared only recently to abandon in favor of an al- liance with Chiang Kai-shek and Feng Yu Hsiang. Even at the beginning of July, when Chiang Kai- shek (from the Pukow-Tientsin railway line) and Feng Yu Hsiang (from the Lunghai line) were undertaking an attack on Shantung and an eminent under-general of the remainder of the troops of Sun Chuan Fang, who held possession of the coast district and an important railway line of Shantung, went over to Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Chuan Fang and Chang Tsung Chang were in the last stage of the death struggle. That these two generals should have recovered, and that so quickly, and are today proceeding ag- gressively and victoriously against Chiang Kai-shek, is, of course; only to be attributed to the active aid of the imperialists. There are in China at present over 100,000 foreign soldiers. Owing to the tropical heat these foreign troops are almost all concen- trated in the northern province of Shantung: the Japanese being in Tsintao and the English in Wei- Hai-Wei. During their summer stay in this proy- ince, the foreign troops have been engaged in most active work, Sun Chuan Fang and Chang Tsung Chang’s troops who Kad long been without any pay and who, owing to lack of munitions, were almost incapable of fighting, were suddenly provided with modern weapons and sufficient funds. That is the solution of the riddle of their-sudden recovery. That the English supported their old lackey, Sun Chuan Fang against Chiang Kai-shek, who openly sympathizes with Japan and France, is to be under- stood. But why Japan, even if it did not openly support, favored Sun Chuan Fang’s march on Shan- tung by agreeing without demur to England aid- ing Sun Chuan Fang, is not chear at the first mo- ment, A closer view, however, reveals several rea- sons for this action. 1, Ona world-political scale: Japan hoped at the Naval Disarmament Conference in Geneva to. have the opportunity of bringing about again the old alliance with England against America in the Pacific Ocean. It was probably for this reason that it sud- denly agreed to the division of China: England dominating the South and Japan the North of China. 2. Japan had insisted on the triple alliance: Chiang Kai-shek, Chang Tso-lin and Yen Shi San, but was against an alliance between Chiang Kai-shek and Feng Yu Hsiang. It therefore endeavored to prevent any common action on the part of Chiang Kai-shek and Feng Yu Hsiang in Shantung, and sought to prevent, even by an open intervention, the sending of troops to Tsinan. 8. Japan had realized that Chiang Kai-shek was not capable of exercising sufficient power over the people, that he was not even able to suppress the anti-Japanese boycott of goods in Shanghai and South China. That he had the will to do this is to be seen from the official Japanese organ “Shun- tien Shihpao” published in Peking, which wrote at the beginning of July: “Chiang Kai-shek is against the boycott of Japanese goods. He stated in a speech: ‘The sending of Japanese troops to North China is not directed against us, but in the first place against the Communists’.” Chiang Kai-shek was nevertheless still dangerous for Japan; perhaps more dangerous than Chang Tsung Chang and Sun Chuan Fang. For this rea- son Japan was not sorry to see a reduction of the powgy of Chiang Kai-shek by the other side. Already before and immediately after his open treachery in the niiddle of April last, Chiang Kai- shek declared that it was impossible to achieve the abolition of the unequal treaties by revolutionary methods, by force; one must do this by means of negotiations. Using the same argument that the Communists wished to achieve everything by means of force, he proceeded to disarm the workers’ de- fense and caused the workers to be shot, in order thereby to win the confidence of the great powers. In order to ameliorate the financial difficulties, to satisfy the native bourgeoisie and to continue the attempt, commenced by Japan after the Peking Customs Conference, to destroy the British trade monopoly in South China, Chiang Kai-shek has fixed the increased customs duties to come into force on the 1st of September. In order to obtain most favored nation conditions, Japan immediately sent the Japanese ambassador from Peking to the negotiations at Nanking. Eng- land, on its part, immediately held discussions in the diplomatic corps for the purpose of common in- tervention, and on the other hand took measures for strengthening Sun Chuan Fang’s troops, so that the latter could immediately commence the march on Shanghai to annihilate Chiang Kai-shek. After the bargaining in the diplomatic eorps the Japanese adopted a passive attitude and sacrificed their friend Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang Kai-Sek has suppressed the “red spectre” in Shanghai, he can go. The situation is similar to what it was 15 years ago. In 1911 Sun Yat Sen was betrayed by the right Kuomintang in order to please the imperial- ists and General Yuan Shi Kai. In 1913 the traitors were themselves driven bag and baggage out of China by Yuan Shi Kai. The imperialists always have and always will choose the most reactionary of the military rulers as their assistants. The Triple Alliance Agianst Feng Yu Hsiang. Acting in accordance with the Japanese policy of dividing up China, Chiang Kai-shek, already at the beginning of-the present year and behind the tack of the Muomintang, entered into negotiations with Chang Tso-lin for the purpose of forming an alliance. Before the treachery of Feng Yu Hsiang against the Kuomintang at the Hsuchow Confer- ence with Chiang Kai-shek, the preparations for a triple alliance of Chiang Kai-shek, Chang Tso-lin and Yen Shi San were in full swing. The triple alliance was to be directed chiefly against Feng Yu Hsiang; formally it was directed against Commun- ist Wuhan. Urged by his great longing to recapture Peking, Feng Yu Hsiang came to an understanding with his rival Chiang Kai-shek and committed the blackest’ treachery to the revolution. From the notorious Conference at Hsuchow he called upon the Wuhan government to dissolve and to send Borodin back to the Soviet Union. Chiang Kai-shek, who wished to become master of the whole of China, considered it better to work for the time being with Chang Tso-lin than with Feng Yu Hsiang; for he believed that it would be ih A easier to push aside Chang ‘so-lin after the calp- ture of Peking than Feng, the “Kuomintang” man. Although it was agreed at the Conference of Hsu- chow that Feng Yu Hsiang should rule North China and Chiang Kai-shek South China, the latter con- stantly endeavored to gain a foothold in the North. He nominated Li Djin Lin, the former governor of Chili, who at the end of 1925 fought actively against and vanquished Feng Yu Hsiang, as propaganda commissar for Chili and Shantung. Feng Yu Hsiang was thereby again obviously driven to friendship with Wuhan rather than with Chiang Kai-shek. The front of the two “revolutionary” generals for the purpose of “completing the national revolution” was destrayed. Before Chang Tso-lin had lost the two important strategic points of Hsuchow on the Tientsin-Pu- kow line and Tchenchow on the Peking-Hankow line, he had, in his negotiations with Chiang Kai-shek and Yen Shi San, only wished to enter on a common military fight against the reds and would not make any further concessions. After his defeat, however, he declared at the end of June in his message of peace in Peking: “Sun Yat Sen was my old good comrade. My struggle against the reds is quite in accordance with the principles of my old good com- rade.” This means that he wished now to subordin- ate himself formally! to the Kuomintang. In the middle of July representatives of Chiang Kai-shek and Yen Shi-san arrived at Chang Tso-lin’s quar- ters in Peking for the purpose of negotiating an alliance. The “Youth Group” of the Chang Tso-lin clique was prepared, for the sake of the alliance, to sac- rifice the ruler of Shantung, Chang Tsung Chang, and to enter a coalition government with Yen Shi- san in Peking. It was not only Chang Tso-lin who put forward as the chief condition the annihilation of the power of Feng Yu Hsiang; the representatives of Yen Shi-san did the same. The triple alliance which had been almost concluded, finally, failed to materialize owing to the difficulties raised by the “old group” of the Chang Tso-lin clique and the unexpected rapid restoration of the forces of Chang Tsung Chang and Sun Chuan Fang. The representatives of Yen Shi San and Chang Tso-lin are still negotiating today regarding an al- liance; only Chiang Kai-shek, in order not to rouse the population against him still more, has caused it to he officially declared that he had never sent rep- (Continued on page 4) nw ei Vn.