Thunder Out of China

SOME Americans, not long ago, were listening while a European analyzed the trend of polities in Europe. Several of them were a little astonished that an anti-Communist European could take so lightheartedly the mortality rate in the institution of monarchy, and one of them made the suggestion that since the Communists and the whole radical left are strongly anti-monarchist, we ought not to look so complacently on the fall of European thrones.

To this suggestion the European replied that now, as throughout history, when a king is deposed it is the enemies of the king who claim to have taken the lead in overthrowing him; but, he added, the fact is that monarehs fall because they are no longer supported, not because they are attacked. Regardless of what the king is like as an individual. he said, no monarchy has ever fallen that had not already become, as an institution, thoroughly corrupt.

If this is true in Europe, then the major thesis of Theodore H. White and Annalee Jacoby is that the laws of polities are the same in Asia and iu the West. The most important contention in their hook is not that the Communists are a rising force in China, but that the key to Chinese polities is the fact that the Kuomintaug is rotting away in corruption. As the rot spreads arid the corruption flourishes, they say. there is a corresponding shrinkage in the Kuomintaug s ability to rule, to build, to get rid of its own undesirable party bosses, or to recruit, vounger. more honest, or inure competent men.

They emphasize the importance of growing loss of confidence iu the Kuomintaug in the great cities and among the business men — the places which were once the stronghold ot the Kuomintaug, and the people who were once its most active supporters. “With a feeling of nausea the people of Shanghai watched the government they had welcomed back sell licenses, sell privileges, mismanage foreign relict supplies . . . saw the old opium rackets flourish again under the guidance of some of the Kuomintang’s most powerful men.”

Of the Communists, they argue that the question of Communist “loyalty in a coalition government is more or less academic. “Only if the new government moves energetically forward to reform can the Communist protestation of loyalty be tested. If a new government of China resists change as rigidly as the old, there will be unrest, upheaval, bloodshed, and the Communists will make the most of the opportunity.”

The detailed exposure in this book of the weakness and unpopularity of the Kuomintaug wall greatly increase the uneasiness and apprehension, already’ widespread in this country, about the wisdom of our policy in China.

Both of the authors worked in China for Time, and what they have to say is “curt, clear, concise” — but, for some odd reason, it never came out in Time.

OWEN LATTIMORE