A CHINESE STUDENT'S LETTER
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,- The attached letter may interest the readers of your paper. The writer is a Chinese graduate aged 23, who was educated at St. John's, Shanghai, Harvard and Oxford :—
" After I left Oxford in June I went travelling on the Continent. I spent more than a month in Moscow to get a first-hand study of the conditions of the country which has been everywhere criticized but understood by few. It may be interesting to you to know that I was received in the Russian capital as an official delegate from the Chinese Nationalist party. My friend and I were accorded every hospitality. The conclusion of my own observations is that Russia after all is not so bad as it is generally represented by the interested parties in your country and elsewhere, and the Russian people are now infinitely better off than they were before the Revolution.
This incidentally may also apply to the conditions in my own country. In maintaining that the situation in China is not so bad as it is reported in the papers I don't mean that the Chinese situation is not bad. Indeed, both Chinese and foreign observers agree that the chaos in this country has reached its climax : nothing worse can be suffered. The continual war has killed industries and upset the whole social fabric, and you have heard so much about anti-British movements in China.
I can assure you, however, that the Chinese people in general have no animosity towards the Britishers as such. They are only against the Imperialistic practices of the British Government in giving aid to the selfish warring factors and thus prolonging the destructive warfare. Shanghai is now overrun with British soldiers. Their presence in the Chinese territory, as you can well imagine, naturally incenses the self-respecting Chinese. Just at the present moment the situation is fraught with grave dangers : and it Is awful to think what will be its outcome."
—I am, Sir, &c., FREER WINCKLEY.
Grayingham Rectory, Kirfon-in-Lindsay, Lincolnshire. [We print " A Chinese Student's " letter as it reaches us from our correspondent. It is interesting as showing us what an average young intelligent Chinese student thinks. The writer cannot, despite his Oxford education. refrain from deploring the " Imperialistic practices of the British Government." What a pity it is that glib phrases like.
" British Imperialism" are so widely used by persons xl do not know what they mean by them. Perhaps " A ('hinc Student " will explain what he means on a future occasion. ED. Spectator.]
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