Reporting on China
China Shall Rise Again. By Madame Chiang Kai-shek. (Hurst and Blacken. ][25. 6d.) MADAME CHIANG KAI.-SHEK'S contribution to this useful book comprises its lively head and tail. Its solid body is the joint production of leading members of the Chinese Government and other officials, amongst them H. H. Kung—Madame Chiang's brother-in-law, a direct descendant of Confucius in the 76th generation—who is Vice-President of the Executive Yuan, and concurrently Minister of Finance ; General Ho Ying-chin, Minister of War ; Dr. Wang Chung-hui, Minister of Foreign Affairs ; Dr. Wong Wen-hao--the " o " instead of " a" is pre- sumably a matter of personal preference—Minister of Economic Affairs; Chen Li-fu, Minister of Education ; Dr. T. Z. King, Director-General of the Chinese National Health Administration; and Rewi Alley, Technical Adviser to the Chinese Industrial Co-operatives—a New Zealander and the only foreign contributor.
The head and the tail are :both charged with emotion, and both carry stings. Thus Chapter_ III is called " The Road 10 Passionate Patriotism," and Chapter XXIII, entitled " Chinese Thought on Democratic Policy," says that: .
" Democratic statesmen have _fallen far short of that lofty idyl of honourable recognition and fulfilment of obligations that 1135 been set up before out people as the precept to which respon- sible nations should always strive to adhere. . . Expediency in action, casuistry in argument, have replaced the splendid forth- rightness of the great ir en ,.)f other times. Treaties, agreements and understanding- have gone with the wind of self-interest . . :t is unutterably sad that for three weary, heartbreaking years of heroic resistance we have been left without help to combat a savage aggressor in a war which is not ours alone but is that of all democracies."
But the bulk of the volume is of the year-book type—a good deal of it statistical. The statistics are official ; many of them are impressive, more particularly—having regard to the newness of modern medical work in China—those relating to health, supplied by Dr. P. Z. King, Director-General of the Chinese National Health Administration. This personal impression, it may be added, was that also of an English medical officer of many years' standing to whom the figures were submitted for an opinion. Hardly less significant of China's new outlook are the statistics of co-operative societies furnished by Mr. Rewi Alley, who was at one time in the employment of the Municipal Council of the International Settlement, Shanghai, and helped Sir John Hope Simpson in his work on the Yangtze.
Not many years ago a book making as large claims for China as this one does—notwithstanding Madame Chiang's criticisms —could not have been taken seriously. While one is not pre- pared to endorse all of them, one is prepared to regard a high proportion as justifiable, and to urge people to acquaint them- selves with the new balance of power which is being created in the Pacific.
E. M. Guti.
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