The China of Chiang K'ai-Shek: A Political Study. Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger
target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_7cfc6461-4c42-5760-9f54-8b320ea434b7">[10] See Epstein, I., work cited, p. 235 ff. and The Chinese Year Book 1938–39, cited, article by the late P. C. Nyi, "Plans for Political and Economic Hegemony in China"; this includes a full administrative description of the Border Region, p. 254 ff. The North China zone is arbitrarily translated "Border Region," to distinguish it from the quondam Chinese Soviet Republic in the Northwest, translated as "Frontier Area."
[12] See chart on p. 47. Descriptions of the pre-war Central Political Council are to be found in the texts cited on p. 5, n. 2, and in the first two issues of The Chinese Year Book, 1935–36 and 1936–37, Shanghai, passim.
[13] See Appendix, p. 309.
[14] See below, p. 69. This is to be distinguished from the various constitutional conventions, the proposed national congress (kuo-min ta-hui) which exists only in contemplation of the constitutional drafters, and the Kuomintang Party Congress.
[15] An engrossing first-hand account of this is to be found in Hino, Ashihei, Sea and Soldiers, Tokyo, 1940. This, with its three companion volumes, Mud and Soldiers, Flower and Soldiers, and Barley and Soldiers, Tokyo, 1939 and 1940, forms an eloquent, humane, sensitive narrative of a young Japanese writer serving with the Imperial forces in China. The series ranks with the great narratives of the European war of 1914–18, and expresses the Japanolatrist devoutness, the naïveté, and bewildering courage of much of the Japanese infantry, but does so through the medium of a literary craftsmanship rare in any army.
[16] The literature of the war and of the struggles of Free China has already reached an enormous extent. The present work makes no attempt to present a step-by-step account of the interplay of personal politics, the progress of the armies, or to provide a first-hand personal account. Observers other than the author have presented these topics exceedingly well. A few of the outstanding works may be mentioned, however; a Shanghai press line usually signifies that the book was reprinted there from a British or North American edition. Epstein, I., The People's War, London, 1939, is a spirited, detailed account of development down to the spring of 1939, particularly useful for the New Fourth Army and the Border Region. Among accounts of the war are Bertram, J. M., Unconquered, New York, 1939; Oliver, Frank, Special Undeclared War, London, 1939, containing interesting accounts, in particular, of Japanese military and political behavior in China. Andersson, J. G., China Fights for the World [Shanghai], 1939; Utley, Freda, China at War [Shanghai], 1939, a significant personal account with special interest for the Hankow period; Mowrer, Edgar, Mowrer in China, Harmondsworth (England), 1938, published in America as The Dragon Wakes, New York, 1939; Booker, Edna Lee, News Is My Job [Shanghai], 1940, a reminiscent anecdotage; Lady Hosie, Brave New China, [Shanghai], n.d., a far more informed work than most of the autobiographical accounts, by the daughter and widow of two British Orientalists, herself a distinguished literary writer on China. On the North China situation, four popular works stand out: Snow, Edgar, Red Star Over China, New York, 1938, the great "scoop" on the Communists; and three other books based on first-hand reconnaissance: Bisson, T. A., work cited above; Hanson, Haldore, "Humane Endeavour" [Shanghai], n.d.; and Carlson, Evans Fordyce, Twin Stars of China, New York, 1940, the work of the U. S. Marine Corps Observer in the guerrilla area, unique in its value as professional military interpretation. Gunther, John, Inside Asia, New York, 1939, contains much of great interest. Very special viewpoints are represented in the account of a National-Socialist German observer, Urach, Fürst A., Ostasien, Kampf um das Kommende Grossreich, Berlin, 1940; the commentary of two British poets, Auden, W. H., and Isherwood, Christopher, Journey to a War, New York, 1939; and the reportage of a distinguished Soviet fellow-traveller, Strong, Anna Louise, One-Fifth of Mankind, New York, 1938.
Chapter I
THE CONSTITUTION
The constitutional system, basic in most Western states, plays a peculiar, subordinate role in China. Consideration of the issue of constitutionalism high-lights the most practical aspects of the issues of full democracy. Although the purely legal aspects of constitutional development are still unimportant in the internal power politics of China, further constitutional development involves a very real shift in the domestic balance of power. The fullness of national unity, and therefore the effectiveness of resistance against Japan, depend in part on the successful solution or compromise of the problems of constitutionalism.
Ever since the beginnings of political modernization in China, demands for constitutional government have included a written constitution as an imperative prerequisite. The formidable Empress Dowager was troubled in her last days by the Imperial constitution, a rather unimaginative plagiarism of the Japanese Constitution of 1889. Since the Republic began in 1912, China has continued constitutional drafting, amendment, replacement, and suppression; many of these constitutions have gone into legal effect. Law being what it was, practical politics flowed on untroubled.[1] Only with the establishment of the National Government at Nanking did constitutional structure and actual government develop similarities.
The Yüeh Fa of 1931
In 1931, after three years' operation under an Organic Law, the National Government adopted the Yüeh Fa (Provisional Constitution),[2] designed to cover the period between the first stage of the revolution, military conquest, and the final one of constitutional government. This intermediate period was formally labelled the stage of political tutelage, although in fact the military unification of the country continued. The Provisional Constitution, designed for five years' use, has continued in force to the present (March 1941). It possesses the merit of attempting to make actual practice and constitutional form correspond. Grandiloquent, unenforceable provisions concerning elections are omitted, and full exercise of the powers of sovereignty are frankly entrusted to the tutelary Party, the Kuomintang. Such a constitution, formally making the Kuomintang different from and higher than any other party in China—and, for all that, in the world, since the Fascist, National Socialist, and Communist parties are not formally the constitutional superiors of their respective governments—and giving the Party unrestricted authority, has provided China with government realistic if not libertarian.
The constitutional basis of the present Party-dictatorship in China is well summarized by the distinguished constitutional commentator, Dr. Wang Shih-chieh:
According to Sun Chung-shan's[3] Chien-kuo Ta-kang [Outlines of National Reconstruction], China should pass through a period of political tutelage under the Chinese Kuomintang,[4] before the stage of constitutional government be reached. The National Government is