FOOTNOTES:
[1] An excellent bibliography, providing further references to the Japanese side of the war, is found in Borton, Hugh, et al., A Selected List of Books and Articles on Japan, Washington, D. C., 1940. An outstanding short discussion is Colegrove, K. W., Militarism in Japan, Boston (World Peace Foundation), 1936.
[2] Bisson, T. A., Japan In China, cited, passim, for many instances.
[3] It is unfortunate that work on the nature of old Far Eastern international relations has no more than just begun. Descriptions from the viewpoint of Western international law often possess the unreal lucidity of dialectical materialism or of theosophy, since it is necessary to read into Chinese and other Far Eastern political institutions the characteristic features of a European invention—the juridical, omnicompetent, secular, territorially limited state. See Djang Chu, The Chinese Suzerainty, unpublished doctoral dissertation, the Johns Hopkins University, 1935; Nelson, Melvin Frederick, The International Status of Korea, 1876-1910 unpublished doctoral dissertation, Duke University, 1939, particularly Part I, "The International Society of Confucian Monarchies" and Part II, "Korea in Conflicting Societies of Nations"; both attempt to reconstruct the working Asiatic theory in terms comprehensible to the West. Clyde, Paul H., United States Policy Toward China, Durham, 1940, Section XXIV, gives a succinct statement and relevant American public documents.
[4] Taylor, George, The Struggle for North China, cited, p. 66.
[5] Statements to the author, by persons not in Chungking.
[6] Nyi, P. C., "Plans for Economic and Political Hegemony in China," cited, p. 239. Compare this with the chart in George Taylor, work cited, p. 204. Professor Taylor's study covers the entire history of the Provisional Government, significantly aligned with that of its rival, the guerrilla Border Region.
[7] The Japan-Wang Ch'ing-wei Secret Agreements, 1938-1939-1940, Shanghai, 1910; these also appeared in the China Weekly Review, January 27, 1940, p. 318; February 3, 1940, p. 341.
[8] Statement of the Japanese Prime Minister, Prince Fumimaro Konoye, December 22, 1938, Jones and Myers, Documents on American Foreign Relations, 1939-40, Boston (World Peace Foundation), p. 299.
[9] Ch'ên Lo died, and the only persons with any diplomatic experience had, in the past, been only casually connected with the Foreign Office.
[10] See The People's Tribune (Shanghai), XXIX, p. 130 ff., August 1940. This is the semi-official English organ of the regime; each issue contains a selection of public documents. It is edited by the volatile T'ang Leang-li. The other English-language journal is The Voice of China, fortnightly, Nanking, edited by Mr. L. K. Kentwell, a graduate of Oxford and Columbia Universities, Hawaiian-born of British and Cantonese parentage. The journal is spirited, and very anti-British.
[11] Such a chart is found in The People's Tribune, XXIX (March 1940), p. 214, together with a list of incumbents on the following pages. The issue is headed by an editorial, "The National Government Returns to Its Capital" and "Peace, Struggle, and Save China" by Wang Ching-wei (sic). The official outline of the government is to be found in [Reorganized Government], K'ao-shih Yüan Kung-pao (Public Gazette of the Examination Yüan), Nanking. Vol. I, No. 2 (June 1940), following p. 80.
[12] [Reorganized Government], Ssŭ-fa Hsing-chêng Kung-pao (Public Gazette of the Ministry of Justice), Nanking, gives a well-edited résumé of the work of the Ministry and its policy in prosecutions.
[13] [China Weekly Review; J. B. Powell, editor], Who's Who in China, Fifth Edition, Shanghai, [1937], p. 145. For further information see the supplement on the pro-Japanese leaders in Who's Who in China, Supplement to Fifth Edition, Shanghai, [1940]. This presents a hall of notoriety for all the major Chinese leaders affiliated with the enemy. This Who's Who is regarded by the present author as one of the most valuable sources on all Far Eastern politics. It is engrossingly good reading and entertainment, the pictures of the subjects being included in most instances. Behind these simple and short biographies, there lies more drama than Hollywood dare produce.
[14] For an account of this see, "Wang's Farcical C.E.C. Session," China At War (Hong Kong), III, No. 6, p. 57; January 1940.
[15] The full text of the treaty is to be found in China Information Committee, News Release, December 2, 1940, together with the Generalissimo's comment. For a brief account, clearly interpreted, see Steiger, G. Nye, "Japan Makes Peace—with Wang," Events, Vol. 9, No. 49 (January 1941), p. 60-2. The Generalissimo's comment on the Nanking regime will also be found below, Appendix III (A), [No. 7].
Chapter VIII
EXTRA-POLITICAL FORCES
Government, wherever organized, is distinguished from other social institutions by claims to universality of scope and competence, and paramountcy of authority; the term political, on the basis of such a distinction, refers to activities, occasionally individual but more usually collective, involving access to the symbols of government; and the term governmental refers to the application of such symbols in governmental sanctions and services. The process of government is accordingly one wherein groups smaller than the totality of society seek ("politically") to obtain action in the name of the totality ("governmental"), for or against other groups according to shifting interests. In the West this politico-governmental process has been further characterized by ceremonial forms ("laws") and reinforced by conceptions of amoral omnicompetence ("sovereignty").
The cellular socio-economic structure of old China, plus the Confucian employment of ideological as opposed to governmental control, kept the entire process of politics and government at a very low level of intensity. Modern China, inheritor of an apolitical past, is still the most pluralistic society in the world, and modern Chinese government—despite recent gigantism—a frail legal superstructure above a flood of extra-political power. Western societies depend upon their states; the Chinese state depends upon a society which could, albeit uncomfortably, dispense with states altogether.
This condition amounts in international politics, to both a strength and a weakness. Chinese society suffers more political ruin with less social disturbance than does any comparable society; the guerrillas, for example, probably find government helpful when available, but regard it as a luxury rather than a necessity. Chinese society is near to an orderly anarchy; uniform conditioning from the past, or uniform present opinion, takes the place of mass organization and totalitarian government. The high death rate of traitors is probably not owing to activity on the part of Chungking, but to the spontaneous action of ordinary men; on one occasion a high pro-Japanese official was shot by his own bodyguard while the two sat in a sedan on a busy street: the bodyguard had experienced a revulsion of conscience. Fu Hsiao-ên, Wang Ch'ing-wei's Mayor of Shanghai, was also killed by a member of his own household. Spontaneous but uniform action applies not only to sensational political matters; it appears in less dramatic but equally important affairs, such as commercial rivalry, landlord-tenant relationships, and the police power of the community and the family. However, in a contest for power, while the Chinese lose little by defeat, their counter-attacks are correspondingly more difficult. The fluid autonomy of innumerable groups slows down the engines of formal power. The political-governmental process is apt to be sluggish in crises.