The Chinese National Socialist Party
The elder brother of Chang Kia-ngau, who is the enterprising Minister of Economic Affairs, has organized a political party after the fashion of the traditional pavilions of learning and patriotism. In China's past, Confucians frequently developed an institution which admixed the features of a perpetual resort camp, a library, a seminar, and a club. Living together amid scenically beautiful and scholastically adequate surroundings, they made their influence felt through their writings and their example, whenever one of their number returned to public life. Dr. Carson Chang (Chang Chia-shêng) has organized an Institute of National Culture at Talifu in Yünnan, in the mountains just below Tibet. There he associates with kindred souls to attempt a restoration of traditional values in the traditional manner.
The confusing and unhappy similarity of the name of his party to Adolf Hitler's party is explained in the following communication:
To give to the world in a clear and unambiguous way the principles our party stands for and the platform we wish to adopt should we have the chance to serve our country, I have written a book, entitled What A State Is Built On. In formulating my political philosophy, though I have drawn freely upon the wisdom of the West, I have kept my eye steadily on the needs of my people and the circumstances of my country as the guiding and controlling principles in shaping my own thought. In view of the possibility of distortions you have suggested in your letter, an extract is now being prepared in English, with the idea to facilitate the understanding of our movement and to present to the intellectual world of the West our principles and policies ...
The accidental similarity of names between our party and Hitler's is indeed an endless source of misunderstanding, but the similarity is truly "accidental." In Chinese the name of our party runs "Kuo Chia She Hui Tang," which may be literally translated into "Nation (Kuo Chia) Society (She Hui) Party (Tang)," a name we adopted long before Hitler's party became known, embodying principles widely different from what Hitler's party stands for. The suspicion abroad of our connection with Hitler's National Socialist Party may be traced to an incident two years ago at Hankow when Kuomintang first came to recognize the legal status of minor political parties. The foreign correspondents, in reporting my exchange of letters with Generalissimo Chiang with regard to the recognition of our party, referred without a second thought to our party as "Nazi," thus creating all distortions which might have occurred even without such mischief. I shall be more than grateful to you if you would undertake to clear the suspicion on us and pave the way for lasting understanding between us and your people.[16]
Social Democrats and La Jeunesse
These two minuscule parties are both expatriate groups organized in Paris. The Social Democratic Party was organized in 1925. It has no connection with the Socialist Party of the pro-Japanese Kiang Kang-hu, but is simply the Chinese affiliate of the Second International. The Social Democratic Party may unite with the Third Party, in view of the close similarity of aims and ideology; its leader, Mr. Yang Kan-tao, has been recognized by being seated in the People's Political Council.
The party called Kuo-chia Chu-i Pai (La Jeunesse, or Parti Républicain Nationaliste de la Jeune Chine) was organized in 1923 in Paris, by a Mr. Tseng Chi, with whom is now associated Mr. Tso Shen-sheng, the most active worker for the party. It survived for years as an expatriate organization, joined by successive generations of Chinese students in France. Its policies are strongly democratic and social-minded. A functional legislature, the cooperative movement and state capitalism have suggested a similarity to Fascism in the minds of some observers; of Trotskyism, to others.[17] The party, through accident and the family connections of its founder, has connections in Szechuan, and the transfer of the National Government to Chungking was a corresponding aid to the slight influence of the party. Long in exile, it is known by one of its French names even in China; all it does is to help diversify opinion. Mr. Tso occupies a seat in the People's Political Council.[18]
The National Salvationists are an operating force in China, and the Communists, while a minority party, are not a minor party in the American sense. Unhappily, the existence of minuscule parties among both patriots and pro-Japanese elements suggests that multi-party constitutionalism is likely to degenerate into innumerable party fractions, splinter parties, and novel, unstable groups. The Kuomintang and the Communists possess their respective monopolies of power; the National Salvationists have a popular and sincere cause. The other parties exist in part because they obtain recognition. As long as Chinese political processes depend on leadership by personality, individuals will be free to form their own parties, while the geographical, cultural, and economic diversity of the country holds out little hope for the appearance of two or three China-wide democratic parties. Far more likely is it that, with the presumable advent of constitutionalism, the Kuomintang-Communist alignment will continue, while the present minor parties will gain some ground, and innumerable new parties will appear in order to profit by democratic guarantees of minimal representation, or to fulfill functions exercised by fraternal societies in the United States.