In the past, China has been conquered by invaders who accepted the Chinese estimate of China, and who reciprocated the Chinese self-esteem with a deep admiration for Chinese culture. China's modern invaders bring with them a veritable cult of national self-aggrandizement. Their fondness for the Chinese past is mixed with contempt for modern China. Will the Chinese preserve their national equanimity and sanity in the face of such an attitude? Much depends upon their military and political fortune and its effect upon their confidence.
Government in the Republican era demonstrates the fertility and inventiveness of the Chinese mind in building political and administrative institutions and in finding means of uniting and controlling the Chinese as a people. When the chaos from which they have been emerging is considered, their recent accomplishments are an attestation of political ability. The National Government and the Chinese Soviet Republic were worthy adversaries; each met disastrous odds, not the least of which was the other. Their governmental forms may be destroyed and yet reappear so long as the Chinese remain Chinese in the sense of their long past. Sun Yat-sen expressed his countrymen's elementary social and national consciousness, so different from the feverish nationalism of the West, in very clear language:
Suppose that we, Chinese, were naturalized English or Americans and helped England or America to conquer China on the principle that we accept cosmopolitanism, would our consciences, I ask you, be at rest or not? If our consciences troubled us, that would be a sign that we have nationalism; nationalism would trouble our consciences.[2]
Such nationalism may prove indestructible. With democracy and min shêng as nationalism's corollaries, China promises to contribute a gift of peace and political intelligence to the world, and may yet return to her ancient role as the pacific preceptress of nations.
Notes
[2.] Paschal M. d'Elia, S. J., The Triple Demism of Sun Yat-sen, p. 132, Wuchang, 1931.