Members cannot waste time over the pork-barrel, log-rolling, riders, or minor fiscal questions. Since they all have the same constituency at law, and that constituency—the C. E. C. of the Kuomintang—asks nothing of them except representation of their moral constituencies—the groups and areas from which they derive, Councillors are untroubled by constituents or appropriations. The budget is submitted by the government to the Council for approval, not enactment. Salaries of the Councillors are nil. Each is given Ch. $350.00 (about U. S. $20.00) per mouth for expenses, without regard to mileage, and even overseas Chinese representatives receive no further emoluments. Since government officials are excluded from membership, use of a Council seat for purposes of preferment is precluded.
A liberalization of representation and of procedure occurred early in 1941. A new Council—involving the first turnover in membership since 1938—was elected. Educational and other unofficial representatives obtained an additional twenty seats on the Council. The changes were scarcely sufficient to compensate for the further postponement of the promised Constitution, but they indicated a willingness of the government to meet demands for democratization. Procedural changes increased the effectiveness of individual members. A minor but characteristic feature was the increase in number and importance of women members.
Partisan organization in the Council, although elementary, has begun to function. Each clique has informal caucuses; careful scrutiny discloses the presence of whips from these caucuses on the floor. The groupings in the Council are so fluid that they can be variously classified by persons with different viewpoints. (Formally, of course, everyone is either Kuomintang or non-Party, even though The Chinese Year Book, under informal Chungking government sponsorship, proudly lists the high rank of the Communist members of the Council—"Chen Shao-yu (Wang Ming), [age] 33, [province] Anhwei, [remarks] Member, Presidium, Central Executive Committee, the Third International.")[8] The popular classification of the Council cliques, commonly seen in the press, is based on the Four Parties (Ssŭ Tang) and the Four Cliques (Ssŭ P'ai). The four parties are the Kuomintang, National Socialist, Communist, and La Jeunesse.[9] The Four Cliques, which according to popular credence, formed soon after the first meetings of the Council, are based on intellectual sympathy and the interplay of temperaments, and not on dogma.
The most Leftist clique is believed to be the Hua-chung P'ai (Central China Clique), with the National Salvationists' Seven Gentlemen at their core. Deeply sympathetic with the masses, and violently patriotic, this group helped to bring about the war by opposing appeasement. Like-thinking Council members, however affiliated, are believed to fall under the legislative leadership of the Central China Clique. Near to this, still far to the Left of the government, is the Tungpei P'ai (Northeast Clique). The Northeastern Manchurian Chinese officers, exiled in the Northwest, were the first bridge between the Communists and the rest of the country. Since their native provinces and kinsfolk have had almost ten years' Japanese domination, the Northeast group is emphatic in demands for national unity. Communists circulate from one group to the other, always cooperative in offering their leadership on the basis of a United Front, which the Comintern still decrees for the Far East after jettisoning the Popular Fronts of Europe.
The two relatively Rightist cliques are the Ch'ê-yeh Chiao-yü P'ai (Vocational Educationists' Clique) and the Chiao-shou P'ai (Professors' Clique). Composed of men still so far from attaining office that they possess perfect freedom of criticism, they therefore stand Left of the government in daily comment, although they may be Right of it in theory. The former group stresses simple, direct problems: it seeks to attack the opium problem, disease, illiteracy, and so forth, without necessarily fighting the social revolution against the landlords. It derives its name from two distinguished leaders of the vocational education movement who have abstained from active political work until finding a forum in the Council. The Professors' Clique is reputedly led by the group of young professors who were eminent in their fields before the outbreak of war, opposed to the government's appeasement policy, but tactful enough not to rebel. They are considered to stand as far Right as anyone on the Council—that is, to discuss politics in terms of soundness of public policy, budgetary reasonableness, immediate practicality, and other common-sense standards, which appear conservative beside the fervid idealism of their colleagues.
The description of the Ssŭ P'ai just given is one which exists in the popular credence. A more authoritative source placed the groups in the Council under the following four headings:
(1) the Kuomintang and non-Party majority;
(2) the La Jeunesse Party and the National Socialists;
(3) the Communists;
(4) the "Popular Front" group, including the intellectuals and the National Salvationists.
On this basis, the Kuomintang would retain its working control of the Council, which appears to be the case, in terms of work performed. The unaffiliated majority, selected by their local governments and Kuomintang offices and elected by the Kuomintang C. E. C., would in doubtful cases be inclined to turn to Kuomintang leadership. The La Jeunesse Party, despite the fact that it is a Western-returned student organization, is strong in Szechuan; its influence could be expected to run with that of the National Socialists. Both parties, while minute, are decidedly averse to Communist fellow-travelling and not at all disposed to alter the status quo, except to carve modest niches for themselves and to advance their programs in an agreeable way. The Communists stand alone, although they offer their cooperation to the independents.
The Popular Front group is a category widely recognized in China—the Left Kuomintang, the discontented idealists, the irrepressible patriots, the minor parties, the indefatigable conspirators of Chinese hopefulness who are always on the scene. For years they have been unforgotten witnesses to the ferocious integrity of ideals which (in individuals scattered at random at all levels of society) call Chinese out of the lethargy of being very practical.