The Ministry of Communications has used existing facilities to draw new networks. The short stretches of railway in Free China are still operated; matériel from the occupied zone was brought West on them, and they are undergoing rapid development. Roadbeds are being constructed in anticipation of future imports of steel rails. Steamship enterprises, under government subsidy, operate extensively, and new reaches of river have been opened to service.
Three lines of reconstruction have proved very fruitful: motor communications, telecommunications, and the rationalization of pre-modern facilities already at hand.
Motor communications, both highway and aerial, have shown enormous progress. Air service is maintained by the China National Aviation Corporation and the Eurasia Company, both owned by the Chinese Government, the former jointly with Pan American Airways and the latter with German interests. Through connections from New York to Berlin are available by the combined services of the two companies.
The highway system can be thought of as spider-like. Three enormous legs reach to the outside: the Chungking-Kunming-Lashio route, famous as the Burma Road; the trans-Sinkiang route, finally connecting with the Soviet Turksib Railroad beyond thousands of miles of desert and mountains; and the due North route, now being developed, reaching the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The body of the system is a tight, well-metalled skein of roads interconnecting the major cities of Free China. Most highways are all-weather, and well-engineered, but niceties of surfacing have been postponed.
Truck and bus service is regular, but very crowded, with inescapable confusion as to priority. The majority of the operating firms are government-owned, either by the central government or the provinces. Complaint has arisen over the restrictions to private enterprise in this field. Since gasoline costs about U. S. $1.00 per gallon and is available only under permit, further official obstructions to highway use seem unnecessary.
Telecommunications have been maintained and extended. Telegraph service has reached into hitherto untapped areas, and wireless is extensively employed. Radio services operate under the Kuomintang, not the government; stations XGOX and XGOY reach North America and Europe with propaganda in the world's leading languages. The telephone has come to be a regular part of Chinese official and business life, and is to be seen, far off the beaten track, as one of the heralds of industrialization.
All these modern services would, however, be grossly insufficient for the needs of the whole nation at war. They have been supplemented through the use of every available type of pre-modern transportation. Most of these rely on man-power, and have had their own elaborate organization for many centuries: boatmen's guilds, unions of transport coolies, carters, muleteers and camel-drivers. It has been possible to ship heavy freight through country consisting of mountains traversable only by stone-flagged footpaths or torrential streams. The Ministry has regimented this complicated pre-modern world, with impromptu modernizations as startling as they are efficacious. Where once couriers trotted, they now speed by on bicycles or motorcycles; the squealing wooden-axled wheelbarrows of the Chinese countryside are yielding to pneumatic-tired carts which resemble American farm trailers. Three to eight men can drag one cart, with half a ton of freight, over any terrain, making up to forty miles a day. Provision can be made, therefore, for moving a quarter-million tons of raw materials across territory lacking even the most elementary roads. The roughness of the country, which bars the Japanese army, is no obstacle to huge coolie gangs, drafted sometimes, but more usually hired.
The Minister of Communications gave the following written answers to questions put by the author:[22]
1. In view of the political interruptions to commerce through British and French territories south of China, will efforts be maintained to keep communications on the same schedules southward that they had before?
Yes, because commercial and export traffic is still being carried on southward, and there is a large accumulation of important materials to be moved from the frontier inward.
2. Will the restriction of gasoline lead to the abandonment of certain truck and bus routes, and the maintenance of others, or do you expect to restrict all routes evenly?
We expect to restrict all important routes evenly if the motor fuel situation becomes really acute.
3. Is a motor road running through Inner and Outer Mongolia directly north to the Trans-Siberian Railroad a feasible project?
Yes, it is a feasible project.
4. For all practical purposes, is the Soviet route as it exists an adequate although expensive channel for the import of high-class American machinery, such as trucks?
Yes, the Soviet route as it exists is adequate though expensive for the purpose.
5. Is there evidence that mail between the United States and China has been censored or tampered with while in transit past Japan?
No, there is no such evidence so far.
6. How extensive a foreign personnel do you have in the varied agencies under your Ministry?
Postal Service: 28 China National Aviation Corporation: 15 Eurasia Aviation Corporation: 13 Railways: 8 7. What developments of the last three years do you regard with most pride, as evidence of China's power to cope with the emergency?
The timely completion of the Yunnan-Burma Highway may be considered as evidence of China's power to cope with the emergency and as an important development in the field of war-time communications. The Highway is 960 kilometers long from Kunming to Anting on the frontier. Construction began in October 1937. Eleven months later, the road was opened to through traffic. At one time during its construction, as many as 100,000 laborers were employed on the road.
The highest point on the Highway is 2,600 meters above the sea level, yet the road has to pass two deep valleys, the Mekong and the Salween, where the Highway dips a few thousand feet within a distance of several miles in order to reach the river bed, and rises precipitously again in the same manner just beyond the suspension bridges over the two turbulent rivers. The scarcity of local labor, the enervating climate, and the wild and sparsely populated country traversed, all combine to make the construction work difficult. But now, anyone may take a motor car and cover the distance between Chungking and Rangoon in two weeks, as Ambassador Johnson did soon after the Highway was completed.