Nevertheless, the fact that a Chinese central government has emerged in time for effective action, and has withstood invasion, does not provide proof that Japan is doomed to fail. Japanese progress thus far in China has depended in great part upon Japanese world commerce—on raw materials and finance from her lucrative American trade. China's resistance has depended, but to a lesser degree, on Western aid. In each case, the early history of the conflict was qualified if not determined by the character of third-party relations. If the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and Germany continued for the next twenty-odd years to do in the Far East precisely what they have been doing for the past ten, the future might be more or less predictable on the basis of the Far Eastern elements alone. Such a prediction is, however, wholly unsupportable at the present time; it is indeed safe to predict the contrary, and assume that it is impossible for the major outside powers to continue their reciprocal power-relationships unchanged, in the Far East or elsewhere. China's future is therefore bound up with European and American uncertainties. The Three-Power Pact, signed at Berlin, September 27, 1940 between Germany, Italy and Japan, and the American Lease-Lend Bill have already begun to interlock the European and East Asiatic wars.
The Chief Alternatives in China
The Chinese domestic situation will inescapably be bound up with China's international position. The extremes of probability can be readily marked off: on the one hand, it is most improbable that the Chinese resistance should collapse altogether, and leave the way open for an almost effortless Japanese victory, through the consolidation of the Wang regime without guerrilla, volunteer or West-China opposition; on the other hand, an immediate and complete Chinese victory, coupled with solution of Nationalist-Communist rivalry, is not at all in sight. Somewhere between these two extremes there lie a number of more probable alternatives.
Chief among these is a Kuomintang China, winning a slow victory against Japan under the continuation of existent institutions and leadership. Such a country—nationalist, democratic, and economically pragmatist—would, by the fact of victory over Japan, create a nucleus for liberal democracy in Asia.[1] A variant of this solution would be a United Front China, wherein the independents and the Left actually shared power with the Kuomintang under conditions of broad popular suffrage; this would presumably lie between the United States and the Soviet Union in the matter of ideology and foreign policy. Neither of these would afford Japan much opportunity for continued influence on the continent.
A long continuation of the present hostilities might imply the development of a permanently divided China—permanent save in terms of centuries—with Nationalists and Communists landbound in inner Asia, and pro-Japanese governments along the coast. Such a violation of Chinese cultural and economic unity would perpetuate disequilibrium, and imply continuing wars. Differing from this in degree rather than kind would be a reversion of China to tuchünism and anarchy. Neither of these possibilities could command acceptance from the awakened, vigorous China of today.
Outside intervention presents a third group of alternatives: the partition of China through a Soviet-Japanese understanding, or the complete Sovietization of China, through the combined efforts of Soviet and Chinese Communists. Soviet-Japanese partition, once almost unthinkable, appears within the range of possibility because of the apparent weakness of the Soviet Union, which calls for unconventional remedies. If Communist dialectic insured the Soviets who shared China with Japan an ultimate victory over Japan as well, the evil might seem transitory to the Soviet Union. Were such a step taken to thwart rising American influence, it might seem the lesser of two evils. Neither this nor a Soviet China (which would swell the Communist frontier and resources immeasurably) appeared probable in the spring of 1941.
The more practical aspects of the China-building problem still concern the immediate, local effectiveness of the Japanese military effort to control the growth of Chinese government.
To create a victorious condition, Japan has sought the collaboration of phantom Japanophile governments. But in the face of the continuing National Government, and guerrilla opposition, these governments are incapable of functioning. When the conquerors of China entered the cities, and took over the government, they were strangers holding mere islands in the greatness of China.
Japan has the seven most important cities of China. She has most of the railroads. The waters around China are closed by the Japanese fleet. But how is Japan to occupy the hundreds of thousands of villages? How is Japan to persuade the Chinese people, who are still overwhelmingly country people, that they are conquered when Japan thinks that they are?