Significantly, the statement of Secretary Hull may apply to future Soviet advance in China as well as to the Japanese invasion. American aid which would weaken Japan and strengthen the Soviet Union thereby, would be welcome to Stalin; but American influence, carried to the point of consolidating the National Government against the Communists, and reducing the probabilities of rising Communist influence, would not be welcome.
Whether the United States Government and the American people are pro-Chinese or not, the National Government of China is pro-American. The only influence to rival the American in modern China is that of the Soviet Union. Soviet and American impress are found in intellectual life, in political ideals, in standards and types of organization, and in ethical creeds. It is no accident that the Kuomintang traces its three principles back to Lincoln, while the Chinese Communists quote Lenin and Stalin. The rivalry is clear, and acute. American aid to China strengthens the pro-American party and weakens the Communists; cessation of the Burma route traffic in the summer of 1940 stimulated discussion of a closer Sino-Soviet rapprochement.
Generalissimo Chiang is a Christian. He is surrounded by American-trained officials. The common secondary language of the Nationalists is English. The Chinese Industrial Cooperatives are based on an American background with New Zealand and British advice. The educational system is patterned after that of the United States in great part; the American impress on the system of higher education, in particular, cannot be overestimated. The interests, appetites, and orientation of the Kuomintang and the National Government are Pacific-centered; much bitterness of an intimate, almost uncomplaining sort, has been aroused by America's continued aid to Japan through business channels.
Adjustments within China are bound to react to the pressures in the outside world. If the United States abandons Free China, the Japanese will probably not conquer China; but the Soviets will be in an excellent position to try, for themselves or through agreement with the Japanese, to demoralize Chinese resistance so that the Soviet forces could intervene because of a political vacuum and protect the "racially kin working classes," as in Poland. Whether China should go Communist through the triumph of the Chinese Communists, or through military occupation by the Soviet Red Army, would not matter much to the United States. What would matter would be the loss of an incomparable ally, an ally who today is almost embarrassingly cordial toward us, thankful to us, and who admires our institutions and culture.
Once Japan were forced out of the picture as an aggressive power, once the United States and China were to reach an understanding, the Soviet Union—debarred from a warm-water naval base on the Pacific—could be left in the status quo, its menace removed, to work out its own destiny if it did not challenge renewed intervention by renewed provocation of co-existing societies. No other challenging power could appear on the Pacific. A group of nations from Buenos Aires to Labrador, from Melbourne to Kashgar, from Lhasa to Boston would cover three and one-half continents. The area thus freed from war and aggression, encompassing the Americas and the Pacific basin, would include every necessary article in the entire schedule of man's appetites. The Chungking government, elementarily and crudely, has broken ground for the culture-political American advance into Asia. Strong without us, Free China is a great power with us, and the one place in the world where construction, liberty, education, and hope still rise day by day. Both cosmopolitan and national, the Chinese are ready to accept their share of responsibility for the new world order.
The responsibility for building a democratic world, whether or not the four authoritarian powers go down, lies in great part upon the United States. Generalissimo Chiang, alone among leaders, has stood forth for world government, for world freedom. He has written:[3]
"In as much as cosmopolitanism and world peace are two of the main aims of San Min Chu I, China will naturally be disposed to participate in any world federation or confederation based on the equality of nations and for the good of mankind."