Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-03-27
BACKGROUND OF REVOLTIN CHINA

to be seen. The superiority complex
of Americans in China has been sec
ond only to that of the British.
For a hundred years China has
been trying to keep back the western
invasion which has been hammer1ng
at her gates. She was first forced to
yield toeholds, which grew into foot
strongholds from which western
civilization began slowly but surely
to undermine the old China.
After the Boxer War. China began
to disintegrate so fast that the en-
peror was induced to make sweeping
reforms which would rapidly modern
iZe the nation. These reforms We're
| too complete and sudden and resulted
in the revolution of 1911 that replaced
the empire by q republic. China has
been in confusion much of the time
since then, and some of her wise men
say she very possibly will be in con-
vulsions for the next hundred years.
-Four hundred million people" said
| a returned traveller with whom the
writer talked, with their social, moral
| and political institutions, who have
been sitting like cement in deep molds
| for 1000 years cannot be reduced to
a fluid state and run off into new
molds in half a generation"
1t has been a severe shock to the
Chinese to discover that they can
neither absorb the western "bar.
| barians" nor wear them out by pro
crastination or boycott. Every for.
eign wave of immigration or con.
quest in her history has eventually
lost itself in the vast tideless sea
of Chinese life
| For thousands of years her civiliza-
| ton has proved stronger than any
that has impinged upon it.
But out of the West has come q
| new type of invader. 1t is a con.
crete illustration of what happened
when an irresistible force meets an
| immovable object. The answer to
this problem is the answer to the
Chinese riddle. A titanic struggle is
| going on beside the Yellow Sea be-
| tween the oldest culture that has
| persisted in history, backed by a
| quarter of the human race, and the
| spirit of progress and of science that
is embodied in the Anglo-Saxon.
Adjustment between these two di-
verse concepts of life is the meaning
of the vast drama that is today being
played in China.
X X x 4.
The fighting going on in China to.
day it not, strictly speaking, contest
between the north" and the south. -
There is no political or economic line
| of cleavage in China as there was in
the United States during the war be
tween the States. In China, how
ever, there is a clash of ideas. There
is contest between comparatively
conservative and comparatively radi
cal forces.
There is one party in China. how
ever, which has nationwide affllia
tons. 1t has influence in every
province. 1t is known as the Kuo
n2intang, or Nationalist party. The
other parties are more or less per
| sonal followings of some military
chieftan. There is no revolution in
China against a constituted govern
ment. 1t is rather revolution
against tradition and old and retard
ing influences. In this revolution, the
Nationalist party leads and is wagine
war against foreigners. foreign in
| f1uence and foreign powers.
In the Nationalist party are en-
rolled most of the western educated
students. The southern Chinese are
by temperament more revolutionary
or more progressive" than the north
ern Chinese. South China has known
more of foreign contact. From south
China have gone most of China:
emigrants and from these emigrant.