Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-02-03
RED RUSSIA, CHECKED IN
ENGLAND, WINNING IN CHINA
Wanted: An Asiatic Locarno Through Which Just
Treaties May Be Agreed to by All, Avoiding
a New World War;

with Russia for leadership in the
campaign by Asia against Europe or
combine temporarily with Russia In
such leadership with the thought of
eXpelling Russia from joint dictator
ship in the end?
These are samples of the questions,
born of fear, which an anxious world
asks itself
The Next World War.
Is there danger that the next world
war viii be between the yellow men
and the white men? Since the be-
ginning of the year the struggle
between yellow and white men, be-
tween Europe on one side and Asia
and Africa on the other, has quieted
down in north Africa and in western
Asia, in Morocco. Egypt and Mosu1,
but still threatens in China.
The hope has been that the
dominating war lords of China might
Kilkenny cat-like destroy one an
other until a unified central govern
men with power to control might be
established with which America and
Europe might deal on sympathetic
lines of justice and fair play
But for every war lord who goes
under another arises Instead of dis
banding and joining to productive
labor the million of Chinese mer-
cenary soldiers the number has
largely increased. The mercenary
armies are better equipped, disci-
plined and moresskillfully led.
Making China Militant.
1t is conceded that the spirit of
the Chinese is not warlike. All that
the farming coolies, the bulk of the
population, ask is to be let alone to
wiring a bare subsistence from the
soil by the hardest of hard labor.
But all existing conditions, intensi-
fed during the last year, tend 10
make the Chinese militant. China is
the battlefield of underline surface
war between Russia and Japan for
supremacy in Asia; between Great
Britain and Japan for trade suprem-
acy; between China and Great
Britain representing the concession
holding powersl over unequal
treaties, and alleged hurtful and
humiliating Determinations; and be-
tween Chinese war lords of north,
central and south China for control
and enjoyment of provincial and ma
tional revenues. Even the expanding
spirit of nationalsm, student-born
and Soviet fostered, is tainted with
bolshevik hatred of the foreigner and
tends to inf1ame the people to I'M
accustomed militancy.
In their under the surface war
Russia and, to a less degree, Japan
have been arming and training
steadily increasing thousands or
Chinese soldiers. Within the year the
number has vastly enlarged.
AS the result in part of this COM
petition China is cursed today with
nearly two millions of mercenary
soldiers, each with only gun and
his body to sell or rent. The mil
lions OF Chinese on the verge of star
walton, harried and robbed in their
poverty by the soldier bandits, sup
ply an unlimited number OF recruits
to whom, in spite of their traditional
paciflsm, the invitation to drill, to
shoot and to loot as an easy means of
sustaining life is more and more allur-
ing.
Do not all the precedents teach
that these armed millions will not
always fight for hire against one
another, but will combine In the end
sufficiently to expel or merge into
China all militant foreigners alike,
in order to fight in the name or
China for universal loot?
Does not history suggest that exist
ing conditions and tendencies If not
checked or radically changed will I'M
time inevitably develop an Asiatic
leader, composite reincarnati0n OF
Diaz, of Napoleon and of Genghis
Khan, who will unity China i'm the
military sense by DISCRIMINATING or
subiugating the other war lords and
by merging into a single force under
despotic control the multitude OF scat
tered mercenary bands now infestlng
the republic; and will then use this
unified China not as medium OF
world peace ON the lines of American
suggestion, but as the weapon of
world war, of Asia invading Europe,
of the yellow man against the white?
The diplomacy of the worlds wisest
minds should avert this disaster.
Our Pulling Dilemma.
On first thought 1t might seem that
the remarkable success OF South
China's campaign for the subjugation
of central China with the threat of
a like fate for north China points to
the unified China and the responsible
central government which
the United States has been seeking In
order to put into effect its sympa-
thetic and helpful policy of Fair Play
for China" to which it is Thoroughly