IDEALS AND REALITIES IN ASIA
Howard, Harry Paxton
Ideals And Realities In Asia AMERICAN EMPIRE IN ASIA? by Albert Viton. The John Day Company. $3. ASIA UNBOUND. A Pattern for Freedom in the Far East, by Sydney Greenbie. D. Appleton-Century...
...Greenbie would be well advised to read Mr...
...It is a serious let-down to turn from this courageous writing to a eulogy of the Chiang Kai-shek regime as "democratic," progressive, idealistic, etc...
...The difficulty is that these Asiatic shortcomings are set off against an ideal solution which assumes that the United States and other Western powers are prepared to assume an attitude of benevolent paternalism towards Arabs and Indians, Burmese and Indonesians, Chinese and Japanese...
...Ever since Yuan Shih-kai, the major government revenues (customs and salt) have been in foreign hands—predominantly British...
...According to Mr...
...His excellent and sympathetic studies of the Burmese, Indonesians, Malayans, Siamese, etc., are worth reading...
...Neither writer refers to the "educational" work we have carried out in Japan for more than half a century, building up and "educating" Japan's militarists and imperialists—until these gangsters went into business for themselves, becoming our enemies instead of our proteges...
...Especially notable is Prof...
...What sort of a solution is there—if any—which will secure enduring peace as well as an expansion of human liberties and human comfort in the world...
...The difficulty lies in what seems to be Mr...
...Its military forces were built up by German Nazis from 1928 to...
...The' only safe protection for minorities is in an informed electorate...
...This is simply not true...
...And his honesty about Asiatic shortcomings extends even to the Chiang Kai-shek dictatorship in China, about which the most amazing falsehoods are so much in vogue today...
...Men who are fighting to free their country from a conqueror cannot be charged with treason to that conqueror...
...Most amazing is his assertion that "military forces, finance and foreign relations are, and always have been, under the control of Chinese authorities...
...Not one Western power ever recognized the Chinese Republic established by Sun Yat-sen and his revolutionary associates at Nanking in 1912...
...In the James W. Richards Lectures in History at the University of Virginia, Prof...
...We are to show our benevolence, he believes, by loaning or investing the money for it, and protecting the Asiatics against themselves in the meantime...
...Viton correctly notes that "Free . China is governed by a native dictator and a cabinet ostensibly holding power at the consent of a popular party...
...Since 1935, however, the major portion of the Chiang government's funds have come from the United States Treasury—at first by "silver purchases," later by outright subsidies...
...Ever since the Chinese Revolution of 1912—to go no further back—the great powers have consistently intervened to stifle revolutionary democratic forces and promote reaction and militarism, at every crisis that has arisen...
...Viton on the actual nature of the present regime in China...
...All these matters of vital history—not only in regard to China, but in regard to the struggles between parliamentary and militarist elements in Japan also, and in regard to similar struggles elsewhere in Asia —seem to be a closed book to Mr...
...These aims are excellent...
...The American government must take its full share of responsibility for the nature of today's Chinese regime...
...Viton deals mainly with the last two...
...1938, and after a few years of Soviet "adviserships" gave way to American "advice...
...The important thing is the purpose of industrialization, which may well be for war or for a privileged ruling class...
...Neither writer indicates that the adoption of benevolent and altruistic and democratic policies by our government towards Asiatic peoples would mean a complete reversal of our historic policies in Asia—-a reversal of which there is as yet no sign whatever...
...This is much more absurd than anything in Mr...
...Greenbie seems to be wholly ignorant of American and Soviet financing and intrigue and war-promotion in the Far East...
...Commager launched a learned attack upon the doctrine of judicial review...
...Commager's review of the 75 cases in which the Supreme Court has declared laws of Congress unconstitutional...
...Viton assumes that the basic solution for vital problems is industrialization...
...W.B.H...
...Greenbie's book is less of a unified "plan" than a number of general suggestions, and some good pictures of Asiatic peoples...
...Reviewed by Harry Paxton Howard WHAT ARE WE FIGHTING FOR in Asia...
...It is this moral revulsion, multiplied by the million, from man to man wherever the most illiterate Chinese meets a literate Japanese, that alone explains the electric awakening of China to this fight...
...When we stop loving our flag—and not till then-— we shall have a moral right to question the right of these people to love theirs...
...Viton, in turn, might learn some things from Mr...
...With echoes of Thomas Jefferson, Commager ably contends that the practice of looking to the courts for protection for minority rights is inconsistent with democracy and constitutionalism...
...These four questions are basic in any realistic treatment of the present situation in Asia...
...1.50...
...Some of the author's plans are excellent...
...This had been the Burmese symbol for 200 years, but the British banned it a century ago...
...Oxford University Press...
...Both authors are duly denunciatory of the Japanese people, who are "incapable" of democracy, and must be crushed, ruled, and "educated" by us...
...Congress, Not The Court MAJORITY RULE AND MINORITY RIGHTS, by Henry Steel Commager...
...D. Appleton-Century Company...
...Greenbie, China is fighting Japan because of the "moral revulsion of the individual Chinese when he met an individual Japanese soldier...
...The subsidizing of Chinese militarists against Japan, instead of Japanese militarists against China, is in no way a fundamental change in policy...
...Viton!s book...
...He further emphasizes that "a strong, united and democratic China is an essential prerequisite to the establishment of a durable balance of power (sic) in the Far East," and warns that "a fascist, militaristic, reactionary China," established as a leading Far Eastern power, "would sooner or later lead to the establishment of similar regimes in the autonomous lesser states...
...He- likes Buddhism much more than some emancipated Asiatics do, and for reasons with which one can sympathize...
...It reveals no instance . . . where the court has intervened on behalf of the underprivileged...
...What are the Asiatics themselves like...
...A new flag has been given to Burma, with the peacock, for prosperity, on a background of gold, red, and green...
...Experience has shown that dictatorship in one country is a menace to world peace and an evil which civilized humanity can no longer tolerate...
...The record "discloses not a single case, in a century and a half, when the Supreme Court has protected freedom of speech, press, assembly, or petition against Congressional attack...
...And he adds, speaking of the peoples of the Indo-Chinese area generally: "At the moment, the Japanese are carrying out the pretense of independence for these peoples, which Europeans had neither the consistency nor the decency to grant...
...What are the policies of the powers which have led up to the present crisis in that vast continent...
...He is honest enough to express himself strongly and clearly with regard to the Burmese nationalists who have been prepared to cooperate even with the Japanese against the British in recent years: "To speak of men like U Saw and Ba Maw as fifth columnists or quislings is idiotic...
...He believes, therefore, that "the nations of the West may, indeed must, demand that a form of government essentially democratic, non-totalitarian, and non-militaristic be established...
...His descriptions of the shortcomings of various Asiatic societies are for the most part correct—and are worthy of appreciation as such...
...From this analysis the Congress, and not the courts, emerges as the instrument for the realization of the Bill of Rights...
...Viton's complete ignorance of the active part played by Western nations—including the United States—in creating the "fascist, militaristic, reactionary China" of which the author warns...
...Green- v bie points out that industrialization—as is shown clearly in the case of Japan—does not necessarily improve the lot of the common man...
...Its foreign relations are determined at Washington...
Vol. 7 • November 1943 • No. 48
