BOODY TRAPS ALONG THE ROAD TO PEACE
Howard, Harry Paxton
Booby Traps Along The Road To Peace By HARRY PAXTON HOWARD THE MEETING at Cairo between President Roosevelt, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and Prime Minister Churchill — to use the striking order...
...Kwang Hsu, by his liberal reforms, might have turned the constructive forces of modernism and parliamentary government into peaceful channels, and made gradual change and progress possible...
...Supplementing this strong arm was the practice of extraterritor-ality: the setting up of courts to administer British law so that entrepreneurs might be spared the more extreme abuses of the local legal apparatus...
...Guarding Imperial Riches "For about a hundred years, as long as Britain held the necessary balance of power, the system incubated the industrial age the world over...
...The first two of these elements served a policing function...
...Since 1927 such forces were also maintained in such places at Shanghai, without any treaty right whatsoever— forces of armed Invasion and occupation, with no more legal right on Chinese soil than the Japanese armies possess...
...In Chinese, as in world terms, an "international" police force represents the failure of a single empire to dominate the entire area, and the necessity of partnership for joint domination...
...The "violence and greed" phrase, indeed, leaves all kinds of territorial questions open for secret discussion and negotiation...
...Korea's fate will be determined by greater Powers— like the fate of Austria...
...He is convinced, indeed, that some sort of organization is necessary if there is to be enduring peace...
...And here, again, we find the "international force" as the decisive element...
...Law backed by force made the Pax Britannica the assurance of peace and fair play prerequisite to any long-term investment...
...Significant Statement About Korea Hanson W. Baldwin, one of the mo3t intelligent and well-informed of military experts in the United States, has pointed out most significantly in the New York Times : "There are some territories not specifically mentioned that nevertheless should be stripped from Japan if she is to be de-militarized...
...The Bonin Islands, southeast of Japan, and sites of important Japanese naval-air installations, must be internationalized and the string of islands between Japan proper and Formosa, which now control the entrance to the East China and Yellow Seas (the Ryukyu of Nansei Islands), must be given to China or to some international authority...
...A consortium loan was made to him by the powers jointly, by means of which he succeeded ifl expanding his military power and crushing the revolution...
...This was a part of the "financial" functioning...
...Britain, France, Russia, and Japan seized enormous "outside areas" of the ancient Empire, but over the immense remaining areas they reached agreements for joint aggression and occupation...
...Regular military forces were maintained in Peking, in Tientsin, and other places—by treaty right, extorted from the Chinese by joint military pressure...
...For the past 30 years, however, it has been clearly demonstrated that the British Empire is unable to stand upon its own feet—and the feet of its colonial subjects,—in maintaining the Pax Britannica...
...French Indo-China, for example, was taken by diplomatic pressure, not by "violence...
...The significance of this is similar to the statement concerning Austria in the Declaration of Moscow a month ago...
...In fact (though Time does not mention this little item), the most serious failure of the British Navy to "support constituted authority and lawful procedure" was the American Revolution, when those whom the British termed "rioters and revolutionaries" established a government conceived in liberty...
...Though this grave setback was a mortal blow to real domination of the world by Britain, the British did become far the greatest power in the world during the 19th Century...
...But he is also convinced that no such peace can rest upon the permanent subjection of the majority of the population of the world...
...The customs remained in the hands of the international administration, headed by the British Inspector-General...
...The Japanese did not conquer a free China...
...These places are not even mentioned in the Cairo statement...
...To the Empress Dowager...
...For 19 years, I personally observed the workings of this force...
...It was a solid structure, made up of four sturdy elements: the British Navy, the gold standard, free trade, and overseas lending...
...International policing was not only naval...
...They contain some of the strongest naval bases that Japan possesses...
...It had two obvious choices: the liberal young Emperor Kwang Hsu, who had made devoted efforts to liberalize and modernize the ancient empire but had been imprisoned by a coup d'etat in 1-898, or the vicious and bitterly reactionary Empress Dowager Tzu Hsi, who was responsible for some of the worst atrocities committed against foreigners in China during that tragic period...
...When Dr...
...the invading Powers themselves, it proceeded to invite a Chinese authority back to Peking...
...But without such'far-reaching reforms, the Empire was doomed...
...International military and naval policing of the areas of China of greatest interest to foreign powers was used to support and strengthen foreign control over Chinese revenues and Chinese politics, and to set up and maintain wholly foreign administrations upon Chinese soil—such as the International Settlements at Shanghai and Amoy, and the various British, French, Japanese, and other "individual" concessions...
...Additional forces were sent to Peking, and occupied new points in the vicinity of the capital...
...Sun Yat-sen, head of the Chinese government at Canton 20 years ago, tried to assert Chinese authority over the Chinese customs revenues there, international naval forces moved to Canton and "persuaded" him not to...
...First of all, the singling out of this one country for "independence" raises the question that other Asiatic countries are not to be given such independent status: Neither Burma nor Malaya, Java or Sumatra, Indo-China, or even Siam (Thailand...
...It was taken from the Russians—with the benediction and positive encouragement of President Theodore Roosevelt—in 1904...
...A subservient Chinese militarist, Yuan Shih-kai, was supported, protected, patronized, and built up by the powers jointly...
...The keynote was given in a paragraph, "The Golden Age...
...the third principal member, Japan, was not present at Cairo...
...The action of the International Police force at Canton 20 years ago has already been referred to...
...Booby Traps Along The Road To Peace By HARRY PAXTON HOWARD THE MEETING at Cairo between President Roosevelt, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, and Prime Minister Churchill — to use the striking order of names given in the "joint communique" released by official Washington on Dec...
...To say nothing of India...
...Or is it to be an unholy alliance between the absolute dictators of such countries as Russia and China and powerful politicians of the Roosevelt and Churchill type, pledged to support one another against any threat to the kind of "peace and security" that exists in Russia, in India, in China, in Africa...
...Sun—or any other republican elements in China...
...The revolutionary upheaval came 10 years later—in 1911—when even the British (the leading power in China) acknowledged that the moribund Empire could no longer be maintained against the Chinese people...
...he was murdered by the Japanese as he entered the city...
...Foreigners holding control of the customs and salt revenues controlled the main purse-strings of the Chinese government, and made and unmade governments at will...
...There is, for instance, this striking paragraph: "Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed...
...Chinese parliamentary forces succeeded in establishing themselves in South China, under Dr...
...The Powers—led by the United States—promptly recognized the Chiang Kai-shek government as ruler of China, and the proper recipient of customs surpluses...
...so, too, could the northern Kuriles, thus giving Russia some outlet to the Pacific...
...This was made wholly clear by an admirably frank article in Time magazine for June 7, entitled "Background for Peace," enunciating the war aims of American big business and the meaning of "collective military security" and the "international police...
...In practice, how did the international police force "function" in China...
...It was thus that Chiang Kai-shek "secured" his ascendancy in the Shanghai area in March and April 1927...
...Japan is actively promoting this "racial revolution" in Asia...
...The Japanese had the cooperation of other powers in the International Police Force...
...The dominant imperialist force has been "international" for the reason that China was too vast to conquer outright...
...If Japan dominates this area, it will continue to dominate Manchuria—just as it did under the purely nominal "rendition of Manchuria to China" in 1905...
...It is the purpose of "the great Allies . . . that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China...
...George Catroux, who accepted Japanese demands giving them a firm foothold in Indo-China in September, 1940...
...It turned over any surplus funds (over foreign requirements) to what ever Chinese regime it favored...
...This writer is emphatically not opposed to international organization to keep the peace...
...This, it is plain, leaves an indefinite field for discussion and secret agreement...
...It has direct relation to the question of collective "security" and an "international police force" to carry on at the close of the present war...
...To whom did the Powers give "authority"—under their supreme command...
...For the foreign-controlled customs administration turned over funds only to such governments as it approved...
...This is similarly true of Austria, which is incapable even economically of independence, despite its high capacity for civilized and democratic self-government...
...China is not the only country which has had an "international police force" dominating its political life and maintaining foreign control of revenues and extra territorial privileges...
...In general, it repeated previous statements calling for the "unconditional surrender" of Japan...
...In fact, to quote once more the objective Mr...
...The idea of an "international police" is not a new one—propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding...
...The Cairo statement leaves only one group of matters in dispute among the three participating governments and Tokyo—territory...
...The Navy, through its support of constituted authority and lawful procedure, was usually successful in preventing the seizure or destruction of property by rioters, revolutionaries, or plain bandits and pirates...
...What is the nature of the international authority of which the police force is to be the instrument...
...And it never approved any government that was in any way liberal, democratic, or representative...
...Those halcyon days are past...
...1—was a notable one...
...In western Asia, Britain's desire to please the Moslem world has resulted in its striking attitude in regard to Lebanon and Syria—an attitude followed by Washington...
...And if it could, it would be a terrible disaster...
...For half a century we participated in an "international police force" in China...
...This would appear to be definite enough, so far as general statements are concerned, but if it is compared with our demands on Japan as of Nov...
...Support Of Dictatorship The International Police Force did not abdicate...
...For all three of the governments represented were directly associated with the "international police force" which dominated China for half a century...
...It did not favor Dr...
...Is it to be a democratic authority, carrying out the will of peoples through their chosen representatives...
...The southern half of Sakhalien—now Japanese—might well go to Russia if Russia enters the Pacific war...
...Marshal Chang Tso-lin was still ruler at the old Chinese capital of Peking, but he was showing less and less servility to the foreign powers...
...There is no reason whatever to believe that the British government (whatever may be said of the American government) will fight to restore Indo-China to the French Empire, or would dispute mightily with Japan over such a matter...
...Baldwin: "Korea, as 'a free and independent State,' is a compromise, and one that cannot be made to stick unless an international guarantee and international force back up Korea's independence...
...This powerful position was not "stolen from the Chinese" by Japan...
...A Democratic Gesture Why Korea...
...But it is one of the clearest and most open examples...
...Not even "in due course...
...Purely as* a "democratic" gesture, since Korea is under Japanese and not Western domination...
...Neither, it must be noted, are such places as the Liaotung "Leased Territory" in South Manchuria, containing the powerful center Port Arthur, dominating the Gulf of Chihli and the entrance to Peking...
...It never did...
...Is that why so many Tory imperialists want a new international police force—to guard that Empire...
...When it was first established at Peking, by the Allied military expedition against the Chinese capital in 1900 (at the time of the "Boxerl' rebellion against foreign domination of China), and got over some of the disputes and rivalries amon...
...What they did, in substance, was to replace the joint domination of the Powers (including themselves) by their own domination over coastal and river areas of China, with all the great ports and important riverine territories and their hinterland...
...Territorial Questions The manner in which these territorial matters are dealt with is striking and significant...
...In the Summer of 1928, therefore, the Japanese ordered him to return to Manchuria...
...the British Navy kept war lords within* bounds, gold taught finance ministers discretion...
...He returned to his old capital at Mukden...
...It was from the security of the International Settlement and French Concession at Shanghai that armed Chinese gangsters emerged (by previous understanding) to invade the Chinese-administered areas outside the foreign settlements and attack labor union headquarters—the main base of the provisional government in the "Chinese" areas, a "Left Kuomintang" regime with Communist support...
...Western Powers are faced with the growth of Asiatic hostility to Western—particularly British—Empire in Asia...
...Their "security" for the enormous subsidies to Yuan Shih-kai were control of the great salt revenues of China—plus their already established control of the customs revenues, which they gained a fuller strangle-hold over by an "agreement" extracted from the Manchus before they were told they had to abdicate...
...The Manchus abdicated...
...26, 1941 —-the ultimatum which brought the attack upon Pearl Harbor—there are some remarkable gaps...
...Sun Yat-sen's leadership...
...For this vicious old woman, now humbled, was a more subservient puppet than Kwang Hsu would ever have been...
...London will risk nothing for the moribund French Empire—either in eastern or in western Asia...
...The "Cairo declaration" was a significant one, both for what it said and what it left unsaid...
...Finally, there is the significant statement about Korea, which "in due course" is to "become free and independent...
...It would confirm imperial and dictatorial rule forever, give unprecedented stcength to all the forces of reaction and imperialism, and open the way to the end of freedom throughout the world...
...It was not Vichy-appointed officials, but Gen...
...But there were other forces gathering in China— forces of Chinese revolution...
...The powers, of course, required "security"— a word which is also much in vogue today...
...He had no choice but to comply...
...The British and American governments were leading members of this force...
...Chinese ports, harbors, and navigable rivers were policed by British, American, French, Japanese, and other foreign warships, supporting the "peace and security" of whatever Chinese militarist they were patronizing at the moment...
...There is no reason why it should...
...And however much wishful thinking there may be among the uninformed, the British Foreign Office is well aware and deeply conscious of the fact that the revolt of Asia can never be crushed by Western Powers alone...
Vol. 7 • December 1943 • No. 50
