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This volume will try to tell the story of what has happened in China during the last hundred years, from the cession of Hongkong in 1842 [1] to the blitzkrieg of Pearl Harbor in 1941, with emphasis on the latter half of that period. A century is a long time, but of China's more than four thousand years of history it is but a small fraction, less than one fortieth. Yet the change China has gone through in that brief span is unprecedented in her long life. And now more rapid changes on a still larger scale are about to take place.
Since the first exchange of gunfire at Marco Polo Bridge the attention of the world has been drawn to China. The heroic resistance at Shanghai, Taierchuan, and Changsha has evoked sympathy and admiration in the hearts of millions of China's friends throughout the world. The part China is destined to play in the affairs of nations will be of great interest to the world in the period before us. She has been appraised somewhat too high by her well-wishers and somewhat too low by those who do not know her. In either case the interest is there and the fact remains that she has fought almost singlehanded, for eight long, suffering years, a strong enemy sustained by religious-patriotic fanaticism, superior weapons, and efficient organization.
Neither by her friends nor by her own efforts could China be lifted overnight to the level of modern industrialized democracies; nor could she be exterminated by her enemies in a few years or even a few centuries. In the time ahead of us she will become a focus of attention for the world, since future peace—at least one of the major factors of peace—will depend much on a prosperous and strong China.
How is this great country to be made prosperous and strong? The problem must be solved by herself alone. Effective co-operation of friendly Powers will accelerate her success, but she alone must bear the responsibility of making herself worthy to be a leading partner of peace in the world.
China is a nation neither of angels nor of incompetents; she is a nation of common mortals with feelings, ideas, love and hate, hopes and despair, beauty and ugliness, accomplishments and failings, virtues and vices. It is hoped that the world will not expect from her people more than it does from other ordinary human beings. She has no panacea for all her troubles, nor any magic box by aid of which she can transform herself at will into what she desires to be. Whatever success she has achieved has been paid for with sweat in time of peace and with blood in time of war.
To the question "What is the trouble with China?" the author can only answer that there are a number of troubles waiting for solution in that vast country of teeming millions, more than she will be able to solve in any limited span of time. Some were created by enemies who tried to conquer her, others by herself during the time of metamorphosis; still others have been imposed on her by force of circumstance or as legacies of the past. Some of the more difficult problems have been solved or partially solved during recent years before the war; many others remain to be dealt with in due course of time.
Looking back over the last fifty years which he has personally experienced—over the past hundred years with which he is familiar, and even farther, down the long reaches of China's history which he has been taught—the author has traced to the best of his knowledge the threads of a number of problems, some lying deep in her past, others arising from the rapid changes which caught her unprepared. He has tried to tell, within the limits of discretion, what has happened in China, especially during the last fifty years. For those friends who desire to co-operate with her, with a view to solving some of the difficult problems of a more enduring peace, this moderate volume may be helpful in giving an insight into the life and problems of the Chinese people. For co-operation cannot possibly proceed without mutual understanding. To understand what is actually the background—the mental, emotional, and moral constitution—of the country, is essential for a lasting co-operation.
With the above ideas in mind the author has described ordinary happenings in some detail so as to acquaint the reader in some measure of intimacy with the mental, emotional, and moral make-up of the Chinese people as revealed through their life in peace and war. As small things often reflect major developments in a country, it is hoped that some sense of the meaning of greater events may be gathered from these apparent trifles of daily life.
CHIANG MONLIN