Low Have You Sunk

Rich expatriate Chinese have contributed millions of dollars to the cause of President Chiang Kaishek. Astute, he has just built at Nanking a $240,000 ''Guest House" in which visiting Chinese donors and prospective donors will be sumptuously entertained. In style it is an Imperial Palace of Old China. Its spacious gardens spread over nine mow (1 1/2 acres). Pompously the small, shrill-voiced, wasp-waisted President inaugurated this gilded trap for contributions. Then, briskly he set out on his long promised military campaign to crush bandits & rebels (TIME, June 15).

Before marching forth President Chiang issued, through his publicity bureau, a thoroughgoing rebuke to his brainiest rebel foe, Foreign Minister Eugene Chen of the new, revolutionary "Chinese Government" at Canton (TIME, June 8). Suitable for framing, this quaint manifesto read as follows:

"Low have the Canton rebels sunk, having taken you for their Minister of Foreign Affairs! As a Trinidad-born foreigner posing as Chinese, you were only a messenger boy during the late Sun Yatsen's Government at Canton.

"Later, because you understood one word of Chinese yet were utterly incapable of reading the language, you became a convenient trumpet for your Russian master, Borodin, who had you appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs [in 1926]. When Borodin was exiled you followed to Moscow [in 1927].

"Now, because of belief among the ignorant Canton rebels that Chen's voice carried Chen's thoughts, not merely Borodin's echo, as it really was, they take you back although you remain in the pay of the Soviets!

"But, do not think that insolent, bizarre and colorful phraseology which attracted notice in 1926 and 1927 would again serve today. Continue flinging mud, because we also can play the same game, and the charges we have made against you are true, known to every one.

"We advise you to go back forthwith to your native Trinidad; return to the hearts of your wife and children there and think no more of imposing yourself on the people of China and interfering in their domestic politics."

Born in Trinidad, smart Mr. Chen went originally to London where he became a prosperous solicitor. In 1926 Chen and Chiang, who now scorns him, were fellow revolutionaries in Canton. Both took Russian gold then, but Marshal Chiang, having conquered half of China (1927), broke with Moscow whereas Chen did not. During Chiang's war of conquest Chen was his No. 1 Chinese propagandist, won thousands of recruits and many a battle for Chiang with his "insolent, bizarre and colorful phraseology." Today Mr. Chen, who is back in Canton repeating .the revolution of 1926, insolently pictures President Chiang as a would-be Emperor of China on bizarre posters, colorfully calls the ancient walls of President Chiang's capital city "Nanking's Rococo Fac,ade."

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