Tuan & Teng

"I, Tuan Chi-jui, although without ability and undeserving, assume office as Chief Executive of the Republic of China. I swear that I will endeavor to consolidate the Republican government . . . and raise the nation's standing abroad. I swear the forgoing reverently."

Thus, little more than eight years ago, swore a persistent little Chinese who failed miserably to consolidate China or to raise her standing, but who popped up again last week, startled the Orient as a man possibly destined to mediate between China & Japan. Despite his own disclaimer, Tuan Chi-jui is not without ability nor undeserving. Convinced that Japan & China must sooner or later become reconciled, Tuan has headed all these years the so-called "Anfu Clique," a group of second-string Chinese statesmen who have kept up cautious contacts with Japan.

One day last week Tuan suddenly set out from North China for the Capital, Nanking. "I am going to visit my daughter," said he at first. Later: "I am going to enter a monastery and study Buddhism, after I confer with the government leaders." Promptly a rash of rumors broke out that Tuan was carrying to Nanking secret proposals from the Japanese Government. In Peiping a spokesman for the Japanese Legation said: "Prospects are bright for direct negotiations." Confirming this, members of the retinue of Peiping's "Young Marshal," Chang Hsueh-Liang (who is supposed to defend North China), said that "since nothing can be expected from the League of Nations, the Manchurian dispute is leading toward direct negotiations with Tokyo."

When Tuan reached Nanking he professed hostility to Japan (a necessary profession with Chinese public opinion at fury heat as it was last week), then went into a huddle with China's Generalissimo. Marshal Chiang Kaishek. A few hours later Peiping's "Young Marshal" flew down in his sumptuous private plane to Nanking, joined the huddle. If Tuan actually carried an offer from Japan-- presumably an offer of peaceful settlement on a basis approximating the status quo--not a whisper of the terms leaked out. Meanwhile, however, the Japanese advance to occupy Jehol Province (TIME, Jan. 16 et seq.) was not pushed last week. Japanese planes reconnoitered and dropped a few bombs but no battle or skirmish of importance took place.

During the week Chinese journalists, knowing that their countrymen thirsted to read of Chinese feats of heroism, produced some exciting stories, mostly at Shanghai. Best was the Shanghai story of how "General Teng Ti-mei and 360 soldiers wearing only summer uniforms of thin cotton had made an heroic last stand in sub-zero weather" on Mount Takushan, 125 mi. southeast of Mukden, since the middle of December.

When Japanese reputedly broke into the last standees' stockade "they found General Teng and all his men frozen solid at their posts, some standing to their guns on the stockade firing steps."

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