Chih-k'o on Roller Skates

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Seven hundred howling university students swarmed through Nanking Government offices last week. They wanted the monthly food subsidy for students (now $48,000 CN, or about two black-market U.S. dollars) doubled to meet still-rising inflation. When officials said "No chance," they shouted back coarsely: "Where has the money gone? How much do you spend to eat?" They marched into a Government mess hall, ate the lunches laid out for the Cabinet and staff, called for more.

Other Chinese besides the bureaucrats who missed their lunch were pained by this incident. It violated the cherished Confucian precepts of self-discipline and respect for rulers and elders. Yet this was contemporary China--the China of uncompromising civil war and unlimited inflation (last week the cost of living in Tientsin was 16,790 times as great as before the war). This was the disordered China which made even sympathetic Americans say "To hell with that mess; let's keep out of it."

View Across an Ocean. In the long run, of course, the U.S. could no more ignore China than it could ignore Europe. But while the U.S. view of Europe had cleared rapidly, as winds from Moscow blew away delusions, the average intelligent American's picture of China was still composed of one part truth, one part pro-Communist propaganda and one part inevitable misunderstanding of a very different way of life. Americans thought something like this: "Chinese Communists are extremists, no doubt, but they have had more provocation than Communists in other countries. Chiang Kai-shek may be all right (certainly that good-looking wife of his is) but Chiang is surrounded by reactionary politicians."

If the American reads much about contemporary China, especially in the left press, he would soon come upon the name of Chen Li-fu, head of what was called the "notorious" CC clique. This Chen was presented as the embodiment of what was wrong with China; he was the villain behind the screen, the devil who wrecked all compromise and blocked all progress.

If this picture is correct, then the U.S. and China will be poles apart for many a bitter, crucial year. Perhaps the best way to examine the picture is to examine Chen Li-fu. Perhaps he seems a villain not because he is one, but for two other reasons: 1) he is the Chinese whom Communists (and their U.S. friends) hate most, and 2) he symbolizes that side of China which is hardest for Americans to understand. What he represents has existed in China for 2,000 years, and will exist for many more. If Americans are going to know China, they will have to know the grave, grey man, with the face of an aristocratic saint, who sometimes wears a rumpled Western business suit and sometimes a blue mandarin gown, who sometimes plots little intrigues and sometimes dreams great dreams.

Vision Across the Centuries. Chen Li-fu is not much in the news these days. It is not up to him to win the civil war, block the inflation or get reconstruction going. He has set himself the less immediate but greater task of a chih-k'o, or marriage broker, between two great civilizations--one based on the culture of Confucius, the other on the technology of the West. His activities toward this end take two very different forms: he writes erudite books on social philosophy and he operates a political machine that extends from Chiang Kai-shek's ear down to the wards and villages. If James Aloysius Farley in the New Deal's turbulent heyday had attempted to bring up to date the philosophy of John Locke, the U.S. would have a better precedent for understanding Chen Li-fu. (Chen's best-known book Life--subtitle, Vitaism--has had a sensational sale in China: 250,000 copies.)

Chen is China's leading Confucian-in-politics, and he stresses the excellence of all--or most--things Chinese. Yet Chen is not antiforeign. He deplores the tendency of Westernized Harvardman T. V. Soong to infuse massive doses of Westernization into a country which, so far, has been at least as much hurt as helped by contact with the West. Like any thoughtful Oriental, Chen is aware of the Japanese example of too rapid, superficial absorption of Western ways. Chen says:

"Today the progress of science . . . has torn to pieces our agelong habits. . . .

We are left to wonder . . . We have to reform our social habits, conquer our mental inertia, mercilessly throw away our pet customs and traditions before we can enjoy the fruits of science, before we can prepare against the growing dangers brought about by its constant unfoldings. Our airplanes . . . are supersonic, but our bodies are not yet supersonic. In such a world a dynamic, progressive, evolutionary, yet balanced, view of life is necessary for mankind. . . ."

Chen is not a man with his eyes shut running rapidly backward to 500 B.C. He reads, and admires, philosophers of change, especially Henri Bergson. But Chen insists that since billions of Chinese people have carried on the world's most stable society on Confucian principles, those principles must be reapplied, not abandoned. Confucius said: "A river, like truth, flows forever and will have no end." Chen does not want the continuity of Chinese society submerged under Western ideas of individualism or materialism.

There is nothing hopelessly mysterious about the Confucian principles Chen Li-fu wants to refurbish. Essentially, Confucianism teaches that human nature is good,* that harmony among men is the goal of life, that rulers rule by example and exhortations to virtue. However, the Confucian system assumes that government shall rest in the hands of scholars and of gentle and honorable men--the chiin-tzu. The benevolent paternalism of the chiin-tzu ideal (still reflected in China's 36-year Kuomintang "tutelage" and in much of the new Constitution) is not popular government as the West understands it. To many a Western-trained ear Chen often seems to be asking for an indefinitely continued rule of the Kuomintang party elite.

The Morality of Stomachs. In China's new Government Chen holds no job. He exerts his influence in other ways. From his post as Secretary-General of the Kuomintang's Central Political Council ("the politburo"), Chen runs the local party machinery through control of hsien-township--magistrates. Chen's magistrates collect the taxes, confiscate the grain for the armies, run' conscription.

If party politics is laced with corruption in China, Chen feels no personal shame. He has never used his public position to enrich himself. U.S. Ambassador Leighton Stuart says: "I defy anyone to prove that Chen Li-fu is corrupt." Nobody ever has. Says Chen: "The real problem is not corruption but the economic crisis springing out of our long period of war, just as the American Civil War gave birth to a period of low public morality. Confucius said, 'Without a full stomach one cannot speak of high principles.' . . ." Chen adds: "When man's natural desires are sufficiently satisfied, he can be turned from the temptations of jazz, debauchery, goods and profits."

The Communion of Hsiao. To Chen Li-fu, the way to virtue (and orderly society) is expressed in the word hsiao. To understand the Confucian notion of hsiao is to understand a great deal about Chen Li-fu and his China. Hsiao means, roughly, filial piety. But it stands for more than that. It means that the individual is nothing, the family everything. Hsiao holds Chinese society together; but it is also used as an excuse for graft and nepotism. Hsiao imposes on a man responsibilities the West does not know; but it also tends to modify the sense of personal guilt which is the basis of Western morality. Its companion symbol is cheng--correctness --which emphasizes ceremony and the outward forms of behavior.

Chen's close relation to Chiang Kai-shek--the deep source of Chen's influence --is saturated in hsiao and cheng. With the Generalissimo, Chen is respectful to the point of reverence. He counsels, but only as a good son might make suggestions to his honored father.

On formal occasions, when many guests are invited to Chiang's household, Chen almost never appears. Yet with probably no other person, not excepting Madame Chiang, does the Generalissimo spend more of his waking hours. In Chungking days, the two would cross the Yangtze together to the presidential home high above the south bank. Watchers would see two silent figures in the Gimo's power launch --Chiang in unadorned uniform, Chen in mandarin gown, reading each other's thoughts, rarely uttering a word.

The Techniques of Scranton. Forty-eight-year-old Chen, like 60-year-old Chiang, was born in Chekiang province. Of eight brothers, only he and Chen Kuo-fu (eight years older and now the serene, tuberculous director of the powerful Farmers' Bank of China) are still alive. Chen's childhood was poor and insecure. But among Chen's kin was an uncle, doughty Chen Chi-mei, revolutionary general and patron of young Chiang Kaishek. On his deathbed, Uncle Chen summoned Chiang.

"As I leave the world," he charged, "I have one wish in my heart. I have no sons. But my brother's sons are as my own. Please watch them as they grow up and make full use of their talents."

Thus Chen Li-fu came under Chiang's protection in an all-important hsiao relationship. Chen went to Tientsin's Peiyang University (1919-23), diligently studied physics, mathematics, and the Chinese classics. Like many Chinese undergraduates then, he admired the Russian revolution, read Marx and Lenin.

Yet, as a would-be engineer, Chen was chiefly interested in the U.S. Working his way, he studied for a year at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Mines. After his M.S. thesis, Application of Mechanical and Electrical Devices to Coal Mining in China, Chen took an even more advanced course. He signed up as a coal miner in Pittsburgh and Scranton collieries,* held a card in John L. Lewis' United Mine Workers.

The Technique of Violence. In the preface to his Pitt thesis on coal mining, Chen opened up more like a philosopher than an engineer: "In the development of any industry, the first aim is the benefit of mankind."

Back in China in 1926, Chen had some idea of benefiting mankind by applying Scranton techniques to the coal fields of Shantung. Fate--and hsiao--had more exciting work for him. He again met Chiang Kaishek, now the general of Kuomintang armies driving against the warlords, and Chiang made Chen a political aide.

At this period, Sun Yat-sen had welcomed Russian help for his revolution. Russia sent help--and organizers. One of the Kremlin's Far Eastern experts, with the romantic name of Michael Borodin (he had formerly been a Chicago dentist with the less romantic name of Mike Gruzenberg), brought Moscow organization charts, showed the Chinese Nationalists how to reorganize the Kuomintang on the pattern of the Communist Party in Russia, and even how to set up a party secret police. Sun Yat-sen's Communist helpers were all set to take over from within, while Chiang Kai-shek's forces were occupied with the warlords.

But Chen Li-fu and his brother had been given charge of the Kuomintang secret police. Loyal to Chiang, as hsiao required, they set up a Kuomintang underground, infiltrated Communist groups. Chen Li-fu traveled with speed and silence over south and central China, met with secret party leaders and hsien magistrates, testing the loyal, liquidating the disloyal.

Says Chen with a wry smile: "I had planned to go underground for coal. Instead, I went underground for Communists."

Chen and his brother saved the Kuomintang from Communist control; they got an iron grip on the machinery of the party. Opposition to Chiang Kaishek, or to Chen's CC clique, within Kuomintang China, became a dangerous matter. Chinese quipped: "Chiang chia t'ien hsia; Chen chia tang--The country belongs to the Chiangs; the party belongs to the Chens."

Harmony v. Class Struggle. From the crisis of 1927, when the Chens out-organized the Communists and beat them at their own game, comes the Communists' bitter hatred of Chen Li-fu. Because of him they missed control of the world's most populous country and of East Asia.

Chen for his part learned a good deal (perhaps too much) from the Communists. Last week, bright brown eyes glistening sharply, he told TIME Correspondent Frederick Gruin: "The Communist Party uses every human being as a working tool. It has no standard of humanity. . . . From questioning why people embraced Communism we derived countermeasures. We re-educated some to the truth of Chinese civilization, thus winning back their allegiance to the motherland. We stressed moral education. We tried to re-establish family life more satisfactorily. We gave the poor technical training, to better themselves and thereby lessen their envy of the rich. . . ."

Firm in his Confucian belief in the necessity of social harmony, Chen is convinced that what he most hates in Communism is belief in the necessity of the class struggle: "Communism in China will fail because it creates an atmosphere of suspicion and distrust within the family." Chen says he is not opposed to Socialism. He points to the Three People's Principles of Sun Yat-sen--San Min Chu I--nationalism, democracy and livelihood for the people. To him, the "People's Livelihood'' principle means, one day, social insurance, free health services and schools everywhere; no concentration of capital or land ownership; more cooperatives; key industries owned by the state.

The nearest counterpart in the West of Chen's interpretation of San Min Chu I? He answers: "The evolutionary program, of the British Labor Party." This is only half true. Chen is certainly against capitalist free enterprise, which he would regard as too individualistic, competitive and disorderly. But his Socialism contains little of Herbert Morrison's regard for personal liberty or Morrison's preoccupation with economics.

Perhaps the blackest mark on Chen's blue mandarin gown is that his anti-Communist obsession has, in fact, made Communists. So heavy is Chen's hand on all unorthodoxy that many youths who might have taken a middle course choose Communism's extreme instead of Chen's.

Thought v. Thought Police. During six years of war (1938-44) Chen ruled Chinese schools as Minister of Education. He supervised the big task of moving schools and universities from the coast to the interior, away from the Japanese. But while Chen encouraged practical subjects (a country at war needs engineers), he cut down on history, economics and politics. His advice to students: study-quietly and make no trouble. Extracurricular activities disappeared, except for Chiang's San Min Chu I Youth Group, a movement for training the young in hsiao and cheng, and in such un-Chinese pastimes as swimming. The Education Ministry started a bureau to "guide the thoughts and control the actions" of students, abroad as well as at home. When criticized for using "thought police," Chen made a distinctly totalitarian reply: "Any Chinese who violates the Three People's Principles violates common interests in the war of defense, students being no exception."

Puffing to Teach. For the moment in China, Chen Li-fu's constructive social program is overshadowed by his country's emergency. At a time when much depends on what the West thinks of China's Government, liberal forces have grown stronger in Nanking. Chang Chun, whose own version of the East-West amalgam is between Chen's and T. V. Soong's, is premier with the Gimo's blessing. The interim regime that is to prepare for full-scale constitutional government and free elections, by next Christmas, contains few CC clique men, is strong with representatives of the more liberal "Political Science Group." Chen has an interesting explanation of the difference between his CC clique and the "Political Scientists." The latter, he says, were organized by the Kuomintang to fight the reactionary warlords, and are still concentrating on fighting reaction; his group was formed to fight Communists, still does.

In his homey sitting room, bright with embroidered cushions, painted lacquer ware and bucolic scrolls, Chen seems more like a retired and fastidious professor than the politician he is. At dinner, in accordance with the ceremonial niceties of cheng, he likes to discourse on the threefold appeal of Chinese cuisine--color, for the eye; smell, for the nostrils; taste, for the tongue. He is getting plump, is 20 pounds heavier than when he battled Communists. He is a family man. Recently, while his hospitable, bespectacled wife and four sprouting children looked on, Chen displayed a bit of simple Western technology he had learned. Puffing a bit, he showed them how to roller-skate on shiny contraptions just arrived from the U.S.

Halfway to an Amalgam. He will go farther than roller skating toward Western ways, but he wants the West to try to see China's problems through Chinese eyes. When George Marshall, like many another American, last year suggested coalition with the Communists, men like Chen were shocked (although Chen has been too correct to say so). To Marshall and other Americans Communism still seems a distant threat. Chen and his friends have had the Reds breathing down their necks for 20 years. It has been war, bitter, open, accepted. Nationalist Communications Minister Yu Ta-wei accepts the fact of war so completely that he can say: "I don't like it, but I don't blame the Communists for tearing up the railroads." And Chen Li-fu held the following icy dialogue with Communist Leader Chou Enlai:

Chou: "In those years when you were working against the Communist Party and I was underground, I once escaped only five minutes before your men arrived. Let me compliment you on your skill."

Chen: "Let me compliment you on your skill in escaping."

Men who thus accept the fact that they hunt each other to the death are not to be expected to bury the hatchet except in each other's necks. Americans who talk coalition with the Communists sound to the Chinese a little like the late General Patton's unhappy comparison of the German Nazi v. anti-Nazi struggle with the rivalry between U.S. Democrats and Republicans.

But the gulf of misunderstanding need not always be as wide as it is now. Chen says: "The essence of life is the performance of benevolence." Although Chen, fighting fire with fire, has performed many a non-benevolent act, he means what he says. He is willing to help lead China--slowly--toward something the West might recognize as democratic and Chen would recognize as Confucian.

Americans can understand almost any Chinese leader more readily than they can understand Chen Li-fu. The two cultures come very close together in the persons of two great educators, U.S. Ambassador Leighton Stuart and Hu Shih, former Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. They stand in the middle of the bridge across the gulf. But it is not enough for some Americans to understand some Chinese. The bridge between the U.S. and China must extend all the way from such a thoroughly American mind as George Marshall's to such a completely Chinese mind as Chen's. Admittedly, that is an enormous span; but nothing less will bear the weight of peace and progress for Asia.

2,200 years ago, a Han Dynasty prince and philosopher, Han Fei-tze, became disillusioned with this Confucian assumption. Seeing his kingdom losing power and territory, Han expressed himself in works entitled Solitary Indignation, Five Vermin and 18 others. Said cynical Han: "Force can always secure obedience; an appeal to morality, very seldom." Han, too, has followers in contemporary China.

The concept of the chiin-tzu--the good man ruling by superior talents and morality--is not unknown in other times and places. When the Scranton anthracite fields were locked in the great strike of 1902, a spokesman for the operators wrote: "The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for--not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God has given control of the property rights of the country. . . ." Such remnants of U.S. Confucianism, however, have gone underground.

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