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E Pluribus Chinam. Chaos and disorder are "normalcy" to China. There was a trifle less chaos, a mite less disorder last week (although floods & famine continued and bubonic plague broke out in western Honan) as President Chiang Kai-shek succeeded in rallying all Chinese factions (except the Communists in China's central sore spot) to fight and resist the moral wrong of Japanese occupation of Manchuria.*
The President released last week Hon. Hu Han-min, onetime president of Nanking's Legislative Council, imprisoned last March when suspected of disloyalty to the President. In a spasm of patriotism Hon. Mr. Hu embraced President Chiang and set off at once to persuade his friends of the Canton Government to join the Nanking Government. Good news for China was a patriotic communique soon issued by Canton Foreign Minister Eugene Chen, sometimes suspected of Red leanings. Declared Mr. Chen, backing up President Chiang:
"China's anti-Japanese boycott movement can be ended only by Japan, by a policy based on frank and honest recognition of Manchuria as a real and integral part of China, and consequent adjustment of rights and interests claimed by Japan."
Whampoa. With a Japanese war boat still lying in almost every Chinese port last week, numberless Chinese fled inland from their homes. Ten thousand fled from President Chiang's own Nanking. Then in Nanking arrived British Minister Sir Miles Lampson and U. S. Minister Nelson Trusler Johnson with his bride. Chinese who had fled at once came back. The Japanese war boats in the harbor would not fire, figured the Chinese, so long as there was any risk of hitting Sir Miles or the Johnsons, bride & groom.
Popular fears were thus calmed but President Chiang grimly proceeded with steps to move his General Staff (and possibly later his Civil Government) inland. Division after division of Chinese soldiers marched from Nanking northward into eastern Honan and therefore toward Manchuria, toward Japan. Was China going to fight Japan, going to try to Whampoa her?
Famed are the Whampoa Cadets, Chinese West Pointers, special favorites of President Chiang who was once Principal of Whampoa. Whampoan officers are the backbone of the Chinese Army today. President Chiang threatened fortnight ago to declare war on Japan (TIME, Oct. 19). Last week he kept quiet, despatched urgent wires to northern War Lords who might join in a fight with Japan. Two of these, Marshal Feng Yu-hsiang "The Christian General" in Inner Mongolia and Marshal Yen Hsi-shan "The Model Governor" are doughty battlers whose names are Chinese household words. If they joined President Chiang, and they have joined him before (TIME, Dec. 24,1928), China could oppose Japan with perhaps 200,000 trained and equipped soldiers, plus a rag-tag & bobtail of 1,600,000 ineffective Chinese mercenaries.