CHINA FIGHTS ON—WAR MESSAGES OF CHIANG KAI-SHEK—Chungking: China Publishing Co. ($3).
Fifteen months after the Japanese invaded China, Chiang Kai-shek told his nation: "Future historians will, I believe, regard our war of resistance as the most significant event in this period of world history, since by our enormous sacrifices we are contributing not only to the good of the Chinese nation but also to the welfare of all mankind. ... If we succeed, we shall not only be able to build a new China but we shall also contribute immeasurably to the peace of the world."
This ambitious remark is from one of Chiang Kai-shek's war messages (October 1938 to January 1940) published by Chungking's China Publishing Co. Though strictly official, this book tells more that needed to be known about China than a thousand travelers' tales. It includes Chiang's letters, broadcasts, telegrams:
>To the Chinese people after the westward retreat: "Our power of resistance grows stronger."
>To the central committee of the Kuomintang: "Japan has failed politically."
> To the Chinese Army and civilians on the second anniversary of the war: "Prepare for victory."
> To the Chinese in the occupied areas: "All occupied areas, large and small, will become so many bombs which will explode inside the enemy's lines."
> To the people of Japan: "Let me now deal with the crimes of your militarists."
> To Britain: "The best course for Britain is to cease negotiating with Japan."
> To a group of Oxford professors in reply to a tribute: "Not only are our energies revitalized by intervals of meditation in the midst of action, but we are thus also safeguarded from the ruinous error of headlong designs based on no sound principle."
> On Japanese Puppet Wang Ching-wei: "In my dealings with people, I have always followed the principle of not resorting to ugly words. . . . Now I cannot but denounce him as a traitor to his country."
There has been plenty to read about China and Chiang Kai-shek in the past. But much of it has come via leftist pipelines. Typical are books like Edgar Snow's Red Star Over China (TIME, Jan. 10, 1938) ; Agnes Smedley's China's Red Army Marches; Andpe Malraux's Man's Fate, in which Chiang's officers are shown parboiling live Communists in a locomotive boiler. Some of these writers have suggested that China's Red Army, by superior organization, popularity, and whirlwind guerrilla tactics, has been the major factor in keeping the Japanese at bay, while other writers have shown Chiang Kai-shek as gradually changing from the dictatorial leader of semi-fascist Blue Shirts to a fatuous boy scout pottering around in Chungking with that New Life Movement which caused W.H.Auden and Christopher Isherwood so many suppressed giggles (Journey to a War: TIME, Aug. 7, 1939).
The picture that emerges from Chiang's book is somewhat different. It is that of a man supremely busy fighting the world's battle, taking time out when necessary to clarify what he is doing in sensible and important words—words to which almost nobody outside China and Japan pays attention.