The Cambridge History of China. Vol. 13: Republican China 1912-1949, Part 2
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ACHIEVEMENTS
OF THE
NATIONALISTS I
5
I
provinces were gradually drawn into the economic and political orbit
of
the Nanking government. Perhaps this scheme
of
creating
a
model area
in
the
Lower Yangtze provinces
-
which
was in
fact envisioned
at the
time
by
Nanking's economic adviser, Arthur
N.
Young
50
-
betrays
the
naivety
of
the intellectual rather than
the
realism
of
the
man of
action.
The history
of
the decade suggests, however, that
it
could
not
have been
less successful than were
the
policies pursued
by
Chiang.
For
Chiang
attempted to control too much, with the result that nothing was controlled
well. Nowhere was this more evident than
in
the economy.
The Chinese economy was overwhelmingly agrarian and traditional.
In
1933,
for
example,
the
modern sector
of
manufacturing, mining,
and
utilities accounted for only about
3 -4
per cent of the net domestic product.
Four
out of
every five Chinese,
on the
other hand, were employed
in
agriculture, and produced about 65 per cent
of
the net domestic product.
The farmers lived in appalling poverty, a year
of
sickness or poor weather
plunging them over
the
edge
of
subsistence. Destitution
is not
easily
measured, but some rough indication
of
the misery
of
the Chinese masses
is
the
fact that
in
1930 China's death rate
was
about
the
highest
in the
world,
two and a
half times higher than that
of the
United States
and
markedly higher even than that
of
India.
51
Many contemporary observers, both Chinese and Westerners, believed
that the basic cause
of
this rural poverty was
the
unequal distribution
of
land. They contended that
a
small number
of
landlords owned
a
disproportionate number
of the
farms,
and
rented these
to
tenants
at
extortionate rates. As the League of Nations' leading agricultural specialist
in China, Ludwig Rajchman, remarked
in
1934,
'Of
the economic
and
social factors [contributing
to the
rural crisis], perhaps
the
system
of
tenancy
is the
most disquieting'.
52
The Legislative Yuan, under
the
leadership
of Hu
Han-min,
had
attacked this problem by drawing up
a
Land Law. This law, promulgated
in 1930, imposed
a
maximum
on
rents (37-5
per
cent
of
the harvest).
It
also held
out the
prospect
of
eliminating landlordism
by
authorizing
tenants
of
an absentee owner
to
purchase their farms
if
they
had
farmed
the land
for
more than
ten
years.
The
1930 Land Law remained nothing
more than an admirable expression of intent, for it was never implemented
by
the
Nanking authorities. Rents, 50-70
per
cent
of the
main crop,
s0
Young, Nation-building, 425.
51
T. C.
Liu and
K. C.
Yeh, The
economy
of tbe
Chinese
mainland: national
income
and
economic
development,
'9))-'9)9,
66 and
89; John Lossing Buck, Land utilisation
in
China,
387.
51
League of
Nations,
Council Committee on Technical Cooperation between the League of Nations
and China, Report of
the
technical
agent
of the Council
on
his
mission
in China from
tbe
date of bis appointment
until April 1st
if)j, 18.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
152 THE NANKING DECADE 1927-I937
continued
to be
exacted, and approximately half the Chinese farmers
continued to rent all or part of their
land.
The Nationalists feared to tamper
with the social-economic relations
in
the villages. They may have had,
as Arthur Young suggests, an empathy for the landlord class, and they
therefore wished
not to
dispossess
or
alienate
the
landlords
by
redistributing the land.
53
Or,
as
has been suggested alternatively, they
feared that an attack on the system
of
tenancy would provoke
a
social
revolution, the outcome of which they could neither control nor predict.
54
Whatever the reasons, tenancy rates remained virtually unchanged during
the Nanking decade.
The system
of
tenancy was, however, only
a
proximate cause
of
the
social and political inequities in China's villages. The fundamental cause
of rural impoverishment was the unfavourable ratio between population
and food production, and this was the problem that the Nationalists
primarily attacked.
Largely through the National Economic Council, which was assisted
by prominent League
of
Nations' specialists such as Rajchman and Sir
Arthur Salter, and
the
agriculture-related bureaus
of
the Ministry
of
Industries, the Nanking government undertook
a
broad programme
to
increase the farmers' productivity.
It
sponsored research
on
new seed
varieties, pesticides
and
fertilizers.
To
prevent floods,
the
Yangtze,
Yellow, and Hwai Rivers were dredged and the dikes were strengthened.
Irrigation systems were constructed, and efforts were made to revitalize
the production
of
silk, cotton
and tea
through
the
introduction
of
disease-resistant plants, and improved marketing techniques.
These reform projects had slight impact on the rural areas. Less than
4 per cent of the government's total expenditures for the years 1934—6,
for example, was devoted to economic development.
55
And much of even
this minuscule amount was dissipated in bureaucratic boondoggling that
resulted in little positive achievement. As a Nationalist partisan wrote in
1937,'
The year before last, the work was to survey such-and-such an area;
last year the work was also to survey such-and-such an area; this year
the work is still simply to survey, gather statistics, draw maps, and hold
conferences. Because the appropriations have been expended, however,
the actual engineering work cannot be carried out.'
56
There
is
some indication that Nanking's agricultural specialists did
53
Young, Nation-building, 589.
54
Eastman, Abortive revolution, 217.
" Computed from figures in Young,
Nation-building,
437 and 439. ('Reconstruction' was the term
used for economic development. See Young, 77.)
56
Kao T'ing-tzu,
Cbung-kuo cbing-cbi cbitn-sbc
(Chinese economic reconstruction),
122-3.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE NATIONALISTS IJ3
achieve some progress in the realm of research, but results of that research
were not brought effectively to the farmers. 'In agricultural extension,'
wrote Franklin Ho, 'nothing went beyond the planning stage at the
national level during the period from 1927 to I937-'
57
The irrigation
projects were also utterly insignificant relative to China's needs, bringing
water to an area that totalled only about 6,000 square
miles.
A government
apologist in 1936 summed up the ineffectuality of the Nationalists' rural
reconstruction policies and the regime's fear of provoking social
revolution, when he admitted that' The direct benefits to the people [from
the government's reconstruction measures] were very small,' because ' the
Government was not seeking to give immediate and direct help to the
people by drastic changes, but preferred to follow a slow and gradual
policy that would avoid too great a disturbance in the country.'
58
The Nationalists thus did little to ameliorate rural impoverishment
during the Nanking decade. The problems were, however, so great, and
the time allotted to the regime so short, that it would be absurd to expect
that prior to 1937 the agricultural sector could have been transformed.
A combination of economic and climatic factors, moreover, plunged
China's farmers into even more straitened circumstances during the years
1932-5.
A major reason for the crisis was a deflationary trend that hit
China in the wake of the world economic depression. Farm prices
consequently fell precipitously, and in 1934 struck a low that was 58 per
cent below the 1931 level. This deflation caused especial hardship for
peasants, who had to pay cash for debts, taxes or rents. During this same
period, also, large parts of the country suffered the worst weather within
memory. Particularly during 1934—5, when the monetary depression was
at its depth, drought, floods, winds and hail wreaked widespread
devastation. According to a highly respected agricultural specialist at the
Academia Sinica, the rice harvest in 1934 was 34 per cent below that of
1931;
soy-beans were down nearly 36 per cent, and wheat was down 7
per cent. Cotton was the only major crop that year to exceed the 1931
level.
59
The value added by agriculture to the gross national product
dropped from ¥24-43 billion in 1931 to ¥13-07 billion (in current prices)
in 1934.
60
Such data are not wholly reliable in detail, but eyewitness
"
Franklin
L. Ho,
'First attempts
to
transform Chinese agriculture, 1927-1957: comments',
in
Paul
Sih,
ed.
The strenuous decade: China's nation-building efforts, 1917-19)7,
235.
58
W.
L.
Holland and Kate
L.
Mitchell, eds. Problems
of
the Pacific,
19)6:
aims and results of social and
economic
policies
in
Pacific countries,
166.
59
Chang P'ei-kang, 'Min-kuo erh-shih-san nien
ti
Chung-kuo nung-yeh ching-chi' (China's
agricultural economy
in
1934), Tung-fang tsa-cbib,
32.13
(1
July 1935):
'34-
60
Liu
Ta-chung,
China's national
income,
i9)i-)6: an exploratory
study,
io,
35-40.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
IJ4 THE NANKING DECADE I927-I937
accounts at the time confirm that the villages suffered severe destitution,
especially during 1934 and 1935.
61
Governmental policies and actions, whether by the central or various
local governments, had not been the cause of
this
agricultural crisis. They
had, however, in many cases exacerbated the peasants' plight by imposing
new burdens. Because the Nationalists endeavoured to extend their
control down to the villages, the size of the bureaucracy at the hsien, or
district, level
grew.
More administrators and tax-collectors were appointed,
and the size of the police and militia expanded. These new local authorities
provided few palpable services that benefited the peasants, but they had
to be paid. The rural tax burden thus increased at the very time that the
countryside was in a depression. Surtaxes were added to the main land
tax. T'an-p'ai, or special assessments, were levied in increasing amounts.
There were also indirect taxes
—
on salt, tobacco, wine and matches; on
sales of pig bristles and animal hides; on slaughtering of pigs and
chickens; on stamps for receipts and legal agreements
—
that assailed the
villagers in bewildering variety. Some of these taxes were not new. And
it is impossible to generalize how much the farmers' tax burden increased
during the 1930s, because the variations between localities were often
great. Chiang Kai-shek's assessment in 1935 did, however, reflect the
general situation:
Government expenditures grow steadily higher. Whenever a programme is
begun, new taxes arise. Surtax charges are often attached to the regular taxes as
needed, and miscellaneous taxes are also created. Occasionally, [the local
authorities] collect unspecified taxes from house to house according to their own
wishes. As a result tax items are numerous. The people have suffered immensely
under this heavy tax burden.
62
Peasants were subjected not only to the increased demands of the tax
collectors; they were also faced with onerous and unpredictable demands
of the government and army for labour, supplies and land. Nanking's
armies, for example, especially while on the march or engaged in a
campaign, frequently suffered from supply shortages, and they therefore
requisitioned food from local sources. These troops were often like a
plague upon the landscape, seizing homes, food, carts and manpower.
Such requisitions, declared one writer (perhaps with forgivable hyperbole),
cost the peasant 'forty times more than the regular taxes'.
63
61
Eastman, Abortive revolution, 190-4.
62
Hung-mao Tien,
168.
'3 Ch'en Chen-han, 'Cheng-fii yin-hang hsueh-shu chi-kuan fu-hsing nung-ts'un' (Government,
banks, academic institutions, and revival
of
the villages), Kuo-wen ebou-pao, 10.46 (20 Nov.
1933)
articles,
4.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE NATIONALISTS IJJ
Any attempt to draw up a balance-sheet of
the
Nationalist record in the
rural sector is fraught with difficulties. The nation was so large, local
conditions so varied, and the available data so skimpy and imprecise that
definitive conclusions are elusive. During 1936 and 1937, moreover, the
agrarian crisis ended. Clement weather in those years resulted in the best
crops (except in Kwangtung and Szechwan) that China had known in
almost twenty years. Farm prices were simultaneously high, largely as a
result of an inflationary trend that began in late 1935. As a result of this
adventitious set of circumstances, China's farmers generally enjoyed a
prosperity they had not known for a decade. The basic character of the
political, economic and social system that ensnared the peasants had not
changed, however, and the relative prosperity of 1936—7 proved,
therefore, to be a transient phenomenon.
Leaders in Nanking were largely uninterested in the problems of the
peasants. To the extent that they concerned themselves with economic
problems, they were oriented primarily to the modern sectors of the
economy. They aspired to create a significant industrial base, and they
produced numerous plans and issued innumerable directives to realize that
aspiration. It is a signal fact that industry grew at an impressive rate during
the Nanking decade. According to one reliable estimate, industry in China
(exclusive of Manchuria) grew at an annual rate of 67 per cent from 1931
to 1936. Other indicators of economic development generally support this
estimate. The output of electric power, for example, doubled during the
decade, increasing at an annual average of
9*4
per cent; cotton cloth, 16*5
per cent; bank deposits (at 1928 prices), 15*9 per cent; and so on. These
indicators compared favourably with those of most other countries in the
world. In Germany, for example, production in 1936 was only 6 per cent
above the 1929 level, while in the United States and France production
in 1936 was still, respectively, 12 per cent, and 21 per cent
below
the 1929
levels.
64
To assess the significance of these figures, however, it is necessary to
note that the base upon which production increases were calculated was
exceedingly small. China's electric-power output in 1928, for instance, was
a mere 0.88 million megawatt-hours - compared to 5 million in Russia
the same year and 88 million in the United States.
65
Relative increases
therefore appeared large, whereas absolute increases remained minuscule
by comparison with the more advanced industrial nations and with
China's real needs. Still, in view of the adversities afflicting the Chinese
64
Young, Nation-building, 310 and 396-9.
65
John
K.
Chang, Industrial development in pre-Communist China:
a
quantitative analysis, 119; Abram
Bergson, The economies of Soviet planning, 84; Statistical abstract
of
the United States, 192Q, 367.
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008
Ij6 THE NANKING DECADE 1927-I937
economy during the 1930s
-
the effects of the world depression, civil war
and Japanese aggression
-
it
is
remarkable that
the
Nanking decade
witnessed any industrial growth
at
all.
The impact
of the
National government upon China's industrial
development during the 1930s has been the topic of intense debate. The
economist John K. Chang has contended, for example, that the increases
were the result
of
the 'growth-inducing measures'
of
the government.
66
Douglas Paauw,
by
contrast, remarked that
the
Chinese economy
remained stagnant during the Nanking decade and that 'the government
had less capacity to promote economic development in 1937 than a decade
earlier'.
67
Paauw's contention that the industrial sector of the economy remained
stagnant is no longer sustainable, but Chang's conclusion that the growth
of industry resulted from government policies
is
also suspect.
The
government,
it is
true, did undertake
a
number
of
reforms that helped
lay
a
groundwork
for a
unified and modern economic system.
In
1929,
for example,
it
threw off the restraints on tariffs that the foreign powers
had imposed under the unequal treaties.
In
1931,
it
abolished the likin
(transit
tax)
that since
the
mid-nineteenth century
had
impeded
the
development
of
inter-regional trade.
It
began
to
impose some order on
the monetary system
-
described by the Kemmerer Commission
in
1928
as 'unquestionably
the
worst currency
to be
found
in
any important
country'
68
—
by banning use
of
the tael and
in
1935 proclaiming fa-pi
to
be
the
sole legal currency.
The
government proscribed taxes
on
inter-port trade and proclaimed a uniform system of weights and measures.
It also markedly improved the nation's communications network, expand-
ing the postal and telegraphic services, instituting regular airline routes,
and constructing some 2,300 miles of railway track
-
an increase of
47
per
cent over the 1927 trackage.
69
Unfortunately, some
of
these reforms were only partially effective,
because
-
as in other areas of Nationalist administration
-
there frequently
existed
a
broad gap between the formulation and the implementation of
policy. The likin, for instance, was abolished, but provincial governments
often replaced
it
with
a
'special consumption
tax' or
some other
euphemistic substitute. Uniform weights and measures were enforced only
in the official bureaus. And the banks
of
the various provinces, such
as
66
John
K.
Chang, 'Industrial development
of
Mainland China, 1912-1949', Journal
of
Economic
History, 27.1 (Mar. 1967)
73-81.
67
Douglas S. Paauw, "The Kuomintangand economic stagnation, \<)1%-\<)^\}AS 16.2 (Feb. 19J7)
220.
68
Young, Nation-building, 163.
69
Ibid.
317.
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ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE NATIONALISTS 157
those
in
Yunnan, Kwangtung
and
Shansi, continued
to
issue their
own
paper notes.
Some measures
of
the
government, moreover, appear
to
have
run
counter
to the
requirements
of
industrial growth. The government
was
heavily dependent upon borrowing,
for
example, and, by providing high
returns
on
bonds
and
loans
to
the
government, fully
70 per
cent
of
the
country's investment capital
was
channelled
to the
government
and,
therefore, away from industrial
and
commercial enterprises.
To
obtain
loans
in
competition with the government, private industries
had to
pay
interest rates
of
18-20
per
cent annually. These were rates, Frank
M.
Tamagna observed, that' most Chinese industries were unable
to
pay;
as
a result, industrial activity was turned into speculative ventures'.
70
Taxation also inflicted hardships upon
the
industries. Because
the
central government
had
surrendered
the
revenues
of
the land
tax to the
provincial governments in
1928,
it
became almost wholly dependent upon
the manufacturing and trade sectors
for
its tax revenues. The full impact
of Nanking's
tax
policies remains
to be
studied,
but
it
is
clear that such
exactions as the consolidated taxes (excise taxes levied
on
rolled tobacco,
cotton yarn, flour, matches, etc.) and the business tax (a levy on the assets
of commercial enterprises, instituted
as a
partial replacement
for
likin)
created grave difficulties
for
entrepreneurs
in
the
Nationalist-controlled
area. Fully two-thirds
of
the 182 Chinese-owned cigarette companies
in
Shanghai
in
1927,
for
example, closed down
by
1930—
and the
owners
generally agreed that
the
chief reason
was
Nanking's taxation. Cotton-
textile manufacturers, too, felt heavily burdened
by the
consolidated
tax
on cotton yarn,
and in
1934 they repeatedly appealed
for
a
reduction
in
the
tax
rate. The
tax
burden
on
these cotton-texile manufacturers
is
not
known, but in 1936 taxes took fully
38*7
per cent of the Nanyang Brothers
Tobacco Company's total income
-
a burden that the family owners could
not sustain. Besides
the
legal exactions, companies were also subject
to
occasional demands
for
payoffs
or
'gifts'
to the
government
or to
individual officials.
71
All these facts raise substantial doubts regarding
the
reputed efficacy
of Nanking's
'
growth-inducing measures'. That Nanking's policies may
not have significantly contributed
to the
growth
of
industry
is
also
suggested
by the
fact that industrial production grew
at a
generally
constant rate throughout
the
period from 1912
to
1936.
72
This demon-
70
Frank
M.
Tamagna, Banking and
finance
in
China, 211-12.
71
Sherman Cochran,
Big
business
in
China: Sino-foreign rivalry
in
the
cigarette industry,
188-190; Bush, 'Industry
and
polities', 250; Coble,
155.
72
John
K.
Chang,
'
Industrial development', 66-7.
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I58 THE NANKING DECADE I927-I937
strates that fundamental social and economic forces were working toward
industrial development regardless of political regimes or governmental
policies.
During the Nanking decade, the Nationalist government assumed an
increasingly direct role in the management of economic enterprises. The
economic consequences of this trend are unclear, but the political
implications are patent. Initially, after 1927, government participation in
economic enterprises had been slight. After the banking coup of 1935,
however, the government quickly became involved in other areas of the
economy, acquiring ownership of at least
12
per cent of the Chinese-owned
industries in the country by the end of 1936. It was even more extensively
involved in commercial enterprises, and its share of the modern sector
of the economy was growing rapidly in the months before the war
with Japan.
A prime instrument of government participation in the industrial
economy was the China Development Finance Corporation. This was a
private-stock corporation, organized in 1933 by T. V. Soong for the
purpose of mobilizing Chinese and foreign investments in support of
economic development in China. The corporation initially floundered,
because it was unable to attract sizeable amounts of capital. After the
banking coup, however,
the
government-controlled banks invested heavily
in the corporation. Its assets leaped from Yi2-6 million in late 1934 to
Y115 million in June 1936, the government-controlled banks providing
nearly Y90 million of the added assets.
73
With this capital, the
corporation extended loans to and undertook joint management of various
electrical, mining, water-control, and other enterprises. Because the bulk
of the corporation's capital was obtained from the government, and
because most of the leading stockholders of the corporation were either
government officials (like H. H. Kung) or officers in government-
controlled banks (like T. V. Soong), the government had thereby become
directly and actively involved in the economy.
Other prominent instruments of government participation in industry
and commerce were the Bank of China and the Ministry of Industries.
The Bank of China was now headed by T. V. Soong, and after the 1935
banking coup was a leading component of the government-controlled
banking group. When the war broke out in 1937, the Bank of China was
operating fifteen spinning mills, which comprised 13 per cent of all the
spindles in Chinese-owned mills. It also held investments in, inter alia,
flour, meat-packing, telephone, paper, and vegetable-oil companies.
" Coble, 220.
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ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE NATIONALISTS I 59
Sun Yat-sen, in his lectures on economic development, had instructed
that only heavy industry, transportation and communications should be
nationalized. But Sun's prescription was honoured more in the breach than
in the practice, for most of this direct and indirect governmental
involvement in the economy was either in light industry or in marketing
and speculation. The China Cotton Company, for example, which was
headed by T. V. Soong and indirectly controlled by the government, was
in 1936 and 1937 one of the largest commodity trading firms in China.
The Ministry of Industries, too, established the Central Fish Market in
Shanghai. This joint government-private undertaking instituted a virtual
monopoly on the fish trade in Central China, reaping big profits for both
the ministry and the selected private individuals who were permitted to
invest in the venture. The ministry also traded in vegetable oils, paper,
tea, and miscellaneous 'national products'.
74
The Nanking government's quest for revenues
—
combined with indi-
vidual officials' efforts to enrich themselves-was clearly the primary
reason for these ventures into the fields of light industry and commerce.
Among the government's many economic undertakings, only Chiang
Kai-shek's National Resources Commission appears both to have accorded
with Sun Yat-sen's economic model in its emphasis on heavy industry,
and to have been motivated strictly by concerns for the nation's economic
development. This commission, created in 1935, was an agency of
Chiang's Military Affairs Commission, and its purpose was to create an
industrial base that would support the nation's armed forces. To ac-
complish this goal, the National Resources Commission in 1936 drafted a
five-year plan of industrialization, with a planned capitalization of Y270
million. Central to the commission's work was the creation of an industrial
zone in the interior, safely removed, supposedly, from the coastal centres
which were vulnerable to enemy attack. During the two years prior to
the war, the National Resources Commission's most ambitious projects
were located in Hunan, where work was begun on factories to produce
steel, heavy machinery, and radio and electrical equipment. Coal, iron,
zinc,
tin and copper mines were also planned in Hunan, Hupei, Kiangsi
and Szechwan.
From the beginning, however, the commission suffered from financial
shortages; it received only Y30 million of the projected Y270 million. As
a result of the paucity of funds, the commission succeeded in completing
only three new factories; fifteen of its projects remained in the planning
stages. Significantly, the commission's most measurable growth was
"
Ibid.
245-6.
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l6o THE NANKING DECADE I927-I937
attributable
to
the several previously existing private enterprises
-
coal
mines,
a
copper mine, an oil field, and an electrical company
-
that had
simply been taken over, in part through confiscation, and then operated
by
the
commission. Otherwise,
the
work
of
the commission was still
largely on paper when the war broke out.
75
Participation by the National government in these economic enterprises
was
by no
means unprecedented
in
Chinese history. Throughout much
of the dynastic period, merchants had been relegated to secondary status,
often subject to the domination and intimidation of
the
emperor's officials.
During the self-strengthening movement
of
the late nineteenth century,
officials
had
become deeply involved
in the
operations
of
the several
Western-inspired economic ventures, even those that were ostensibly pri-
vately owned and managed. In these enterprises, the interests and money
of the government were inextricably mixed up with the private interests
and money of leading officials. During the warlord period, however, this
intimate bond between the government and the economy had loosened;
as
the
governments weakened,
the
private entrepreneurs achieved
an
unaccustomed freedom from official intervention and control. But when
the Nationalists
at
least partially restored the power
of
government, the
government again began participating
in
the economy. Officials such
as
T. V. Soong and H. H. Kung became involved
in
economic ventures,
both officially and privately, much as had
Li
Hung-chang
in
the 1890s.
The growing entrepreneurial role
of the
National government
was
actually, therefore,
a
reassertion
of a
traditional mode
of
political
behaviour.
76
CHINA'S NEW MOOD, 1936-7
Beginning in the autumn
of
1936,
a
new sense of optimism and national
unity suffused the nation. The turning-point was marked
by
Nanking's
suppression of the revolt of Kwangtung and Kwangsi in June-September
of that year. These were the last provinces that had blatantly proclaimed
their opposition to Nanking rule, and with their defeat China for the first
time since 1916 appeared
to be
unified. The suppression
of
the revolt,
moreover,
had
been largely peaceful, convincing many Chinese
—
now
profoundly weary
of
civil strife
—
that the Nanking authorities were not
mere militarists and that Chiang Kai-shek was a wise and able statesman.
75
Ibid.
255—40. On the secret origin
of
the National Resources Commission (under the geologist
Weng Wen-hao) and the Nationalist programme
to
use German military and industrial support,
sec the thorough study by William C. Kirby, Germany and Republican Cbina.
76
Coble,
259-60.
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