Patriots' Peace

Two more Chinese names which look almost as interchangeable as rifle parts (see col. 1) and both of which were in the news last week are Wang Ching-wei and Wang Chung-hui. Their owners would make as ill-fitting an interchange as the triggers of a crossbow and a Mauser. Wang Chung-hui is a patriot, Wang Ching-wei a traitor. Patriot Wang is naive, legalistic, bureaucratic, in office (Foreign Minister). Traitor Wang is sophisticated, old-style, political, out of office (onetime Premier, waiting to become Japan's super-puppet).

Both the Chinese and the Japanese last week used the name of Puppet-elect Wang Ching-wei as "reason" for the renewed offensive. Chinese officials warned their own people, and Japanese officials admitted, that the new pressure was intended to intimidate, discourage, force the populace of South China into endorsement of peace under Puppet-elect Wang. But as the Chinese claimed defense of Changsha was stiffening, Japanese admitted that the creation of Wang's Super-Puppetry had been postponed from mid-October to mid-November.

Patriot Wang, though a Cantonese, has a horror of a characteristic Cantonese delicacy, roast snake. Once at an elaborate banquet he complimented his host on a dish he had never tasted before. Told it was "jumping dragon," a deadly Kwangtung snake, he called for water, washed his mouth over a dozen times, left the banquet, went to bed, called Cantonese physicians, was not satisfied until he had gone all the way to Peking and had his stomach examined. The snake Patriot Wang hates most of all is Wang Ching-wei.

If China was ever to accept peace, he said, it must be peace with honor and without Wang Ching-wei. What peace would be honorable? Not a bayonet peace, not a peace of pillage and plunder, not a Japanese peace. The only peace China would accept would be one based on treaties--especially the Nine-Power treaty (signed in 1922 by the U. S., Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Portugal, Japan, China--Wang Chung-hui himself was a negotiator and signer--guaranteeing China's territorial integrity). Japan, said Foreign Minister Wang, is surrounded by jealous nations who frown on her flagrant violation of the treaty; the U. S., having given evidences of displeasure, might mediate a peace restoring the treaty--i.e., throwing Japan out of China.

This hopeful suggestion, unrealistic as a poppy dream and sadly typical of Chinese politics, quickly got two rude wake-up knocks. The U. S. State Department was not disposed "to regard the suggestion seriously." The Japanese Embassy in China was disposed to regard it as ridiculous. "Wang's statement," the Embassy sneered, "reflects his mentality."

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