Sun for Enlightenment

What China's friends abroad were saying in piecemeal a distinguished Chinese in China said right out loud and comprehensively: the nation of Sun Yat-sen has faltered on its path toward democracy, gone off into some darkly undemocratic byways.

The man who said so was none other than Founder Sun Yat-sen's stocky and genial son, Dr. Sun Fo, liberal president of China's Legislative Yuan. The forum for his denunciation of one-party misrule in China was none other than a meeting of that party--the all-powerful Kuomintang, which regards Dr. Sun Fo as its leading left-winger.

By letting reports of the speech through Chungking's rigid censorship, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Government showed: 1) that it was not insensitive to the opinion of its allies; 2) that, all its faults notwithstanding, it was not nearly so bad as some of the critics seemed to think.

Dr. Sun's speech could be as enlightening to Americans as it was to his official audience. Salient points:

Intolerant Party. Before China can realize Sun Yat-sen's principle of democracy the Kuomintang must be basically reorganized. Twenty years after its reorganization, the party has no "democratic inspiration" for the nation. It suppresses criticism from outside and inside. It regards itself as "the sovereign power in the state, entitled to the enjoyment of a special position," though it directly represents only an "infinitesimal portion" (less than 1%) of China's 450,000,000 people.

"We should . . . correct our . . . attitude of intolerance. . . . Policies must be freely discussed . . . and all views . . . must be allowed to be expressed as fully as possible."

Unfranchised People. China's long history of governmental tyranny and clannish family life is "a handicap" to democratic practice. Neither "the common people" nor "the middle and upper classes" are familiar with "the habits of holding elections. . . . Not one member of a hsien [county] council . . . has been elected to his office by the people of the hsien."

Planned Democracy. "Some critics may feel that it is inconsistent if we should strive to democratize our politics and at the same time introduce planned economy. Such an argument is not entirely groundless. . . . But our democracy will not be an exact reproduction of Anglo-Saxon types. . . . Similarly ... we may take only what is suitable from the Soviet system. . . .

"In China the state must, in the postwar period, concentrate its total efforts to develop basic industries . . . but must leave light industries in the hands of private citizens."

Uneasy Friends. "British and American public opinion regards a nation where absolute power is vested in one party as a nondemocratic state, and a restriction of freedom of the press, speech and assembly as a denial of political freedom. . . .[It] recently appears as if [it] were less sympathetic to the Kuomintang than to the Chinese Communists, who are in opposition to the Kuomintang. . . . The New York Times, London Times, LIFE, TIME and FORTUNE are all papers that represent capitalist groups. They all sympathize with the Chinese Communists.* Their charge is that the Kuomintang cannot carry out democracy and that it rejects the existence of other parties when it is in power.

"Of course, this is an erroneous view. ... In fact, other parties do exist in China. As soon as we realize the principle of democracy in the postwar world this misunderstanding on the part of British and American public opinion will be automatically removed."

* Dr. Sun Fo mistakes readiness to report the Chinese Communist position-- insofar as Chungking lets that position be known--for "sympathy" with China's Communists.

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