Chiang is China

Last October Montana's spare, slow-spoken Representative Michael J. Mansfield received a surprise summons to the White House. Said Franklin Roosevelt: "Mike, I want you to go to China for me."

As a U.S. marine, Mike Mansfield had done a two-year tour in Peking and Tientsin 23 years ago. He had not been back, but as professor of Far Eastern history in Montana State University, and as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he had remained a staunch friend of China. Armed with a long, officially prepared list of pertinent questions, Mansfield set out on the Presidential mission.

This week, back in Washington, Mike Mansfield laid his findings before Congress in a 7,000-word report. Said he: "Conditions in China are really bad. . . . [Chinese] soldiers die of malnutrition. . . . China's house has a leaky roof and a shaky foundation. Whether it can be put in order is a question mark."

China's Biggest. When Mike Mansfield left the U.S., he felt sure that China's biggest problem was supply. He stayed long enough to change his mind. He rode the unfinished Ledo-Burma road, learned that supplies were being flown over the Hump at the monthly rate (for November) of 34,929 tons, and was told that trickle would be upped sharply with the road's completion, expected soon. In Chungking and elsewhere he talked with U.S. generals, Chinese leaders. The more he saw and heard, the more Mike Mansfield was convinced that China's gravest problem was the rift between the Kuomintang and China's Communists, who govern 90,000,000 Chinese.* Said he:

"The biggest single problem today is the disunity within China itself; The Kuomintang is disliked more every day, due to fear of the Army and the attitude of tax collectors; this is proved by the revolts of the peasantry, criticism by provincial leaders, student revolts against conscription. . . . The Generalissimo looks askance at the Communists because he feels they are too strong and, if unchecked, might supersede the Kuomintang. . . .

"The Communists make their own laws, collect their own taxes, issue their own paper money. They are more agrarian reformers than revolutionaries but they are well disciplined. They have developed small cannons out of bored elms. For armament they use captured Japanese guns and when they haven't guns they use spears and clubs. The Soviets send in no aid to them."

On the Other Hand. "Among their weak points is their spirit of sanctimoniousness (they look on themselves as pious crusaders and do-gooders); their knowledge of the outside world is primitive; there are social distinctions among them and they are totalitarian in their own way. Their points of strength are that they have a good military force, estimated at around 600,000,* and there is more democracy in their territory than in the rest of China. . . .

"Communist and Central Government troops that could be used to fight the Japanese are being used to blockade one another. It appears to me that both the Communists and the Kuomintang are more interested in preserving their respective parties at the present time, and have been for the past two years, than they are in carrying on the war against Japan. Each party is more interested in its own status because both feel that America will guarantee victory."

"Is There Still Time?" Investigator Mansfield thought that Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's newly reorganized Government showed promise of accomplishing sorely needed reforms. War Minister Chen Cheng seemed determined to improve China's poorly fed, poorly trained, poorly led army. Foreign Minister and acting head of the Executive Yuan, T. V. Soong appeared a good choice to stop China's spiraling inflation, civilian profiteering. But, asked Mansfield, "has Chiang gone far enough, or does he intend to, and is there still time? China used to be able to trade space for time but now she has very little space and not much time."

As for the biggest problem, Mansfield conceded that unity was easier to talk about than to achieve. He made known the terms of Chiang's latest offer to the Communists: 1) recognition as a legal party; 2) equipment for the Communist Army on the basis of equality; 3) participation in the Government.

The Communists spurned Chiang's offer. Their reason: fear that they would get only minor Government jobs, and that their Army would be wiped out.

U.S. Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley kept up his efforts to bring about agreement. Meanwhile, reported the President's investigator: "Chiang said that Americans expect his Government to make all the concessions. Why don't we [the U.S.] try to get the Yenan group to make some?"

To Mansfield, Chiang's suggestion for U.S. pressure on Yenan's Communists made sound sense. But he regarded continued U.S. support of Chiang as making even sounder sense. Said he:

"Chiang is the one man who can make Chinese unity and independence a reality. His faults can be understood when the complexities of the Chinese puzzle are studied . . . and they are no more uncommon than the faults of other leaders of the United Nations. We are committed to Chiang and we will help him to the best of our ability. He, and he alone, can untangle the present situation because, in spite of some of the things he has done, he is China."

* The figure, highest ever put by any China reporter, is Mike Mansfield's. Earlier estimates: 30,000,000 to 86,000,000.

* Another Mansfield high. Previous one: Communist Lin Tso-han's 470,000 (TIME. Sept. 25).

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