Birthday Present

Gas lanterns hissed faintly as Premier Sun Fo last week rose to speak before China's Legislative Yuan in Nanking. There was only scattered applause. When Sun announced he would resign the applause was much louder. Most of the lawmakers had already decided that Sun Fo and his cabinet, who had split Acting President Li Tsung-jen's government by setting up shop in Canton, were delaying peace with the Communists.

After the meeting, in the privacy of his own home, Sun wearily spoke his mind: "The new government, no matter who heads it, will face even worse difficulties than mine." China had little hope, he added, of negotiating a satisfactory peace with the Communists or of holding off the Reds if fighting was resumed.

President Li had already picked his new Premier; precise, poker-faced General Ho Ying-chin, formerly Minister of National Defense and chief delegate to the U.N. Military Committee. In Hangchow to pass his 60th birthday, Ho first demurred that he was unworthy of the job, then wired Li his acceptance.

Ferociously anti-Communist during his long years of loyalty to the Gimo, Ho attended Buchmanite moral rearmament meetings while in the U.S., decided he must "fight idea with idea" rather than "force with force." After the Japanese surrender, Ho opposed Chiang's policy of attempting to hold Manchuria against the Communists. In 1948 he spurned Chiang's offer of the premiership.

While Li Tsung-jen consolidated his political camp, there came menacing news from across the Yangtze. The Reds were shifting armies closer to Nanking; along roads north of the river a steady stream of rice-laden wheelbarrows and donkey carts were building up Communist food reserves. Engines were being dismounted from trucks for installation in river craft. To aid their battle of ideas, the Reds were cocking a gun.

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