Chinese Checkers

Though a praiseworthy stimulous to morale, the proposed treaty between the United Nations and China which would eliminate all foreign territorial rights in that battle-agonized nation is obviously the substitute which a hard-pressed America and Britain are sending to the East instead of armed strength. For once again, the Allied political command has realized that military aid is impossible, that moral support and promises are the only recourses left to eager allies. China has been promised that she will be free and unified after the war. She has been guaranteed the abandonment of that greedy imperialistic policy by which the nations of the world have denied China control over her own resources, leaving her prone to internal unrest and invasion. By this action, Allied statesmen hope to work miracles in Chungking. They hope to give Chinese morale a tremendous shot in the arm which will stimulate offensive action against the enemy. They feel that China must be convinced that this is a war of a liberation where allies will cooperate to benefit the greatest number, where Empire and imperial wealth will be forgotten, and universal reconstruction emphasized.

Yet Chiang Kai-Shek can hardly be overawed at the all-out generosity of his allies who have thus far aided the Chinese war effort with a total of but twenty fighter planes. The Generalissimo can hardly feel that the sacrifice of ten millions of people and the devastation of millions of square miles of conquered land can be made worth the pain and loss by the mere promise that China will some day be unified and free.

China lacks and has lacked too much to allow the remedy to be as simple as that. For basically China will never be free until confident of economic security. And economic security, in the post war would, will necessitate American and British loans on a scale never contemplated in the past. Further, the Allies must be prepared to promise not only geographical unity and "freedom," but the complete absence of interference, political or military, in China's internal affairs.

Thus, the prospect of economic security and freedom from political interference still stands between the "free" China of the proposed treaty and the independent China that is the dream stimulating her whole war effort. When China is promised that she will be allowed to survive economically, when she is promised that no gunboats will hover outside her ports determining her domestic policy, then she will feel she has won the support of her allies.

But rhetorical promises will not accomplish this feat of winning China by words. Definite guarantees of this selfsame economic security and political independence must be components of any treaty that will invite China's confidence. The road to victory requires more than one step in the right direction.