A History of China (74 page)

Over the next few years, the Guomindang would disappoint them. Naturally, Japanese pressure and the actual occupation of Chinese territories until the 1937 outbreak of war between the two countries impeded efforts to deal with domestic issues. Japanese expansionism elicited criticism from much of the rest of the world but did not result in significant military aid to China. The Guomindang was on its own in coping with its aggressive neighbor. Yet its policies during the late 1920s and early 1930s did not inspire confidence in its desire for reform, its fairness, or its efficiency.

Landlords and often corrupt local officials still dominated in the countryside. They paid little or no attention to peasant distress and, in fact, continued to demand taxes even as farmers reeled from the effects of the Depression in the early 1930s. The foreign demand for tea, silk, cotton, and other Chinese products declined precipitously, driving many peasants to bankruptcy and a few ultimately to bare survival, if not starvation. Most peasants who worked in the large holdings of landowners received a pittance for their efforts and could barely eke out an existence. Those peasants who farmed on their own had small plots, which were, on occasion, scattered over long distances; this precluded mechanization, even in the remote possibility that peasants had funds to buy labor-saving devices. They generally used their own labor rather than machines. Local officials exacerbated the difficulties confronting peasants by not properly maintaining irrigation complexes, canals, dams, and other infrastructure projects. Floods and droughts plagued rural areas, leading to great rural distress and famines in the 1930s and the deaths of millions.

Social conditions in the rural areas were also not altered or reformed. The government scarcely fostered public-health programs, which contributed to significant incidences of infectious and parasitic diseases, especially after floods or other natural disasters. Rates of infant, child, and maternal mortality were similarly high. Countryside children frequently did not go to school, leading to low levels of literacy. From 1928, the time of the Guomindang’s accession to power, until the onset of war with Japan in 1937, there were scant discernible changes in the lives of most peasants, which translated into considerable loss of support for the government.

A few urban residents profited from Guomindang rule, yet even they registered complaints about its policies. The government, lacking regular income taxes until the mid 1930s, imposed heavy financial burdens on industrialists and merchants. Nonetheless, the urban elites benefited from government, ­private, and foreign expenditures. As a result, universities and colleges sprang up, and a few students were granted the opportunity to study abroad. The USA used the Boxer indemnity funds to provide student scholarships. The Chinese government and foreign groups constructed hospitals and established medical schools, including the Rockefeller Foundation-funded Peking Union Medical College, which became a major research center and a transmitter of Western-style medicine. At the same time, Western cultural developments attracted the Chinese elite. Movies, radios, and translated novels and plays gained audiences in the larger cities, especially in Shanghai, the most dramatically Western-influenced urban area. European-style buildings dominated the skyline in the Bund, the Shanghai port area. Jazz bands in the Bund’s Peace Hotel catered to foreigners and Chinese. The city’s so-called foreign concessions reflected French, British, and other foreign styles, which the Chinese elite emulated in their clothing, music, and mannerisms. Shanghai became the most sophisticated of all of China’s urban areas, with the problems (prostitution, gambling, and opium) as well as the advantages of cosmopolitanism. Yet, despite this fad for Western culture, some of the industrial and mercantile elites resented the Guomindang’s punitive taxation, occasionally capricious economic policies, and demands for bribes and gifts. Corruption impinged upon some in the bourgeoisie, who were also disturbed by the Green Gang’s criminal pursuits and the Guomindang’s inability to restrain opium and human trafficking, among other illegal activities.

The professional and intellectual classes became increasingly disenchanted with Chiang and the Guomindang, which limited civil liberties and became repressive. The government censored newspapers, books, and movies, restricted freedom of speech and assembly, and, on occasion, arrested or executed ­dissenters, especially those at universities. Students and faculty, who had expected a new era of freedom after the removal of the warlords from Beijing, were dismayed by Guomindang policies. The Guomindang repeatedly accused dissenting or protesting students and instructors of communism and swept many of them to prison or had them killed. Government repression alienated not only many university students and students but also many professionals.

Advocates of women’s rights were initially elated but were to be somewhat disappointed. The May Fourth movement had emphasized love as opposed to arranged marriages, as well as suffrage and better pay for women. Women in the urban areas, who were not as bound as their sisters in the countryside, were exposed to feminist journals and media and literary works, leading to calls for change. The law codes of the late 1920s and early 1930s abolished arranged marriages, prohibited the sale of women, and allowed widows to remarry. Women obtained the right of divorce in cases of desertion, rampant physical abuse, or attempted sale into prostitution. Men could not, as in traditional times, initiate divorce for barrenness, loquacity, theft, or jealousy. Women gained new legal rights, but implementation of these law codes lagged behind, especially in the countryside. Women in the rural areas confronted even more difficulties. Arranged marriages and domestic abuse were still common, and widows were still vulnerable in their deceased husband’s family. They received low prices for their crops, especially during the Depression of the 1930s, and were subject to substantial taxes and onerous rents.

A few Chinese and Westerners have recently argued that the Guomindang era from around the mid 1920s had some positive features, partly due to a growing link with the global economy. They point out that China borrowed or appropriated numerous institutions, goods, and services from the West and profited as a result. The first modern shops and department stores displayed suits, neckties, cosmetics, perfumes, leather shoes, lamps, clocks and watches, razors, and cameras. New modes of transport, such as bicycles, taxis, and public buses, reached China. Homes were modernized with gas radiators, indoor plumbing, telephones, somewhat reliable electricity, tap water, and carpets. New schools, with adequate supplies of pens, erasers, books, and typewriters, were built. In Shanghai and a few other cities, hospitals and colleges were founded. A wide variety of restaurants and cafes were established. Chinese, especially those living in the urban areas, were exposed to international cuisine and to such foods as pasta, ice cream, and white sugar.

Yet this view that the Republican era witnessed economic progress has to be qualified. These new products and institutions were enjoyed by and catered to a small elite. The vast majority of the population had no access to these Western luxury goods, nor did many attend schools or colleges, have treatment in hospitals, or live in comfortable housing. These technological advances, useful and luxury goods, and modern institutions were available only in Shanghai and a few other cities. Trade with foreigners increased, foreign companies fostered some economic development, a stock exchange developed, and a panoply of foreign goods could be purchased in a few markets, shops, and department stores. Yet again, a small group profited from such changes and accessibility.

To an extent, China showed greater openness to the outside world. More foreigners arrived and provided valuable assistance. Ida Pruitt (1888–1985) was principal of a girls’ school and head of the Department of Social Services at Peking Union Medical College, and subsequently wrote extraordinarily empa­thetic accounts of Chinese women. The art connoisseur John Ferguson (1890–1975) donated a fine collection of Chinese art to Nanjing University. Sidney Gamble (1890–1968) helped to conduct important social surveys of Beijing and north China. John Dewey (1859–1952), an influential American philosopher, lobbied so that the Boxer indemnity funds could be used for scholarships for Chinese to study in the USA. Many other foreigners devoted themselves to the welfare and modernization of China. Foreign advisers and Chinese promoted prison reform, human rights, and development of employment and professional organizations. They encouraged political debates at teahouses and parks, and meetings of chambers of commerce and other private organizations. However, these reforms and changes affected only a small part of the population. Parlous economic and social conditions prevailed for the vast majority of Chinese.

Novelists were among the first to publicize social ills and exploitation and to criticize the government. Li Feigan (1904–2005) showed his anarchist views by adopting the pseudonym Ba Jin, taking the first syllable of the name of Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) and the last syllable of the name of Pyotr Kropotkin (1842–1921), both major anarchists. He wrote a novel describing the horrendous conditions facing coal miners. Having studied in France, he may have been influenced by Emil Zola’s
Germinal
, another searing portrait of the exploitation of miners. His semiautobiographical and most popular novel,
Family
(
Jia
), described the oppressiveness of the traditional patriarchal family structure. Ye Shengtao (1894–1988), an essayist and novelist, wrote about intellectuals who witnessed social evils but found themselves depressed and unable to act. Shen Yanbing (1896–1981), an editor, translator, essayist, and novelist who would eventually become minister of culture in the early communist period, depicted the travails of women both in marriage and as concubines.
Midnight
(
Ziye
), his most renowned novel, shone a light on the bourgeoisie in Shanghai, their manners, their betrayals, and their doom. Believing that his frank and realistic novels and short stories jeopardized him, he adopted the pseudonym Mao Dun to protect himself.

Several of these writers, including Lu Xun, the twentieth century’s most famous Chinese literary figure, joined the League of Left-Wing Writers in 1930 but were concerned about its formulaic communist line on literature. Lu Xun himself never became a Communist Party member. Ba Jin remained an anarchist until the communists took power in 1949. Mao Dun would, on occasion, criticize works produced only for ideological purposes, and Ye Shengtao did not play an active role in politics until the communists emerged victorious.

Such negative reactions to the first years of Chiang’s and the Guomindang’s rule provoked an attempt to offer attractive alternatives to these various constituencies. Because of the links and alliances between the Guomindang and groups who benefited from existing conditions, accommodating those who were discontented proved elusive. The government thus provided scant concessions or support for peasants, as it could not afford to alienate landlords. Links with the Green Gang and some powerful and wealthy entrepreneurs, in part through Chiang’s brothers-in-law T. V. Soong and H. H. Kung, precluded much effort to ameliorate the conditions for workers in their workplaces.

In the mid 1930s, Chiang sought to appeal to intellectuals and students through the announcement of a so-called New Life movement. Harking back to the tenets of Confucianism and blending them with aspects of Western morality as filtered through his recent conversion to Christianity, Chiang emphasized the development of an ethical society as a means of restoring China to its rightful place among the world’s powers. He asserted that proper behavior and adherence to traditional moral principles would strengthen his principal objective of strengthening the state. A puritanical approach to cleanliness, sex, and civic responsibility would create an environment for China’s resurgence. Part of this campaign, including propaganda against spitting in the streets, derived from Sun Yat-sen’s expressed views. Neither intellectuals nor students were impressed by the movement, which they found oppressive for the educated and women and subversive of human rights. They concluded that the movement was a cover for the corruption and continued exploitation of much of China.

One low-key individual and one militant organization arose to support Chiang. Liang Shuming (1893–1988), labeled the “last Confucian,” had been on the Beijing University faculty and later became a school principal. He had been exposed to Westernizers and Marxists early in his career. Arguing that China had a unique culture, he asserted that it could not readily apply Western models. He believed that democracy was ill suited to China and that the Marxist formulas did not apply to Chinese society. Instead, he advocated ­education of the peasants, as well as the literati, to provide competent and moral examples for a revival of the traditional culture and state.

The Blue Shirts, which was composed of military officers from the Whampoa Military Academy, under Chiang’s jurisdiction, had a different vision from Liang’s relatively benign approach. They admired and attempted to model themselves on the European fascist movements. Disdainful of democracy, they sought other means to solve China’s problems. Concerned about instability and lack of order, they supported a powerful executive. A strong leader such as Chiang and a resulting strong state were their aims. They could not tolerate dissenters who, in their view, weakened the state, and they certainly had no patience with free-living and hedonistic students. Echoing Chiang’s views, they reviled the so-called sybaritic lifestyle of their opponents and were dedicated to a militaristic system and to destroying the Communist Party. Their mission was to eradicate what the Guomindang labeled “communist bandits.” Dai Li (1897–1946), who had studied at the Whampoa Military Academy, was one of their leaders and was the head of Chiang’s secret service. Reviled as the “Himmler of China,” he employed secret agents to spy on ­leftist and communist groups and employed brutal means against alleged enemies.