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14 The Navy and “China United”
- University Press of Florida
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14 The Navy and “China United” The fall of North China to the Nationalists and their allies, the establishment of the Nationalist capital at Nanking, the entombment of the remains of Sun Yat-sen on Purple Mountain behind Nanking—all this and more seemed to attest to the emergence of a new “China United.” In celebration of this supposed achievement, on Bubbling Well Road in the Shanghai International Settlement overlooking the racetrack, the Chinese erected a tall, elegant apartment building which they named “China United.” Their spokesman called for recognition of full equality of China with the nations of the West and Japan through the abolition of special foreign rights in China, especially extraterritoriality . Ultimately, winning this equality would have ended the role of the U.S. Navy in China as a peacekeeper and protector of American lives and property. Unfortunately, “China United” of 1929 was in many respects more symbol than fact. The brilliant young Harvard-educated finance minister, T. V. Soong, confessed that the Nanking government actually collected taxes in only four provinces of the lower Yangtze Valley, and in just two of these, Kiangsu and Chekiang, did the taxes collected exceed strictly provincial needs. In June 1929 the American military attaché estimated the swollen Chinese armies at 1,852,100 men, but only 560,000 were under General Chiang Kai-shek’s command and presumably loyal to Nanking. To exacerbate matters, the Chinese government had neither the funds to maintain nor the means to disband the soldiers, who remained a source of continuing unrest. Beyond the lower Yangtze, warlordism, local autonomy, “Communist banditry,” and disenchanted Kuomintang insurgency were rampant. The rival armies of the “model warlord” of Shansi, Yen Hsi-shan, and the “Christian general,” Feng Yu-hsiang, dominated North China. Beyond the Great Wall in Manchuria, the son of the murdered Marshal Chang Tso-lin, the “Young Marshal” Chang Hsueh-liang, raised the Nationalist flag in token recognition of Nanking. Warlords of the Kwangsi clique of southwestern China aspired to capture Hankow if they were not moving to capture Canton, in a sense the birthplace of the Kuomintang. And through much of middle and South China, bands variously described as Communists or bandits or Communist bandits spread devastation far and wide.1 Notwithstanding Admiral Mark Bristol’s prediction that the Navy would be compelled to withdraw before Chinese Nationalist pressure, China remained very much an American naval problem when Admiral Charles McVay Jr. broke out his flag as Commander in Chief Asiatic Fleet in the flagship Pittsburgh at Shanghai on 9 September 1929. McVay was in a sense an old China hand. In 1925, as Commander Yangtze River Patrol Force, he was senior officer present at Shanghai during the critical initial days of the May 30th Incident. From the Yangtze command he returned to shore duty as budget officer at the Navy Department, from which position he was able to establish important contacts in the Washington establishment. Before returning to China he was careful to confirm 200 / Part II. The U.S. Navy and the Rise of the Nationalists with Stanley K. Hornbeck, the increasingly powerful chief of the State Department’s Far Eastern Affairs Division, that the two were in full agreement on how the Americans should approach the Chinese. Thus, they agreed that while diplomatic and naval officers in the field should understand the broad objectives and principles behind the government’s policies, it would be difficult if not impossible to draw up detailed regulations to deal with diverse situations that would necessarily be confronted by officers “in the firing line” in accordance with their judgment. Hornbeck confirmed McVay’s understanding that, while the government desired the American armed forces in China to protect lives, “within the limits of practicality,” protection of property should be only incidental to protection of life. Hornbeck further noted that although property on land, such as godowns, existed under a variety of circumstances and situations, it was different with ships, which were registered in the United States and flew the American flag. Still, even when protecting ships, the Coolidge administration (and presumably its successor) wanted minimum risk of provoking armed conflict. The administration, said Hornbeck, knew that treaty rights were being violated in China, but, given the conditions in China, it seemed futile to insist on scrupulous observance of every treaty right to the point of using force. Compensation for property damage and violation of other property rights could be secured in later settlements without provoking inflammatory incidents. Finally...