China is a country where public opinion has
great weight, and where the desire to be thought well of may quite
possibly lead a successful militarist into patriotic courses. There are,
at the moment, two Tuchuns who are more important than any of the
others. These are Chang-tso-lin and Wu-Pei-Fu, both of whom have been
already mentioned. Chang-tso-lin is supreme in Manchuria, and strong in
Japanese support; he represents all that is most reactionary in China.
Wu-Pei-Fu, on the other hand, is credited with liberal tendencies. He is
an able general; not long ago, nominally at the bidding of Peking, he
established his authority on the Yangtze and in Hunan, thereby dealing a
blow to the hopes of Canton. It is not easy to see how he could come to
terms with the Canton Government, especially since it has allied itself
with Chang-tso-lin, but in the rest of China he might establish his
authority and seek to make it permanent by being constitutional (see
Appendix). If so, China might have a breathing-space, and a
breathing-space is all that is needed.
The economic life of China, except in the Treaty Ports and in a few
regions where there are mines, is still wholly pre-industrial. Peking
has nearly a million inhabitants, and covers an enormous area, owing to
the fact that all the houses have only a ground floor and are built
round a courtyard. Yet it has no trams or buses or local trains.
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