he CROSS the Pacific the very foundations of imperialism are burstirf® asunder. After years of struggle the armies of the Chinese people are on the march, sweeping out both their corrupt rulers and the foreign governments, our own included, that by arming and supporting the Kuo- mintang regime, are prolonging the war. As Canada’s Pacific ‘province, ‘British Columbia has a direct interest in this great democratic develop- ment, for no country in the world holds greater prom- ise than a peaceful, democratic China as a potential market for British Columbia’s lumber, fish and agri- cultural produce. So long as the fires of war are fed in China by imperialist linterests, peace everywhere is endangered, But the coming to power in China of a S0vernment founded on peaceful reconstruction strength- ens the cause of peace everywhere and nowhere more than for the peoples whose shores are washed by the Pacific. The question is: What is the Canadian government’s policy toward the great struggle now in progress and what relations will Canada have with the new China now struggling into being, this great nation of 450 millions with the longest collective history of any People in the world? The Chinese Liberation armies, in their final sweep to victory, are virtually irresistible, for behind them is the strength of the vast majority of the people. To- day we are witnessing the end of the extermination Which the, Chinese people have suffered in the course of More than a century of imperialist rule. This is a great’ event because of the peace and advance it will bring for one quarter of mankind. It is all the greater because it is taking place in the East, in a continent inhabited by over one Dillion People, where one half of all humanity has long suffer- ed under the imperialist yoke. The turning point in Seeing is a turning point in world history—a turning Point that cannot but decisively affect the future of peace which mankind is desperately clutching for. © N January, 1946, Chiang renewed his civil war against the Chinese people with four million troops, about one million of which were American equipped and trained. By July, 1948, Chiang had lost two and a quarter million men and he cannct now replace them fast enough to support his long lines of defenses. The Liberation armies answer- @d Chiang’s challenge in 1946 with about one million troops. They now have at least three times that number and their morale is rising. Chiang’s morale is sinking fast as tne wholesale desertions and surrenders of en- tire armies bear witness, : For example, at Tsinan, provincial capital of Shan- tung, «General Wu Hua-wen, commander of the 96th Army went over to the Liberation Army with all his troops. At Suchow the entire 59th and 77th Armies and two other divisions went over. At Changchun the 60th Army revolted and the New 7th Army surrendered without even firing a shot. At Tsinan and Chinhsien Chiang lost most of his crack troops and enormous quantities of American sup plies and equipment. His most devastating defeat was in the Mukden area where his 300,000-strong Manchur- ian Army failed to escape. An indication of the amount Of sapplies captured by the Liberation Army was given in a Peiping dispatch to the New York Times on Noy- €niber 3 which stated: “Supplies captured by the Communists in Man- churia far'surpass all the military equipment that the Nationalists are sckeduled to receive under the U.S, $125,000,000 military program.” ‘ Large-scale Kuomintang victories are periodically reported in the «Canadian press, but on November 24 the super-interventionalist Vancouver Sun had to print the headline: j “CHIANG TROOPS GAIN ON PAPER, LOSE ON GROUND”. In the same paper on December 6 appeared the: revealing news, hidden away, of course, ion page 31: “The Nanking Evening News said Sunday the Chinese government \was chartering 25 ships and 50 air transports to move 100 dependents of govern- ‘Ment officials out of Nanking.” | : It said the movements to Chungking, Canton and Hankow and Formosa, would’ begin December 10. Dr. H. H. Kung, wartime Minister of Finance and Chiang _ 4tclaw, has already abandoned China to live luxuriously - in the us, iaA Sy AS No iess untenable than his military position is his &c9nomic position in what's left of Chiang’s China. Kuomintang areas are ravaged by famines and infla tion which are taking hundreds of thousands of lives. Prices during the last six months have risen 2,000 Percent, . : i Recently Chiang introduced what was called “Cur- Teney Reform”, but what is destined to go down in aistory as the most colossal fraud of all time. China’s Big Four Families”, the Chiang-Soong-Kung-Chen fam- _ ‘ly compact, are authoritatively reported to have netted _ ore than 20 billion dollars out of the deal by manipu- lation ana speculation based on a “private” tip-off of Pending government action, Chiang’s economy is close ° complete collapse—his people a seething mass of discontent as a result of corruption and graft, merci- ®S8S repression of criticism and advocates of reform. ae Ps Rew economy is in the making and the people being - ganized to care for their own needs, Here the peas- sharp contrast stands Liberated China, where “massive China is clearly long passed. What we are_ inflation and profiteering are outlawed, where a — her ants are being given land, houses and draft animals; here farm laborers, poor and middle peasants are run- ning the basic rural political structure and the power of feudalism is being smashed. é ‘The source of military manpower in the Liberated areas is limitless, After their emancipation through land reform, the peasants have become politically conscious and understand that it is their duty to fight for the defenses of the nation and home. In China’s richest industrial region, the Liberated Northeast, which abounds in coal, iron and timber, the wheels of in- dustry are whirring day and night. Lite has been transformed in the New China. _. As long ago as last May, the magazine U.S. News & World Report emphasized that aid to Chiang is being wasted. “China is bogging down with graft, profiteer- ing. U.S. dollars can’t win civil war’, said the head- lines to an article which stated: “Since the resumption of the civil war... the Nationalists have not crushed a single Communist force nor won a single victory of real significance, . .. The Kuomintang Party government of Chiang aymost exdlusively of ‘Jandlor§, propertied, war lords and generals of one military clique or an- other, bankers who profit from wartime speculation and professional politicians vieing for power. The government cannot mobilize or obtain the cooper- ation of the people.” This, the government whick can neither mobilize its people nor obtain their cooperation, recently received a telegram from Camn- ada’s Prime Ministér on its notable “democratic achievements.” U.S. News & World Report later concludes: “If the Kuomintang carries out the reforms necessary to de- feat the Communists, it will destroy itself as a party dictatorship. If it doesn’t carry out reforms, it will be destroyed by the Communists or by disentegration.” What an admission! A regime, so rotten that even its friends are forced to admit that it would die of inner disintegration” even if there were no Communists! Last ‘June 26 the ultra-conservative Toronto Globe _ and Mail carried an interview with a veteran Shanghai businessman, Major Barry. He stated the condition of Chiang’s China can be described in one word “corrup tion’—in government, in business, in military circles, in social] life and in character. “Its no use giving fin- ancial aid,’ he said, “the money is just dissipated by the officials.” “Dissipated” is a somewhat vague word indeed, especially when a substantial sum of money re- appears in American bank accounts of those who have left China (like Dr. Kung), or expect to leave shortly when the regime collapses. : : As the late U.S. General Stillwell asked: “What will the American people say when they finally learn the truth?” ; Tera ‘6 ILITARY SdavelGpmerts in China leave ‘no doubt yk about the early and complete defeat of Chiang Kai- shek’s corrupt, neo-fascist regime. Since the opening of the Liberation Army's fall offensive in mid-Septem- ber, Chiang has suffered successive defeats of such China bursts By NIGEL MORGAN- Peiping, the old capital of China and still a great cultural center, is expected to fall to the Liberation armies in their victorious sweep southward. chains magnitude that his Kuomintang distatorship has been Shaken to the roots. Sweeping Liberation victories _ bring close the end of fascism and civil war, and the day when China can begin to reconstruct her economy in the :nterest of all her people. On the other hand it also carries a new challenge because it has already brought added pressure from U.S. reactionaries and their Canadian puppets for more _ open, direct, armed intervention in China by those backing the oppressive Nanking regime. All the new avenues for intervention being utilized and explored, including the shipments of bombers, arms and nitro- pills for explosives from Vancouver, will be both costly — and fruitless. They are not only draining more millions of Canadian taxpayers’ dollars, but they are destroying whatever goodwill and sound trade we still have in Asia, and accelerating inflation and unemployment at home. They can only very briefly delay the establish- ment of peace thoughout China regardless of how greatly they can increase the suffering of her people. Nothing can reverse the course of events determined by the Chinese people themselves. Defeated in battle, collapsing economically, unable to find anyone will- | ing to fill important government and defense posts, _ and with local war lords maneuvering to save their own domains, Chiang is faced with a situation similar — to that faced by Hitler at the beginning of 1945. _ On November 10, Chu Teh, Commander-in-Chief of the Liberation Army, issued an ext order _ of the day, proclaiming that nationwide victory over the Kuomintang regime was approaching. This was followed on November 21 by-a statement of the central ~ committee of the Communist Party of China (grown ’ by almost two million members since Chiang’s offensive in 1946), to the effect that: “The Kuomintang government is even now about _ to fall. No aid to the Kuomintang government by __ any foreign government . . . can either save the _ rule of 'the Kuomintang government. ... The _ Communist Party of China holds that any military . or economic aid to the Kuomintang government. . . constitutes an act of hostility against the Chinese nation . . . and should cease ' immediately.” Wall Street “dollar” imperialists have provided the _ tyrant Chiang with over $6 billion worth of planes, guns _ and shells. What an expose of Marshall Plan fiasco! Canada sent $35 millions worth last year alone, much of it from the Kamloops arsenal which operates today like a rear-guard supply base in B.C. for Chiang, or from Trail’s giant CM&S ‘plant which produced the highly explosive nitro-pills for shipment on the SS. * Isiandside last month. Those deals are smeared with — the blood of China's masses—over 3% million military casualities and over 8% million civilian lives since V-J_ Day. fey . It is high time that the Canadian labor movement and all friends of peace, should speak up loudly and say: Hands off China! Write the Prime Minister, ‘demand your member of parliament—not another piane, : not a gun, not a shell and not another Canadian dollar for ‘Chiang’s corrupt, repressive, collapsing regime! PACIFIC TRIBUNE — DECEMBER 10, 1948 — PAGE 5— :