fallen Anfu Club. He allowed himself
to be deceived into thinking that they were ready to turn against the
Japanese if he would give them his support; and his nationalist
imagination was inflamed by the grandiose schemes of little Hsu for
the Chinese subjugation of Mongolia.

More openly than others, Dr. Sun admits and justifies the new southern
government as representing a division of China. If, he insists, it had
not been for the secession of the south in 1917, Japan would now be in
virtually complete control of all China. A unified China would have
meant a China ready to be swallowed whole by Japan. The secession
localized Japanese aggressions, made it evident that the south would
fight rather than be devoured, and gave a breathing spell in which
public opinion in the north rallied against the Twenty-one Demands and
against the military pact with Japan. Thus it saved the independence
of China. But, while it checked Japan, it did not checkmate her. She
still expects with the assistance of Chang Tso Lin to make northern
China her vassal. The support which foreign governments in general and
the United States in particular are giving Peking is merely playing
into the hands of the Japanese. The independent south affords the only
obstacle which causes Japan to pause in her plan of making northern
China in effect a Japanese province. A more than usually authentic
rumor says that upon the occasion of the visit of the Japanese consul
general to the new president (no other foreign official has made an
official visit), the former offered from his government the official
recognition of Dr. Sun as president of all China, if the latter would
recognize the Twenty-one Demands as an accomplished fact. From the
Japanese standpoint the offer was a safe one, as this acceptance of
Japanese claims is the one thing impossible to the new government. But
meantime the offer naturally confirms the nationalists of Dr. Sun's
type in their belief that the southern split is the key to maintaining
the political independence of China; or, as Dr. Sun puts it, that a
divided China is for the time being the only means to an ultimately
independent China.

These views are not given as stating the whole truth of the situation.
They are ex parte. But they are given as setting forth in good faith
the conceptions of the leaders of the southern movement and as
requiring serious attention if the situation of China, domestic and
international, is to be under