DAILY NEWS

The very serious events that have just occurred in Shanghai are a revelation of the violently xenophobic sentiments that all explorers and travelers who have visited China in recent years have noticed and noted. Bolshevik propaganda, which is being carried out throughout Asia, and more particularly in the Far East, with ever-increasing activity, has only precipitated the manifestations of a furious hatred that has been simmering for some time already.
A few months ago, an explorer of China, Mr. A. F. Legendre, insistently pointed out the new form currently being taken by the "Yellow Peril" due to Soviet propaganda in Asia, where it is recruiting numerous and fanatical followers. The apostles of Bolshevism do not preach communist dogma there, as they do in Europe; they strive to exacerbate racial antagonism and exalt religious sentiment; They are primarily concerned with fostering hatred of foreigners, portrayed as conquerors and oppressors.

In the conclusion of his book on "Innovative and Warlike China," published in 1906, Captain d'Ollone, now general commanding the Soissons subdivision, emphasized the concern that must have been caused by the sudden awakening of patriotic sentiment among a people whose essential characteristics seemed to be apathy and indifference. And, around the same time, the writer known as Avesnes devoted half of the engaging work he published under the title "Facing the Rising Sun" to analyzing this rapid evolution in China, which he had been able to observe very closely and whose causes he studied and trends denounced. Having carefully read the most widely circulated newspapers during several months of an extended stay in China, he was struck by the fact that they plagiarized and propagated the theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and was even more surprised to note the profound influence that these ideas had immediately exerted, not only on the elite, but also on the popular masses. He noted that "as the Chinese assimilate the knowledge and ideas of the West, they become more hostile to us, and this is due to the argument of our own authors: Every patriot is hard on foreigners, said Jean-Jacques." The hundred pages devoted to the study of new trends in China, in Avesnes's volume, are strangely prophetic and contain in substance the announcement of the formidable movement whose symptoms have just taken such a serious form in Shanghai. If Jean-Jacques's generally utopian ideas have been so widely adopted by Chinese propagandists, how can we not note with concern that our colony of Indochina is increasingly invaded by immigrants from the immense country once called the Celestial Empire? Speaking only of Cochinchina, our colleague François de Tessan states, in his book on "Asia Awakens," published last year, that "every year, 5,000 to 8,000 Chinese come to reinforce the population"; they soon make their fortunes there and gain ever-increasing influence.
Twenty-five years ago, Mr. de Lanessan wrote that, "as true colonists of our Indochina, the Chinese control almost all of the country's trade." And François de Tessan says, for his part, that "the Chinese have always considered Annam and the Annamite countries as branches of the Celestial Empire." Is the time not approaching when, under the influence of Jean-Jacques's nefarious doctrines, China, galvanized by Soviet propaganda, will seek to annex the territories and populations it considers its own?

PAUL MATHIEX.