ht mean only
that a person could read and write some 600 characters, enough to
conduct a business and to read simple stories. Although newspapers today
have a stock of about 6,000 characters, only some 600 characters are
commonly used, and a farmer or worker can manage well with a knowledge
of about 100 characters. Statements to the effect that in 1935 some 70
per cent of all men and 95 per cent of all women were illiterate must
include the last category in these figures. In any case, the literacy
program of the Nationalist government had penetrated the countryside and
had reached even outlying villages before the Pacific War.

The transportation system in China before the war was not highly
developed, but numerous railroads connecting the main industrial centers
did exist, and bus and truck services connected small towns with the
larger centers. What were missing in the pre-war years were laws to
protect the investor, efficient credit facilities, an insurance system
supported by law, and a modern tax structure. In addition, the monetary
system was inflation-prone. Although sufficient capital probably could
have been mobilized within the country, the available resources either
went into foreign banks or were invested in enterprises providing a
quick return.

The failure to capitalize on existing means of development before the
War resulted from the chronic unrest caused by warlordism,
revolutionaries and foreign invaders, which occupied the energies of the
Nationalist government from its establishment to its fall. Once a stable
government free from internal troubles arose, national development,
whether private or socialist, could proceed at a rapid pace.

Thus, the development of Communist China is not a miracle, possible only
because of its form of government. What is unusual about Communist China
is the fact that it is the only nation possessing a highly developed
culture of its own to have jettisoned it in favor of a foreign one. What
missionaries had dreamed of for centuries and knew they would never
accomplish, Mao Tse-tung achieved; he imposed an ideology created by
Europeans and understandable only in the context of Central Europe in
the nineteenth century. How long his success will last is uncertain. One
school of analysts believes that the friction between Soviet Russia and
Communist China indicates that China's communism has become Chinese.
These men point out that Communist Chinese practices are often direc