Nine Tings of Yue

A -well-informed traveler from Chungking brought the following story, suppressed in China, to the U.S. last week.

Chiang Kai-shek sat alone in a room adjoining the Kuomintang auditorium in Chungking. In the hall itself waited 500 Party delegates, government leaders, scholars, celebrities. Before them on the platform stood nine fine bronze tings.* They were inscribed with a classical eulogy, of a type which Chinese tradition reserves for the greatest of men. Copied from ancient models, the vessels carried a symbolic message which was capable of affecting history.

About 2,205 B.C. the great Yu, half-mythical founder of the Hsia dynasty, melted metals from the nine provinces of his empire into nine tings to symbolize unity. To succeeding dynasties, they continued to represent imperial sovereignty.

The presentation ceremonies had been planned with delicate subtlety. When Chiang arrived, the sponsors of the occasion led him into the adjoining room and offered him 25 minutes of solitude 'to contemplate his soul."

At last he came out on the platform. Curtly canceling the program, Chiang snapped the sternest rebuke he has ever given in public:

For six months, he said, he had heard rumors about these vessels, but only that morning (last Nov. 7) did he realize "the full significance and amplitude of what had been prepared." He appreciated the gesture, but "in its total implications it is an insult to me and to the Party. It is a gross contradiction of the spirit of the times and a serious blunder by members of a revolutionary party."

As far as Chiang Kai-shek was concerned--and his alone was the power--the 450 million Chinese would keep on their road toward democracy. They would suffer no Son of Heaven.

*Two-eared, three-legged sacrificial vessels.

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