At no time in the history of Sinn-American relationships has true and deep understanding of China’s land and people, historical background, and present problems been more imperatively required. The war will come to an end soon, and China’s role in Asia and in world co-operation will be newly determined. China will launch a gigantic program of industrialization and reconstruction, under the same government which had started the work with such good promise before the war broke out in 1937. American co-operation will be needed and intensely desired. Yet the American people as a whole know little about the people with whom they are expected to co-operated and to whom they will quite probably be lending money and material assistance. Unfortunately, too, this mutual understanding has been shadowed in the past year by a cloud of confusing criticism, tending to make the Americans worried about China and unnecessarily alarmed about the government, although deep sympathy and friendliness are always there. At no time has the situation been so tragic as now when we are near the end of the war and Allied victory.
      Having no faith in propaganda, but troubled by reports about the condition of my country, I went back for an extended journey, covering seven provinces. I am now writing this record of my experiences after seven years of war. It is essentially a book about a journey, but it is my hope that such inside pictures, presented fairly, will contribute toward a better insight into the Chinese people and their problems. I believe the knowledge thus gained will be deeper and more intimate than from a volume of economic and political essays. One cannot begin to discuss the problems of a foreign country until one has some pictures of the land and its people. The problems of inflation, of the Army, of social and educational standards, and above all of the much heralded “civil war” will be described as I saw them, as a Chinese who is a member neither of the Kuomintang nor of the Chinese communist party, but who sees them as problems of China’s emerging unity as a nation. 
      This is what I saw and what I felt. Because I could have no illusions about any country after seven years of war and two years of blockade, I was not disillusioned, And because I had observed China’s progress and problems for almost two decades, since the National Revolution of 1926-27, these problems and difficulties, largely social and psychological, were not new to me. The particular effects of the blockade were anticipated in the years when many people were complacent and thought nothing mattered on the China front until the European war was won. Now when the full blast of its effect is felt and the same people, caught by surprise or frightened, have begun to lose hope and turn against Chungking. I have not lost faith in the national leadership. Only a more intimate knowledge of the social and political background is needed. This is what I am trying to supply in this book.
      What China wants is not maudlin sympathy, but faith and understanding from her Allies. I found on this trip that the Chinese do not mind criticism, if criticism is based on intelligent understanding and placed against the background of the larger purposes and greater objectives. Unthinking criticisms, however, based on superficial and extremely limited knowledge, or even directly on hostile partisan propaganda, will do more harm to the outside public by bringing confusion than to the Chinese themselves, since the latter have a lot on their hands and do not spend their time chewing apparently unintelligible gossip from far away. I think foreign prestige suffers when some of these perverse criticisms become known in China. If the East and West must meet, they should meet on some higher level of intelligence than the present. One basic background fact, for instance, is that the China war is now in its eighth year, or what English morale would be at land’s Atlantic sea lanes had been cut off for two or three years. Taking account of this background, one would be able to understand quite a few things, and gain a better sense of balance.
      There is no question that such faith in China will be justified. Soon the war will be ended, and the curtain of the doubt will be lifted. Then we shall see the face of victory and of a China washing her wounds by the future, even as she was building in the years before war. These moments of doubt shall pass away from the man who has faith. “For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but its leaves shall be green.

      At no time in the history of Sinn-American relationships has true and deep understanding of China’s land and people, historical background, and present problems been more imperatively required. The war will come to an end soon, and China’s role in Asia and in world co-operation will be newly determined. China will launch a gigantic program of industrialization and reconstruction, under the same government which had started the work with such good promise before the war broke out in 1937. American co-operation will be needed and intensely desired. Yet the American people as a whole know little about the people with whom they are expected to co-operated and to whom they will quite probably be lending money and material assistance. Unfortunately, too, this mutual understanding has been shadowed in the past year by a cloud of confusing criticism, tending to make the Americans worried about China and unnecessarily alarmed about the government, although deep sympathy and friendliness are always there. At no time has the situation been so tragic as now when we are near the end of the war and Allied victory.
      Having no faith in propaganda, but troubled by reports about the condition of my country, I went back for an extended journey, covering seven provinces. I am now writing this record of my experiences after seven years of war. It is essentially a book about a journey, but it is my hope that such inside pictures, presented fairly, will contribute toward a better insight into the Chinese people and their problems. I believe the knowledge thus gained will be deeper and more intimate than from a volume of economic and political essays. One cannot begin to discuss the problems of a foreign country until one has some pictures of the land and its people. The problems of inflation, of the Army, of social and educational standards, and above all of the much heralded “civil war” will be described as I saw them, as a Chinese who is a member neither of the Kuomintang nor of the Chinese communist party, but who sees them as problems of China’s emerging unity as a nation. 
      This is what I saw and what I felt. Because I could have no illusions about any country after seven years of war and two years of blockade, I was not disillusioned, And because I had observed China’s progress and problems for almost two decades, since the National Revolution of 1926-27, these problems and difficulties, largely social and psychological, were not new to me. The particular effects of the blockade were anticipated in the years when many people were complacent and thought nothing mattered on the China front until the European war was won. Now when the full blast of its effect is felt and the same people, caught by surprise or frightened, have begun to lose hope and turn against Chungking. I have not lost faith in the national leadership. Only a more intimate knowledge of the social and political background is needed. This is what I am trying to supply in this book.
      What China wants is not maudlin sympathy, but faith and understanding from her Allies. I found on this trip that the Chinese do not mind criticism, if criticism is based on intelligent understanding and placed against the background of the larger purposes and greater objectives. Unthinking criticisms, however, based on superficial and extremely limited knowledge, or even directly on hostile partisan propaganda, will do more harm to the outside public by bringing confusion than to the Chinese themselves, since the latter have a lot on their hands and do not spend their time chewing apparently unintelligible gossip from far away. I think foreign prestige suffers when some of these perverse criticisms become known in China. If the East and West must meet, they should meet on some higher level of intelligence than the present. One basic background fact, for instance, is that the China war is now in its eighth year, or what English morale would be at land’s Atlantic sea lanes had been cut off for two or three years. Taking account of this background, one would be able to understand quite a few things, and gain a better sense of balance.
      There is no question that such faith in China will be justified. Soon the war will be ended, and the curtain of the doubt will be lifted. Then we shall see the face of victory and of a China washing her wounds by the future, even as she was building in the years before war. These moments of doubt shall pass away from the man who has faith. “For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but its leaves shall be green.