CHIANG MON-LIN was born on January 20, 1886, in Chekiang Province in East-Central China. He received his traditional classical education in his native province and passed Civil Examinations under the Imperial Government with the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Hsiu-Tsai). He earned his Bachelor of Letters degree from the University of California and, in 1917, his Ph.D. from Columbia University. On returning to China, he was appointed Professor of Education at National Peking University and from 1923 was concurrently Acting Chancellor. In 1928, shortly after he became President of National Chekiang University, he was called to serve as the first Minister of Education in the National Government of China formed in Nanking. During his two years in that post, Dr. CHIANG is credited with laying the foundation of popular education in China.

In 1930, CHIANG MON-LIN was appointed Chancellor of National Peking University. The 15 years until 1945 when he headed this leading Chinese university were turbulent ones. The upheaval and change that were the aftermath of the 1911 revolution were felt acutely by the country's educated elite, and the universities were centers of constant ferment. Pei Ta, as National Peking University is commonly called, had already become a citadel of academic freedom under the leadership of Dr. CHIANG's brilliant predecessor Tsai Yüan-P'ei. Dr. CHIANG, in his turn, fought for and succeeded in maintaining this academic freedom.

In 1937, the Japanese attacked in North China, and, as the resistance gathered momentum, the great universities in Peking, Tientsin, Nanking and Shanghai fled to West China. Dr. CHIANG led those among his faculty and student body who elected to escape Japanese occupation across China to Kunming, in the southwestern province of Yünnan. There, in cooperation with two other refugee institutions, a wartime "united" university was organized.

In Kunming, Dr. CHIANG gained respect, particularly for his insistence on high standards despite the trying circumstances. Living conditions for both faculty and students were difficult. Faculty salaries and allowances of cooking oil, charcoal, rice and cloth provided only for essentials. Classroom facilities were poor, books were lacking. These problems were coupled with bombings and years of bad news from the fighting fronts before the tide of the Japanese advance was turned.

Colleagues have said that it was during these 15 years that CHIANG MON-LIN's talent for maintaining equilibrium and keeping the organization he led moving forward in the main stream was developed.

In 1945, he accepted appointment as Secretary General of the Executive Yüan (one of the five yuan of the Chinese National Government, the others being Legislative, Judicial, Examination and Control). Subsequently, he served as State Counselor of the National Government, as a member of the National Policy Advisory Committee, and as Chairman of the Commission on Rehabilitation Affairs.

Since 1940 he has been Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the China Foundation for Promotion of Education and Culture. Using proceeds from the Boxer Indemnity Fund, this Foundation encourages Chinese scholarship in various fields. Dr. CHIANG also was President of the Chinese Red Cross from 1942-50. He is the author of a number of books on education in China and has written perceptively on the adaptation of science and Western learning to the Chinese scene. He is considered among the most open-minded of the Chinese Nationalist leaders in learning lessons from the defeat on the mainland.

The President of China in 1948 appointed CHIANG MON-LIN to serve as one of the three Chinese members of the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction. At the same time, two American Commissioners were appointed by the President of the United States. The Commission elected Dr. CHIANG as its chairman. This cooperative organization was established by the two governments " . . . to formulate and carry out a program for reconstruction in rural areas of China . . ."

In keeping with a joint approach, the five Commissioners decided on a policy of unanimity among themselves—a policy that has proved to be a strength in the long term but slowed development of the program initially; as the members differed widely in experience and in their views on rural development. Of the group, Dr. CHIANG was the humanitarian and the balance wheel whose broad outlook and diplomacy were major factors in resolving the differences into a creative and effective approach to rural reconstruction.

The objectives the Commission defined were to increase crop and livestock production, improve rural living conditions, develop the rural peoples' potential for improving their communities strengthen governmental agencies in their services to agriculture, and encourage and develop rural leadership.

The Commission agreed it was necessary to attack the problem of rural poverty on a broad front—introduction of improved methods, for example, would be useless without fair distribution of the produce among landowners and tenants, and without organization of farmers to process and market their produce, to maintain their own health clinics, their irrigation canals, etc. The JCRR, therefore, "encourages internal (among the various specialists) and external cooperation in an effort to insure that all available resources may be utilized in a coordinated attack upon a given problem." Also to this end, land reform became a condition of aid.

The program is based on felt needs of the rural people to promote local action. The JCRR works through existing organizations, or, in rare instances, may assist in the creation of local organizations where an urgent need exists, to insure permanence and continuity after aid is terminated. Its own professional staff works with "any or all appropriate members of 'sponsoring,' collateral and related agencies, while maintaining close, direct contact with rural people." But the JCRR itself is not an operating agency. On its staff recently, in addition to the five Commissioners, were 10 American agricultural technicians and some 241 Chinese senior and junior technicians and administrative personnel.

Emphasis is on tangible results "which the people themselves can see and understand to enlist and sustain their active cooperation." The JCRR aims to maintain flexibility "to meet the practical realities of a given situation and permit adjustments necessary by reason of variation in conditions, personal responses and organizational capabilities." It exercises a high degree of selectivity in the acceptance of activities "to insure timeliness, prompt response and tangible contributions to specific objectives." During the past eight years on Taiwan, the 2,258 projects meeting JCRR's strict requirements for support represent less than 20 per cent of total requests submitted for assistance.

The JCRR believes firmly in the sparing use of money and the substitution of technical assistance at every opportunity "to strengthen local initiative and government and contribute to permanence within normal budgetary limitations."

Going back to the origin of the JCRR program, Dr. CHIANG says, "The JCRR began knowing what not to do." They did not start with erecting large, impressive buildings. Nor did they compete with local enterprise by establishing new organizations. Instead, they helped local organizations to thrive and grow and thereby "touched the very heart of Chinese rural life." They learned, he continues, from the farmers and local people what they wanted. Once these "felt" needs were expressed, the difficult job of making the people aware of the long-range "unfelt" needs lay ahead. Sometimes old values were a serious stumbling block. But rather than forcing change, the JCRR helped introduce, step by step, innovations that could be digested and would not wreck the old values, leaving a dangerous vacuum.

"Minds and expert advice are more important than money," Dr. CHIANG asserts. "Money should not be thrown lavishly into rural communities; spend wisely," he cautions, "and start with moderate beginnings." The difficulty, as he sees it, lies in getting enough local talent together to do the job.

"Use aid as yeast" is a JCRR rule. "Let the people or government have a chance of supplying as much flour as possible for the dough. Experts or technicians should act as bakers," Dr. CHIANG adds.

In increasing production, the JCRR has kept constantly in mind the problem of fair distribution "and thus has inculcated the sense of a fair deal in the minds of the unprivileged classes of people."

Production should be increased by applying technical knowledge to agriculture, but not large scale mechanization. "Only for irrigation or reclamation can mechanical power be applied with advantage; at this stage of development," Dr. CHIANG emphasizes, "animal power and improvements in existing agricultural implements are more important." This does not exclude, however, projects to test new and simple mechanical devices that might be introduced as farm income increases enough to make feasible the purchase of such implements.

The frequent field visits paid by JCRR's technical experts he likens to the spirit of the doctor in his visits with his patients, but not to that of the policeman in his raids of nightclubs. "People," he says, "have now come to realize the expert advice and moral encouragement from JCRR are more valuable than grants-in-aid."

For him there is another cardinal principle: "Give due credit to the sponsoring agencies. Do not claim it for the benefactor. This is the way to secure full cooperation and performance."

Dr. CHIANG has summarized the JCRR effort in these terms: "There are two sides to the story of the JCRR program. On one side it is the tangible results that have been achieved by various projects . . . On the other side, it is the intangible spirit which has pushed the program forward.

"The tangible results are but the manifestations of what is intangible . . . behind land reform there is the spirit of social justice put into effect to meet the demands of the times. Behind rural organizations, there is the spirit of cooperation and properly adjusted human relations either prescribed by law or governed by local tradition."

On another occasion he further elaborated: "Believing firmly that the foundation of good democratic government rests with the people, the JCRR in its program of rural reconstruction has stressed the building of a rural society that can intelligently analyze and present their problems to appropriate government agencies, and who are also alert and willing to find ways and means of helping themselves without depending wholly on government to nurture their every need."

Notes on the JCRR Program on Taiwan

Method: In implementation of its principles the JCRR "authorizes all program expenditures on the basis of individual project agreements which are concisely written documents stating a specific problem with a specific objective and action to be taken. Each project must have a definite need, fair and wide distribution of benefits, feasibility, a qualified sponsoring agency and field inspections by JCRR technicians plus periodic audits of the sponsor's project accounts to assure that funds are used as intended."

Some of the Results: In rural Taiwan tangible evidences of JCRR's catalytic "pump-priming" may readily be observed. The land reform, for example, benefited about 75 per cent of Taiwan's farm families through rent reduction and/or by acquiring ownership of land they tilled. These farmers, now retaining more income, are making land improvements, constructing better houses, buying more equipment. Their improved economic and social status encourages them to take greater responsibilities in community activities.

JCRR-assisted irrigation and drainage projects furnish a complete water supply to 56,340 acres of formerly dry land and provide supplemental water or better drainage for 667,800 acres. A newly developed "rotational" system of irrigation "provides irrigation water on a definite schedule to each field in a given area to save water and fertilizer and help prevent water disputes. Rural electrification has been brought to 399 villages with 31,897 families and 208 small power consumers." Another JCRR-initiated dam project under construction will provide irrigation water for 135,850 acres of paddy land, domestic water for 340,000 persons and generate 120,000 kw. of electricity.

For small irrigation projects, technical and financial assistance are given directly to the local hydraulic associations of farmers—with the approval of the Provincial Hydraulic Bureau—on a basis of matching contributions in labor and materials from the farmers to be benefited. The JCRR funds for these projects are in the form of loans and payments are made only after inspection of work progress. Repayments have been notably regular. For larger projects the matching formula and inspection are applied to the Provincial Hydraulic Bureau, as the "sponsoring agency."

Total food production has been increased about five per cent annually. Production of rice, sweet potatoes, peanuts, soybeans and wheat reached new highs in 1957 following more effective use of irrigation water, heavy fertilization, wide use of local and imported pesticides, selection and multiplication of better varieties, and improved cultivation methods.

Livestock production has risen sharply. With control of hog cholera and development of hybrids through Berkshire boar-native sows crosses, the hog population has nearly tripled in 10 years. The poultry industry has expanded to a new level. The number of better quality draft cattle has steadily increased with more attention to selected breeding and eradication of rinderpest in 1950.

Original reforestation goals have been exceeded by approximately one-third in the last five years with the planting of some 350,000 acres on the once denuded slopes of Taiwan's steep north-south mountain ridge that were creating a serious erosion problem. Improved nurseries now produce more than 140 million tree seedlings annually.

Financing: The JCRR's financing has come mainly from the New Taiwan Dollars, or "counterpart" funds, derived from the sale of commodities imported under the U.S. economic aid program. In the Fiscal Year 1957, JCRR's program totaled the equivalent in NT dollars of about US$4.7 million, of which roughly half were in loans, and US$477,998 in direct-appropriated dollars. This constitutes about 40 per cent of total project costs, the remaining 60 per cent being provided by local sponsoring agencies. (Not included in these figures are the equivalent of about US$5.3 million for Chinese government operations, directly related to the Four-Year Plan for economic self-support, and not part of the JCRR program but supervised by the JCRR at the government's request.)

August 1958
Manila

REFERENCES:

Asia Who's Who. Hong Kong, Pan-Asia Newspaper Alliance, 1957.

Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction Annual Reports, 1948-1957, and other publications.