The cartoons in this folio can provide no more than a glimpse of China and its rulers in the period between the establishment of the National Government in 1928 and the outbreak of full-scale war with Japan in 1937, known as the Nanking Decade. As noted above, the attitude taken to this government by the North-China Daily News was on the whole fairly objective, and indeed at times sympathetic. Once it was understood that Chiang Kaishek and his government intended to safeguard foreign trade and the security of foreign interests in China, there was even a guarded acceptance that the foreigners would and should make some modest adjustments (Figure 28).

While the Northern Expedition and the establishment of the National Government had brought unity of a sort, it was constantly under challenge from within and without, and strive as it may, the National Government was never able to even approach the degree of centralised power that was its ideal. This continuing lack of unity was a theme in many of Sapajou's cartoons throughout this period (for instance, Figures 29 and 30), as was the financial strain imposed by the constant pressure of military expenditure required to deal with these threats (Figure 31).

The essentially conservative readers would have derived a good deal of amusement from the way in which Sapajou and his editors dealt with such revolutionary pretensions as the new regime still maintained, expecting, for instance (and as history has shown, with considerable justification) that it would take more than new regulations to do away with the traditional cycle of the years and the Chinese New Year celebrations (Figure 32). Similar scepticism, mixed with an element of regret where puritanical attacks on female beauty were concerned (Figure 33), was expressed with regard to Chiang's New Life movement, although along with this scepticism went the wish that the movement might actually do something about real abuses (Figures 34 and 35) - together with the realisation (plus ca change!) that what might seem appropriate in the wea1thier urban parts of the country was probably totally irrelevant elsewhere (Figure 36). Lying behind these attitudes was the frustration felt by many observers who have come to know China well, by no means all unsympathetic, over the tendency to regard a problem having been solved once the necessary words have been uttered - or better, written (Figure 37).

Despite such criticism, however, Chiang Kai-shek himself continued to be held in a position of some esteem, notwithstanding his tendency to attempt to take personal charge of an impossibly large number of issues (Figure 38). Foreign Shanghai joined wholeheartedly in the rejoicing following Chiang's release at the conclusion of the Sian (Xi'an Î÷°²) Incident in December 1936 (Figure 39), and looked forward to the possibility of a newer and brighter future for China, if the necessary lessons were learned (Figure 40). Alas, even had the will and ability been there, it is unlikely that the activities of the subjects of the following two portfolios would have permitted the realisation of this benign scenario.