The special area second in importance is the Hopei-Chahar-Shansi Border Region (_Chin-ch'a-chi Pien-ch'ü Lin-shih Hsing-chêng Wei-yüan-hui_). Widely publicized in the Western world as the Hermit Government, this regime functions altogether within the Japanese lines. A number of competent Western observers have visited this area, among them Major Evans Fordyce Carlson, Mr. Haldore Hanson, and Professor George Taylor. All have come away most enthusiastic about the work of the government. The governmental picture which emerges from their and other accounts is one of a highly flexible mechanism, working with great efficacy and superb morale.[16] The driving power behind the regime is social revolution as a means to national resistance, made easy by the flight of many former local bureaucrats, and by the treason of some ultra-conservatives, who affiliated themselves with the Provisional Government established by the Japanese in Peiping. The personnel is as genuinely United Front as may be found anywhere in the world; the position is eased by the circumjacency of the Japanese, and the formal recognition of the area by the Military Affairs Commission and the Executive _Yüan_. [Footnote 16: Professor George Taylor's _The Struggle for North China_ presents a full and clear picture of the Border Region and the Peiping regime in startlingly apposite juxtaposition. He concludes by pointing out the significant paradox that the Japanese established a reactionary regime designed to keep China agrarian, backward, and exploitable, but that they had not managed to extend their affiliate beyond the cities. The country, which they had hoped to capture, escaped them through the political resurgence of the Border Region. P. C. Nyi, article cited above, p. 16, n. 10, presents an outline of the regime which supplements the first-hand materials Professor Taylor appends to his work. Major E. F. Carlson's works, which describe this, are _Twin Stars of China_ and _The Chinese Army_, both cited above; the latter, a valuable contribution to the _Inquiry Series_ of the Institute of Pacific Relations, includes Wang Yu-chuan, "The Organization of a Typical Guerrilla Area in South Shantung" (p. 84-130), a brilliant survey which reveals, sometimes unwittingly, the values and dangers of a Communist-Nationalist-popular union. Mr. Hanson's work is "_Humane Endeavour_," cited above; as a personal account, it is the most engrossing of the group.]