JAPAN AND CHINA BEFORE 1914
Before going into the detail of Japan's policy towards China, it is
necessary to put the reader on his guard against the habit of thinking
of the "Yellow Races," as though China and Japan formed some kind of
unity. There are, of course, reasons which, at first sight, would lead
one to suppose that China and Japan could be taken in one group in
comparison with the races of Europe and of Africa. To begin with, the
Chinese and Japanese are both yellow, which points to ethnic affinities;
but the political and cultural importance of ethnic affinities is very
small. The Japanese assert that the hairy Ainus, who are low in the
scale of barbarians, are a white race akin to ourselves. I never saw a
hairy Ainu, and I suspect the Japanese of malice in urging us to admit
the Ainus as poor relations; but even if they really are of Aryan
descent, that does not prove that they have anything of the slightest
importance in common with us as compared to what the Japanese and
Chinese have in common with us. Similarity of culture is infinitely more
important than a common racial origin.
It is true that Japanese culture, until the Restoration, was derived
from China. To this day, Japanese script is practically the same as
Chinese, and Buddhism, which is still the religion of the people, is of
the sort derived originally from China. Loyalty and filial piety, which
are the foundations of Japanese ethics, are Confucian virtues, imported
along with the rest of ancient Chinese culture. But even before the
irruption of European influences, China and Japan had had such different
histories and national temperaments that doctrines originally similar
had developed in opposite directions. China has been, since the time of
the First Emperor (_c._ 200 B.C.), a vast unified bureaucratic land
empire, having much contact with foreign nations--Annamese, Burmese,
Mongols, Tibetans and even Indians. Japan, on the other hand, was an
island kingdom, having practically no foreign contact except with Korea
and occasionally with China, divided into clans which were constantly at
war with each other, developing the virtues and vices of feudal
chivalry, but totally unconcerned with economic or administrative
problems on a large scale. It was not difficult to adapt the doctrines
of Confucius to such a country, because in the time of Confucius China
was still feudal and still divided into a number of petty kingdoms, in
one of which the sage himself was a courtier, like Goethe at Weimar. But
naturally his doctrines underwent a different development from that
which befel them in their own country.
In old Japan, for instance, loyalty to the clan chieftain is the virtue
one finds most praised; it is this same virtue, with its scope enlarged,
which has now become patriotism. Loyalty is a virtue naturally praised
where conflicts between roughly equal forces are frequent, as they were
in feudal Japan, and are in the modern international world. In China, on
the contrary, power seemed so secure, the Empire was so vast and
immemorial, that the need for loyalty was not felt. Security bred a
different set of virtues, such as courtesy, considerateness, and
compromise. Now that security is gone, and the Chinese find themselves
plunged into a world of warring bandits, they have difficulty in
developing the patriotism, ruthlessness, and unscrupulousness which the
situation demands. The Japanese have no such difficulty, having been
schooled for just such requirements by their centuries of feudal
anarchy. Accordingly we find that Western influence has only accentuated
the previous differences between China and Japan: modern Chinese like
our thought but dislike our mechanism, while modern Japanese like our
mechanism but dislike our thought.
From some points of view, Asia, including Russia, may be regarded as a
unity; but from this unity Japan must be excluded. Russia, China, and
India contain vast plains given over to peasant agriculture; they are
easily swayed by military empires such as that of Jenghis Khan; with
modern railways, they could be dominated from a centre more securely
than in former times. They could be self-subsistent economically, and
invulnerable to outside attack, independent of commerce, and so strong
as to be indifferent to progress. All this may come about some day, if
Russia happens to develop a great conqueror supported by German
organizing ability. But Japan stands outside this order of
possibilities. Japan, like Great Britain, must depend upon commerce for
power and prosperity. As yet, Japan has not developed the Liberal
mentality appropriate to a commercial nation, and is still bent upon
Asiatic conquest and military prowess. This policy brings with it
conflicts with China and Russia, which the present weakness of those
Powers has enabled Japan, hitherto, to conduct successfully. But both
are likely to recover their strength sooner or later, and then the
essential weakness of present Japanese policy will become apparent.
It results naturally from the situation that the Japanese have two
somewhat incompatible ambitions. On the one hand, they wish to pose as
the champions of Asia against the oppression of the white man; on the
other hand, they wish to be admitted to equality by the white Powers,
and to join in the feast obtained by exploiting the nations that are
inefficient in homicide. The former policy should make them friendly to
China and India and hostile to the white races; the latter policy has
inspired the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and its fruits in the annexation of
Korea and the virtual annexation of Manchuria and Inner Mongolia. As a
member of the League of Nations, of the Big Five at Versailles, and of
the Big Three at Washington, Japan appears as one of the ordinary Great
Powers; but at other moments Japan aims at establishing a hegemony in
Asia by standing for the emancipation from white tyranny of those who
happen to be yellow or brown, but not black. Count Okuma, speaking in
the Kobe Chamber of Commerce, said: "There are three hundred million
natives in India looking to us to rescue them from the thraldom of Great
Britain."[56] While in the Far East, I inquired of innumerable
Englishmen what advantage our Government could suppose that we derived
from the Japanese Alliance. The only answer that seemed to me to supply
an intelligible motive was that the Alliance somewhat mitigates the
intensity of Japanese anti-British propaganda in India. However that may
be, there can be no doubt that the Japanese would like to pose before
the Indians as their champions against white tyranny. Mr. Pooley[57]
quotes Dr. Ichimura of the Imperial University of Kyoto as giving the
following list of white men's sins:--
(1) White men consider that they alone are human beings, and that
all coloured races belong to a lower order of civilization.
(2) They are extremely selfish, insisting on their own interests,
but ignoring the interests of all whom they regard as inferiors.
(3) They are full of racial pride and conceit. If any concession
is made to them they demand and take more.
(4) They are extreme in everything, exceeding the coloured races
in greatness and wickedness.
(5) They worship money, and believing that money is the basis of
everything, will adopt any measures to gain it.
This enumeration of our vices appears to me wholly just. One might have
supposed that a nation which saw us in this light would endeavour to be
unlike us. That, however, is not the moral which the Japanese draw. They
argue, on the contrary, that it is necessary to imitate us as closely as
possible. We shall find that, in the long catalogue of crimes committed
by Europeans towards China, there is hardly one which has not been
equalled by the Japanese. It never occurs to a Japanese, even in his
wildest dreams, to think of a Chinaman as an equal. And although he
wants the white man to regard himself as an equal, he himself regards
Japan as immeasurably superior to any white country. His real desire is
to be above the whites, not merely equal with them. Count Okuma put the
matter very simply in an address given in 1913:--
The white races regard the world as their property and all other
races are greatly their inferiors. They presume to think that the
rôle of the whites in the universe is to govern the world as they
please. The Japanese were a people who suffered by this policy,
and wrongfully, for the Japanese were not inferior to the white
races, but fully their equals. The whites were defying destiny,
and woe to them.[58]
It would be easy to quote statements by eminent men to the effect that
Japan is the greatest of all nations. But the same could be said of the
eminent men of all other nations down to Ecuador. It is the acts of the
Japanese rather than their rhetoric that must concern us.
The Sino-Japanese war of 1894-5 concerned Korea, with whose internal
affairs China and Japan had mutually agreed not to interfere without
first consulting each other. The Japanese claimed that China had
infringed this agreement. Neither side was in the right; it was a war
caused by a conflict of rival imperialisms. The Chinese were easily and
decisively defeated, and from that day to this have not ventured to
oppose any foreign Power by force of arms, except unofficially in the
Boxer rebellion. The Japanese were, however, prevented from reaping the
fruits of their victory by the intervention of Russia, Germany and
France, England holding aloof. The Russians coveted Korea for
themselves, the French came in as their allies, and the Germans
presumably joined them because of William II's dread of the Yellow
Peril. However that may be, this intervention made the Russo-Japanese
war inevitable. It would not have mattered much to Japan if the Chinese
had established themselves in Korea, but the Russians would have
constituted a serious menace. The Russians did not befriend China for
nothing; they acquired a lease of Port Arthur and Dalny (now called
Dairen), with railway and mining rights in Manchuria. They built the
Chinese Eastern Railway, running right through Manchuria, connecting
Port Arthur and Peking with the Siberian Railway and Europe. Having
accomplished all this, they set to work to penetrate Korea. The
Russo-Japanese war would presumably not have taken place but for the
Anglo-Japanese Alliance, concluded in 1902. In British policy, this
Alliance has always had a somewhat minor place, while it has been the
corner-stone of Japanese foreign policy, except during the Great War,
when the Japanese thought that Germany would win. The Alliance provided
that, in the event of either Power being attacked by two Powers at once,
the other should come to its assistance. It was, of course, originally
inspired by fear of Russia, and was framed with a view to preventing the
Russian Government, in the event of war with Japan or England, from
calling upon the help of France. In 1902 we were hostile to France and
Russia, and Japan remained hostile to Russia until after the Treaty of
Portsmouth had been supplemented by the Convention of 1907. The Alliance
served its purpose admirably for both parties during the Russo-Japanese
war. It kept France from joining Russia, and thereby enabled Japan to
acquire command of the sea. It enabled Japan to weaken Russia, thus
curbing Russian ambitions, and making it possible for us to conclude an
Entente with Russia in 1907. Without this Entente, the Entente concluded
with France in 1904 would have been useless, and the alliance which
defeated Germany could not have been created.
Without the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Japan could not have fought Russia
alone, but would have had to fight France also. This was beyond her
strength at that time. Thus the decisive step in Japan's rise to
greatness was due to our support.
The war ended with a qualified victory for Japan. Russia renounced all
interference in Korea, surrendered Port Arthur and Dalny (since called
Dairen) to the Japanese, and also the railway as far north as Changchun.
This part of the railway, with a few branch lines, has since then been
called the South Manchurian Railway. From Dairen to Changchun is 437
miles; Changchun is 150 miles south of Harbin. The Japanese use Dairen
as the commercial port for Manchuria, reserving Port Arthur for purely
naval purposes. In regard to Korea, Japan has conformed strictly to
Western models. During the Russo-Japanese war, the Japanese made a
treaty guaranteeing the independence and integrity of Korea; in 1910
they annexed Korea; since then they have suppressed Korean nationalists
with every imaginable severity. All this establishes their claim to be
fully the equals of the white men.
The Japanese not merely hold the South Manchurian Railway, but have a
monopoly of railway construction in South Manchuria. As this was
practically the beginning of Japan's control of large regions in China
by means of railways monopolies, it will be worth while to quote Mr.
Pooley's account of the Fa-ku-Men Railway incident,[59] which shows how
the South Manchurian monopoly was acquired:--
"In November 1907 the Chinese Government signed a contract with Messrs
Pauling and Co. for an extension of the Imperial Chinese railways
northwards from Hsin-min-Tung to Fa-ku-Men, the necessary capital for
the work being found by the British and Chinese Corporation. Japan
protested against the contract, firstly, on an alleged secret protocol
annexed to the treaty of Peking, which was alleged to have said that
'the Chinese Government shall not construct any main line in the
neighbourhood of or parallel to the South Manchurian Railway, nor any
branch line which should be prejudicial to the interests of that
railway'; and, secondly, on the Convention of 1902, between China and
Russia, that no railway should be built from Hsin-min-Tung without
Russian consent. As by the Treaty of Portsmouth, Japan succeeded to the
Russian rights, the projected line could not be built without her
consent. Her diplomatic communications were exceedingly offensive in
tone, and concluded with a notification that, if she was wrong, it was
obviously only Russia who could rightfully take her to task!
"The Chinese Government based its action in granting the contract on the
clause of the 1898 contract for the construction of the Chung-hon-so to
Hsin-min-Tung line, under which China specifically reserved the right to
build the Fa-ku-Men line with the aid of the same contractors. Further,
although by the Russo-British Note of 1898 British subjects were
specificially excluded from participation in railway construction north
of the Great Wall, by the Additional Note attached to the Russo-British
Note the engagements between the Chinese Government and the British and
Chinese Corporation were specifically reserved from the purview of the
agreement.
"Even if Japan, as the heir of Russia's assets and liabilities in
Manchuria, had been justified in her protest by the Convention of 1902
and by the Russo-British Note of 1899, she had not fulfilled her part of
the bargain, namely, the Russian undertaking in the Note to abstain from
seeking concession, rights and privileges in the valley of the Yangtze.
Her reliance on the secret treaty carried weight with Great Britain, but
with no one else, as may be gauged from the records of the State
Department at Washington. A later claim advanced by Japan that her
action was justified by Article VI of the Treaty of Portsmouth, which
assigned to Japan all Russian rights in the Chinese Eastern Railway
(South Manchurian Railway) 'with all rights and properties appertaining
thereto,' was effectively answered by China's citation of Articles III
and IV of the same Treaty. Under the first of these articles it is
declared that 'Russia has no territorial advantages or preferential or
exclusive concessions in Manchuria in impairment of Chinese sovereignty
or inconsistent with the principle of equal opportunity'; whilst the
second is a reciprocal engagement by Russia and Japan 'not to obstruct
any general measures common to all countries which China may take for
the development of the commerce and industry of Manchuria.'
"It would be interesting to know whether a refusal to allow China to
build a railway on her own territory is or is not an impairment of
Chinese sovereignty and whether such a railway as that proposed was not
a measure for the 'development of the commerce and industry of
Manchuria.'
"It is doubtful if even the Russo-Japanese war created as much feeling
in China as did the Fa-ku-men incident. Japan's action was of such
flagrant dishonesty and such a cynical repudiation of her promises and
pledges that her credit received a blow from which it has never since
recovered. The abject failure of the British Government to support its
subjects' treaty rights was almost as much an eye-opener to the world as
the protest from Tokio....
"The methods which had proved so successful in stopping the Fa-ku-men
railway were equally successful in forcing the abandonment of other
projected railways. Among these were the Chin-chou-Aigun line and the
important Antung-Mukden line.[60] The same alleged secret protocol was
used equally brutally and successfully for the acquisition of the
Newchwang line, and participation in 1909, and eventual acquisition in
1914, of the Chan-Chun-Kirin lines. Subsequently by an agreement with
Russia the sixth article of the Russo-Chinese Agreement of 1896 was
construed to mean 'the absolute and exclusive rights of administration
within the railway zone.'"
Japan's spheres of influence have been subsequently extended to cover
the whole of Manchuria and the whole of Shantung--though the latter has
been nominally renounced at Washington. By such methods as the above, or
by loans to impecunious Chinese authorities, the Japanese have acquired
vast railway monopolies wherever their influence has penetrated, and
have used the railways as a means of acquiring all real power in the
provinces through which they run.
After the Russo-Japanese war, Russia and Japan became firm friends, and
agreed to bring pressure on China jointly in any matter affecting
Manchuria. Their friendship lasted until the Bolshevik revolution.
Russia had entered into extensive obligations to support Japan's claims
at the Peace Conference, which of course the Bolsheviks repudiated.
Hence the implacable hostility of Japan to Soviet Russia, leading to the
support of innumerable White filibusters in the territory of the Far
Eastern Republic, and to friendship with France in all international
questions. As soon as there began to be in China a revolutionary party
aiming at the overthrow of the Manchus, the Japanese supported it. They
have continuously supported either or both sides in Chinese dissensions,
as they judged most useful for prolonging civil war and weakening China
politically. Before the revolution of 1911, Sun Yat Sen was several
times in Japan, and there is evidence that as early as 1900 he was
obtaining financial support from some Japanese.[61] When the revolution
actually broke out, Japan endeavoured to support the Manchus, but was
prevented from doing so effectively by the other Legations. It seems
that the policy of Japan at that time, as later, was to prevent the
union of North and South, and to confine the revolution to the South.
Moreover, reverence for monarchy made Japan unwilling to see the Emperor
of China dispossessed and his whole country turned into a Republic,
though it would have been agreeable to see him weakened by the loss of
some southern provinces. Mr. Pooley gives a good account of the actions
of Japan during the Chinese Revolution, of which the following quotation
gives the gist[62]:--
It [the Genro] commenced with a statement from Prince Katsura on
December 18th [1911], that the time for intervention had arrived,
with the usual rider "for the sake of the peace of the Far East."
This was followed by a private instruction to M. Ijuin, Japanese
Minister in Peking, whereunder the latter on December 23rd
categorically informed Yuan-shi-kai that under no circumstances
would Japan recognize a republican form of government in
China.... In connection with the peace conference held at
Shanghai, Mr. Matsui (now Japanese Ambassador to France), a
trusted Councillor of the Foreign Office, was dispatched to
Peking to back M. Ijuin in the negotiations to uphold the
dynasty. Simultaneously, Mr. Denison, Legal Adviser to the
Japanese Foreign Office, was sent to Shanghai to negotiate with
the rebel leaders. Mr. Matsui's mission was to bargain for
Japanese support of the Manchus against the rebels, Manchuria
against the throne; Mr. Denison's mission was to bargain for
Japanese support of the rebels against the throne, recognition by
Peking of the Southern Republic against virtually a Japanese
protectorate of that Republic and exclusive railway and mining
concessions within its borders. The rebels absolutely refused Mr.
Denison's offer, and sent the proposed terms to the Russian
Minister at Peking, through whom they eventually saw the light of
day. Needless to say the Japanese authorities strenuously denied
their authenticity.
The British Legation, however, supported Yuan Shi-k'ai, against both the
Manchus and Sun Yat Sen; and it was the British policy which won the
day. Yuan Shi-k'ai became President, and remained so until 1915. He was
strongly anti-Japanese, and had, on that ground, been opposed as
strongly as Japan dared. His success was therefore a blow to the
influence of Japan in China. If the Western Powers had remained free to
make themselves felt in the Far East, the course of events would
doubtless have been much less favourable to the Japanese; but the war
came, and the Japanese saw their chance. How they used it must be told
in a separate chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 56: Quoted by A.M. Pooley, _Japan's Foreign Policy_, Allen &
Unwin, 1920, p. 18.]
[Footnote 57: Op. cit. p. 16 n.]
[Footnote 58: Pooley, op. cit. p. 17.]
[Footnote 59: A.M. Pooley, _Japan's Foreign Policies_, pp. 48-51.]
[Footnote 60: This line was subsequently built by the Japanese.]
[Footnote 61: Pooley, op. cit., pp. 67-8.]
[Footnote 62: Page 66.]