unequivocal “open door” policy in Manchuria, where Japan is operating
already one double-track and one single-track trunk railway, with
branches, and has intruded many bands of colonizers on old China, which
bands live in settlements where Japan collects taxes against agreement
and in practical contravention of China’s sovereignty. This “open door”
policy should end the brigandage against foreign traders of directly or
indirectly rebating to Japanese shippers on the monopolistic railway
privilege to which America never agreed. Cotton and other goods for the
Japanese trade colonies should not be entered free at Dalny as “railway
supplies”! The Japanese government through the Yokohama Specie Bank
should not lend at the ridiculous rate of two per cent. to Japanese
importers and common carriers the money that came largely from America,
if it affects American trade. This is interpreting an “open door”
policy as it is understood at Tokio and Dalny, not as it is written
at Tokio and Washington. Since generous America buys vastly more from
Japan than she sells to her, Japan should lower her tariff instead
of raising it. Japan wants to raise her tariff to sixty per cent. in
some cases while we of the august righteous Occident only permit vast
good-natured China a tariff of five per cent. ad valorem.
The railroads of our Pacific coast, controlling the eastern shipments,
should not invite over Japanese steamship lines, and lay off American
lines as was done with the Boston Steamship Company at Seattle in 1909.
As it is now, our railroads have made contracts with five Japanese
steamship lines, so as to force our government, many critics say, to
grant a ship subsidy, which is unnecessary, as the traffic is great
enough to pay, with a mail payment, the lines on the Pacific running
cheaper than those on the Atlantic on account of the crews being all
Chinese. Japanese merchants in Manchuria have petitioned the Japanese
government for state assistance to be given Japanese manufacturers in
Manchuria.
Despite Japan’s and Russia’s rejection of America’s suggestion in 1910,
there will remain only one course eventually to be taken as the result
of Secretary Hay’s announcement in 1899 of the “open door” policy for
all time in China and Manchuria, and that is for a revivified China to
secure an international five-nation loan, or preferably a four-nation
loan, to take over from Russia and Japan all the railways held by those
two nations in Manchuria, and clean those three provinces of Japanese
and Russian troops and Achranie Straja (railway guards), Manchuria
thereafter acting as a buffer Chinese state between those really
irreconcilable contestants, who under present conditions promise to
throw the whole world into warlike turmoil every decade. The Japanese
and Russians, by blocking, in 1910, the American railway concession
from Chin Wang Tao to Aigun (which America did not intend to occupy
with troops) really confessed that they considered, since it so suited
them, that the secret agreement which Russia forced from China in 1899
was of superior power to the Japan-Russia Treaty made at Portsmouth,
which avowed the “open door” policy. Britain, under pressure from
Russia, agreed in 1899 that the former was not to interfere north of
Peking, and the latter agreed not to interfere in the Yangtze valley
(as though she ever could!). In that same year John Hay secured the
assent of the nations, including Russia and Britain, to the policies
for all time of the “non-partition of China” and the “open door”, which
policies were confirmed by the Portsmouth Treaty, and therefore Japan
and Russia, in blocking the Chin Wang to Aigun railway, Chin Wang to
Kailar, or any other northern or Manchurian railway, were acting _ultra
vires_, and negotiations in the interest of China, and the development
of America’s trade, might well come up again. Certainly the South
Manchurian railway has all the traffic it can handle, and it can no
more serve great Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia than could a railway
confined to Florida serve the eastern and central states as far north
as Philadelphia.
Had this Chin Wang to Aigun railway been laid, besides the vast
grazing, agricultural, mineral, lumber and mining territory which
would have been developed, several important centers would have been
made known to the world. Hulutao and Chin Wang are new ports which are
ice free longer than Newchang, which should be made the advance post,
instead of Shanghai, seven hundred miles away, for America’s attack on
the rich Manchurian trade. Some day we shall run steamers across the
Pacific to Hulutao and Chin Wang, and thus be independent of Japan’s
port of Dalny. Tsitsikar on the Nonni River is a great stock, lumber,
mining and railroad center. Aigun, on the great Amur River, is the
proposed northern terminus of this seven hundred and fifty miles of
railway. Up to 1900 Aigun was the largest city in Manchuria, but during
the Boxer troubles Russian troops in revenge razed it to the ground.
Here, in May, 1858, was signed the famous Chinese treaty with Russia,
delimiting the present bounds of Manchuria. Aigun is a most important
fur, lumber, agricultural, flour, gold and general mining center, and
has all the great Amur, Sungari and Shilka Rivers to draw cargoes to
its docks.
Across the Amur River on Siberian soil (I can hear George Kennan
revive his reminiscences) lies Blagovestchensk. This city was the
scene, in 1900, of one of the most cruel massacres of the ages, which
should reveal fully to the world the real heart of the oligarchal
Russian army and government with which we have had to deal, afar off
as yet. Thousands of unarmed Chinese shopkeepers and gold miners
(who had absolutely nothing to do with Boxerism one thousand miles
away) were led to the riverside, and at the word of command from
General Chitchegoff the Russian troops at the point of the bayonet
drove the innocent victims into the swift Amur, where many were
drowned. Blagovestchensk is a thriving modern city. It is the center
of the opulent Siberian gold industry, and has many live American
advance agents who would welcome the American railway by a bridge
over from Aigun! It is lighted by electric light, has clubs, hotels,
libraries, docks, river steamers when the river is open (!), theaters,
colleges, factories, flour and sawmills, splendid churches, fine brick
residences, roads and horses.
Besides its exceedingly rich mines, Manchuria produces in the south,
oak-leaf silk which we in America call Shangtung because it is like the
silk of Shangtung, which was the first known of the wild silks; cotton,
jade, maize, barley, pulse, the very valuable soy-bean, wheat, oats,
the very valuable kaoliang (tall millet), the grain of which produces
spirits and the stalk of which produces paper; hsiao mi (short millet),
poppy, polygonum, used for blue dye; castor oil bean, sesamum, ginseng,
paper spruce, fine fruit and flowers, salt, bean oil, famous vermicelli
from loutou beans, the best tobacco produced in China, hemp (abutilon
avicennæ), true hemp, charcoal, peas, fine reed matting, indigo, etc.
Northern Manchuria, besides much of the foregoing, produces the famous
black pigs of Kirin; soda bricks, cattle, leather, bear and deer skins;
a vast amount of the world’s finest furs, including squirrels, tiger
and dog skins, which last are produced on dog farms largely for the
American market; gray bricks, tamara salmon, sturgeon, etc. The land
is a future granary to feed the manufacturing hundreds of millions
in America, who, despite intensive farming, will have exhausted the
natural productiveness of their country.
IX
THE NATIVE LEADERS
In the revolution chapter of this book we have given many names of the
new leaders. Others who have attained prominence are the following.
Most of them have seen foreign service, or been educated in America,
Britain, Germany or Japan. In March, 1912, a descendant of the Ming
emperors came forward at Peking to add to the complexity of the
situation. He endeavored to obtain the allegiance of Yuan’s rebelling
northern troops, who seemed loyal to no cause or person. He was the
so-called “Marquis” Chu Cheng Yu. A Ming claimant would more naturally
make his appeal at the old Ming capital, Nanking, but Nanking was now
all for the republic.
Tang Shao Yi, Yuan’s assistant, educated in America, visited America on
many commissions; a superior man, worthy of special mark in the coming
China; Yuan’s representative at the Shanghai peace conferences.
Yen Shih Si and Yang Shih Chi, assistants of Tang at the Shanghai peace
conferences; Board of Finance and Railways, Peking, 1911.
M. Y. Sung, manager of the “Chung Hua” republican bank at Shanghai, and
manager of the China Merchants’ Steamship Company.
Shih Shao Chi, known as “Alfred Sze”, American educated; served on
American embassies; very popular and able.
Chang Chih Yen, republican Board of Commerce, Shanghai.
Tang Wen Chai, Hupeh Provincial Assembly; Board of Commerce, Shanghai;
head of Changsha University.
Sun Hao Chi, Shangtung Provincial Assembly.
Chang Chien, Kiangsu Assembly; Board of Commerce, Shanghai; great and
progressive.
Wang Jen Wen, Szechuen Provincial Assembly.
Wang Shao Liang, head Pei Yang Technical University; established
English as official language in science.
Li Chin Hsi, Yunnan Assembly; as Viceroy established modern army,
police, industrial schools.
Wuh Hsiang Chen, Manchuria Assembly.
Wu Yun Lien, Manchuria Assembly.
Wong Chung Wai, represented republicans at Shanghai peace conferences.
Tsai Chu Ting, represented republicans at Shanghai peace conferences.
Cheng Teh Chuan, Kiangsu Assembly; once Governor.
Li Ping Hsu, Mayor Shanghai; Civil Administrator Kiangsu Assembly.
Shen Wan Yung, Financial Department; Kiangsu Assembly.
Wang Yi Ting, Trade Department; Kiangsu Assembly.
Li Chia Chu, President first Parliament at Peking, 1911.
Tang Hua Lung, President Hupeh Assembly; a mighty man.
Chen Chun Tao, educated at Hongkong and Yale; first President Ta Ching
Government Bank, 1910; one of the ablest financiers in China.
Chau Tien You (popularly “Jeme”); educated Yale; builder of
Peking-Kalgan Railway; ablest engineer in China.
Kwang Sun Mao, able builder of Canton and northern railways.
Doctor Wu Lien Teh, educated Cambridge University; hero of 1910 plague
in Manchuria; one of the ablest modern Chinese doctors.
Chun Tao Tsai, President Chamber of Commerce, Canton.
Lu Hung Chang, President Chamber of Commerce, Hankau.
Admiral Chin Pih, visited New York on cruiser _Hai Chi_; joined
republicans at Shanghai, December, 1911.
C. T. Wong, graduated from Yale University, 1909.
Admiral Chin Yao Huan, visited New York on _Hai Chi_; became republican
December, 1911.
General Lau Tien Wei, republican general in Manchuria, 1911; visited
West Point, 1912.
Wu Chung Lin, progressive Chinese minister at Rome, 1912.
E. M. Sah, American educated; authority on municipal government; son of
Admiral Sah.
Hsuing Hsi Ling, Finance Board.
Chow Tsze Chi, Finance Board.
General Chang Cho Lin, Manchuria, victor over Mongols, 1912.
The old leaders who go down to defeat are the following, and of the
many who are called in the reorganization, some of the following will
be found worthy, and some of the disappointed ones may possibly be
found leading the discontented at times.
Chang Ming Chi, imperial Viceroy at Canton; fled to Hongkong, 1911.
Chao Ehr Hsun, Viceroy Mukden, strong but uncertain.
General Wong Yin Chat, imperialist leader Fourth Brigade at Hankau,
1911.
General Tsen Chun Hsuan, Viceroy and stern imperial leader; enlightened.
Wei Kuang Tao, Viceroy Hupeh, Canton, etc.; modern.
Prince Ching, elderly dean of Manchus; long head of Privy Council;
modern.
Na Tung, Vice-President of old Manchu Council; modern.
Hsu Shih Chang, progressive Chinese member of Manchu Council; turned
General-in-chief of republicans.
Chao Ping Chun, progressive Minister of Peking Police, and Department
of Interior.
Shih Tao, progressive Mongol Prince; Vice-President of National
Assembly, Peking, 1911.
Admiral Sah Chen Ping, imperial Admiral who joined republicans;
entertained American fleet at Amoy, in 1908.
Admiral Jui Cheng, imperial Admiral.
Luk Yuk Lim, Minister to Britain, 1911; progressive.
Prince Kung, able Mongol leader, Peking, 1911.
Liang Tun Yen, American educated; head Foreign Board (Wai Wu Pu),
Peking, 1911; protégé of famous Chang Chi Tung, of Wuchang.
Hu Wei Teh, progressive Vice-President of Foreign Board, 1911; Minister
to Russia, etc.
Liang Ju Hao, Vice-President Railway Board, Peking, 1911.
Nang Shih Cheng, Board of War, Peking, 1911.
Tien Wen Tih, Board of War, Peking, 1911.
Shen Chih Pen, Board of Justice, Peking, 1911.
Liang Chih Chiao, famous old reformer of 1898 coup d’état.
Tang Ching Chung, Board of Education, Peking, 1911; literary chancellor
Kiangsu province, 1904; learned in old and new.
Prince Chun, deposed Manchu Regent, 1911; brother of Emperor Kwang Hsu.
Lu Chuan Ling, Privy Councilor, Peking, 1911; modern.
Prince Pu Lun, first President Peking Parliament, 1911; visited St.
Louis Exposition; a most dignified progressive; familiar with Hongkong.
Prince Tsai Tse, Manchu head Finance Board, Peking, 1911; visited
America, Britain, etc., 1905.
Prince Tsai Tao, Manchu head of Army; visited America; brother of
Emperor Kwang Hsu.
Prince Tsai Su, Manchu head of Navy; visited America; Interior Board
also.
Prince Tsai Hsun, Manchu head of Navy; visited America, 1909; brother
of famous Manchu Emperor Kwang Hsu, first reform Emperor of China.
Chang Jen Chung, Viceroy defense of Nanking; stubborn; enlightened;
holder of first exposition in China; well known to Americans.
General Yin Chang, Manchu General-in-chief; director Nobles College;
Minister to Germany, 1901–5; a superior theoretical man, but not a
brave leader in battle.
Liu Ju Lin, Secretary to Washington Legation; Vice-President Foreign
Board.
Chang Yin Tang, Minister to America, 1910.
Sheng Kung Pao, leading defender of nationalization of railways,
Peking, 1910.
Sheng Tah Jen, leading defender of nationalization of railways, Peking,
1910.
Liang Shih Yi, manager Northern Railways of China.
Chen Tung Liang, Minister to Britain, 1904; educated in America.
Li Ching Mai, grandson of illustrious Li Hung Chang; visited America,
1909; a bright man.
Chen Kwein Lung, Governor Pechili, 1910.
Tong Kai Son, President Ambassadors’ College, Peking, 1910; educated at
Yale.
Hu Wei To, Minister to Hague, Russia, Japan, etc.
Liu Shih Hsun, Minister to France, etc.
Ku Hung Ming, able editor of “standpats”.
Chow Chang Ling, manager North China Railways, 1909.
Chen Chao Chang, Governor of Kirin, Manchuria, 1909.
Hsu Chen Pang, educated at Hartford, America; Naval Board, 1910.
Chang Yu Chuan, Foreign Office, 1910; educated at Yale.
Tan Tien Chih, University of California; Superintendent Railway
College, Peking, 1910.
Wu Kwei Lin, Cornell; Railway Board, 1910.
Tsai Ting Kan, Yale; Supreme Court, Tientsin.
Chien Shao Cheng, visited America; Department of Prisons, Peking, 1910.
Wen Tsung Yao, Amban at Lhasa; helped to drive out Dalai Lama, the Pope
of Buddhism.
Tam Hao Heng, Cantonese; Navy Board, Peking, 1910.
Prince Yu Lang, Grand Councilor; Board of Police; organizer of Imperial
Guard; Army Board, Peking, 1911.
Chou Chi Lai, Assistant Foreign Minister, Peking, 1911; progressive.
Shao Chang, Minister Justice, Peking, 1911; Secretary Foreign Board,
1901.
Shou Chi, Minister Dependencies, Peking, 1911; Minister of Mongolia,
1900; Captain of Hatamen Octroi (Customs) Gate, Peking, 1909; an
amusing type of old-style effective revenue man.
Lu Jun Hsiang, Grand Secretary, Peking, 1910; head of Opium Suppression
Board, 1911: a really effective man, representing the best traditions
of old China.
Jung Ching, President Board of Ceremonies, Peking, 1911; remarkable
type of thorough-going conservative.
Sheng Yun, irreconcilable imperial Governor of Shensi and Shansi
provinces, 1911–12.
Prince Tuan, irreconcilable “Boxer” Manchu; exiled in Kansu, and father
of Pretender to Throne, “Ku Kwei”, 1912.
Hsun Pao Oi, Governor of Shangtung province, 1912.
Tong Chao Chuen, progressive; Railway and Finance Boards.
Shum Chun Hsun, experienced Viceroy of various provinces.
King Yu Yuet, Principal Law College, Nanking.
Chan Ki Me, Governor of Shanghai.
Chan Kwang Ming, experienced; progressive Governor.
X
CHINA’S INTERNATIONAL POLITICS.
The treaties and international notes which hold China in obligations
to the outside world (Wai Ih, outside foreigners), and which the
republicans promise to observe, are in part as follows. The “most
favored nation” clause admits nations which did not participate in the
original treaty.
1842. Nanking Treaty--Nanking, Canton, Amoy, Fuchau, Ningpo and
Shanghai opened.
1858. Tientsin-British--Newchwang, Chifu, Swatow, Kiangchow
opened.
1860. Tientsin-French Treaty--Tientsin opened.
1861. German Treaty--Chinkiang, Hankau opened.
1876. Chifu Convention--Ichang, Wuhu, Wenchow, Pakhoi opened.
1881. Russia-China--Russian commercial influence in Ili,
Mongolia, Manchuria; consulates and extraterritoriality
provided for.
1890. Chungking Convention--Chungking opened.
1895. Japan Treaty--Suchow, Hangchow opened.
1896. Russia-China Treaty--Russia given railway and other
privileges in Manchuria; this brought on the war with Japan in
1904.
1897. West River Ports--Samshui, Wuchow, etc., opened.
1899. Russia-China--China not to build railways north of Peking
without Russia’s consent.
1902. British Commercial Treaty (Mackay)--Changsha, Ngan-king,
Wan Hsien, Waichou opened. Likin to be abolished and customs
possibly raised from five per cent. to twelve per cent. ad
valorem.
1905. Japan-China--Grants to Japan by treaty what war with
Russia won for Japan; i. e., military, commercial, mining and
railway dominance in South Manchuria, and Japan to have power
to nullify Chinese or other foreign railway schemes.
TREATIES AFFECTING CHINA
1899. Britain-Russia--Britain not to interfere with Russia
north of great wall, and Russia not to interfere in Yangtze
valley.
1899. America to Powers (John Hay’s Note)--“Open door” for all
in China, and preservation of territorial integrity.
1905. Portsmouth Treaty (Russia-Japan)--Japan takes Korea and
part of Manchuria.
1905. Britain-Japan--Alliance and assuring integrity of China.
1907. Russia-Japan--Recognize territorial integrity of China.
1907. Britain-Russia--Britain to support China in Tibet.
1908. America-Japan--Open door in China; integrity of China.
1910. America to Powers--Internationalize Manchurian railways;
rejected by Russia and Japan.
1910. Russia-Japan--Secret convention to reject America’s
financial and commercial plans in Manchuria; Russia and Japan
to divide Manchuria in spheres of influence and trade.
These treaties sound very well, but mean very little, excepting
this, that if Japan or Russia persistently breaks them and invades
China, Britain and America have a cause before the world, to thrash,
if it is necessary, the offender’s navy, and cut Japan off from Korea
and Manchuria. The treaties are a confusion. They all specify that
the “open-door” theory is acknowledged, but Russia and Japan have
forced China to assent to their visé on any proposed railway schemes
in Manchuria and Pechili. Despite the Britain-Japan Treaty of 1905,
wherein the “integrity of China” is specified as a promise to the
nations, the London _Times_ confesses as follows: “The grim facts of
the economic gravitation of Manchuria toward Russian and Japanese
control are beyond remedy, treaties and agreements notwithstanding.”
Yet at one time the thunderer would bring on a war for the sake of
a straw! If Russia continues to offend there is no way to stop her
except that America and Britain shall send their navies to pound her
Baltic gates until she behaves in Manchuria, Mongolia, etc., which she
soon would do in fear of her Duma on the inside of the Baltic gates.
Britain never again can use Japan to pound Russia, for Japan and Russia
have agreed to take the Manchurian spoil, as Japan did in the case
of Korea, whenever the opportunity offers through dissension among
the powers. Japan and Russia are high-tariff countries, and wherever
they establish themselves, Britain, America, Germany and France will
knock in vain for trade entry. China, like Britain, is a low-tariff
country (at present five per cent., and even the proposed twelve per
cent. would be low), and the manufacturing nations therefore desire
the “open door” maintained, which can only be done on America’s and
Britain’s reiterated treaty stipulations of the “integrity of China”.
America must always keep a Pacific fleet stronger than Japan’s. A
fight is unnecessary, for Japan is checkmated at once by this policy.
Britain and America, and, if possible, Germany, must work together in
the Far East to watch both Russia and Japan, and see that China gets
the “square deal” in having reserved for her expansion her immemorial
preserves of Manchuria, Mongolia and Turkestan. In Premier Yuan’s
difficulties, the irreconcilable former Manchu major general, Yin
Tchang, fled to Dalny, where he ran a bureau which plotted for the
overthrow of the republic.
China made a beginning in 1911 in the agitation for the retrocession
of some of the foreign colonies. Prince Ching then suggested that
commissioners should be appointed by the Cabinet to discuss with
Britain the retrocession of Wei-Hai-Wei. There are other nations
which hold vastly more territory than do America and Britain, whether
in concessions, settlements or colonies. The other nations have
done comparatively little for China as compared with America and
Britain, and Prince Ching might have approached this worthy subject in
proportionate order. Until China is on her feet, foreign concessions at
all her ports are the best object lesson she could have in municipal
government and improvements, but foreign colonies, as large as
Germany’s Kiaochou and Japan’s and Russia’s spheres of occupation in
Manchuria, are unjust to her.
The New China party bears as a thorn in its flesh the awful burden of
1900, the old Russian and the Japanese indemnities. America alone,
under President Roosevelt’s administration, remitted her share of the
1900 (Boxer) indemnity. These punitive indemnity payments prevented
China from offering relief in the terrible pneumonic plague epidemic in
Manchuria in 1911, and in the famines which followed the floods in 1911
and 1912 in the central and eastern provinces. Half a million people
starved to death, and China has not forgotten that the funds which
the starving people needed were taken by the rich European nations as
indemnity payments. Britain, however, did return part of her indemnity
on condition that it should be applied to the Shansi University at
Taiyuan, of which Doctor Timothy Richards was president.
China’s helpless position without a navy could not be more eloquently
shown than by the following case: In the Mexican revolution of 1911,
Chinese lives and property were destroyed to the estimated amount of
$33,000,000. China put in a claim to satisfy the heirs and claimants,
but no attention has been paid to it. How different it was when Germany
and Britain held Venezuelan claims only a short time previously!
In the interim, before the establishment of an effective diplomacy and
parliaments or congresses in China, the guilds, with their boycott,
have to a degree acted as the foreign office of the people in obtaining
concessions which armies, navies and courtiers were not yet powerful
enough to obtain. Their effective boycotts are a proof that the people
really ruled in China, and without the expense of armies and navies.
They, moreover, proved that the Chinese people can think together,
and keep their word of faith so fixedly that it is seldom necessary
for the central committee of the guilds to put in effect the heavy
money penalties involved. There is this conclusion among others to be
drawn from the interesting history of guilds and boycotts in China,
especially in the last fifteen years, that the provincial and central
parliaments, or congresses, which began work in 1909 and 1910, will
remain, and with some improvement each year reach ever higher toward
the standards of liberty and righteousness, or, in expressive American
slang, the “square deal”.