Japan’s Requirements and China’s Future
The official reasons for the war between Russia and Japan are known,
but there are matters which lie deeper than the ostensible excuses
made for the serious step Japan has taken. All know that Russia has
curtailed Japan’s fisheries; that she has the control in south-western
Manchuria of all the supplies of beancake upon which the Japanese
depend entirely for the intensive cultivation of the poor and shallow
soil which covers their islands; and they know that Russia, by her
policy in reference to Korea, intended to control the supplies of both
timber and rice so necessary to the welfare of the Japanese. What
people wish to know is how far Japan is prepared to carry the war into
the enemy’s country if she continues to be successful, and what are now
the conditions upon which she will accept peace.
I have endeavoured to find out from the Japanese themselves what is
the minimum gain which will content them. I have asked Russians,
too, but the only reply they have made is that Japan must be utterly
vanquished--many of them still believe that she will be--must
relinquish everything she has gained temporarily, and be taught a
lesson of humiliation she will never forget. They do not descend to
particulars when asked how this is to be accomplished. The position,
therefore, must be taken from the Japanese point of view, as that is
the only one profitable for examination in detail now.
In the first place, Japan was determined not to be bluffed by Russia:
her first stroke was intended to make that known to her adversary.
Next, she intended to drive the Russians out of Korea: that she
promptly effected. Then her object was to destroy the Russian fleet,
and deprive Russia of a naval base in the Far East, so that for many
years to come Japan may enjoy peace so far as Russia is concerned. This
is in process of execution, and will be effected before Japan stays her
hand. Thus far we are upon firm ground.
It is doubtful whether Japan intends to turn Russia out of the three
provinces which comprise Manchuria, or even means to attempt so much.
Japan would like the Russian forces to retreat upon Harbin quickly. If
that were done, she believes that with the forces now at her command
she could attack and capture Harbin--which has only improvised
defensive works--and so bring about a further withdrawal, compelling
the Russian Commander-in-Chief to decide whether he will attempt to
hold the railway between Harbin and Vladivostok, or abandon the eastern
line and fall back towards Khailar and Siberia. It will be a serious
situation. With the Japanese at Harbin, the Russian retreat westward
may be cut off by a river force proceeding up the Nonni to the railway
crossing south of Tsitsikar. The abandonment of the eastern line will
mean the fall of Vladivostok, and leave the Ussuri province and all the
Russian settlements on the Amur at the mercy of the Japanese army.
There cannot be any doubt that Japan will try her utmost to reach and
occupy Harbin. Very possibly she will attempt to occupy that position
permanently, since it is the junction of the railways from Port Arthur
and Vladivostok, and is also valuable because the Sungari, the most
important tributary of the Amur, gives communication to many of the
Russian settlements in Northern Manchuria and Eastern Siberia.
If Russia wills it so, and is prepared to accept conditions, it seems
possible that the actual Japanese invasion will terminate at Harbin,
and that Japan will establish herself there, and hold a large force
in readiness for emergencies, possibly for a further advance at some
future time. The potentialities of such a military situation will be
enormous. Assuming that Japan will halt at the second crossing of the
Sungari river, she will be in possession of the Fengtien and Kirin
provinces, the two most densely populated territories of Manchuria,
the richest in mineral and agricultural wealth, and the better part
of the Chinese Empire occupied by Russia since the Boxer rising. She
will command absolutely the railway approach to Port Arthur, Dalny,
Vladivostok, and the Ussuri lines. Japan’s ambition extends somewhat
further. The territory west of Harbin between the Sungari River and
Tsitsikar is a high plain, well suited to grazing but of no immediate
agricultural value. It has no attractions for the Japanese The land
to the east of Harbin is better from the agriculturist’s point of
view. The Ussuri Province of Eastern Siberia is a fertile, fairly
settled and partly cultivated territory rich in promise. It is well
wooded, possesses large timber, and has coal, iron, silver, and other
valuable mineral deposits. The deep inlets of its shores, from Possiet
northwards to the Amur river, are like Norwegian fiords, and the seas
teem with fish and that marine vegetable life from which much of the
food supply of Japan and Northern China is drawn. The coast fisheries
are of the first importance to the welfare of both Japan and Korea.
Japan wishes, and will attempt to obtain, the freedom of these waters.
In order to prevent Russia from reimposing the taxes she has levied
on the fisheries and restricting the rights of Korean and Japanese
fishermen, or excluding them from earning their livelihood on the
littoral of the Primorski province, Japan will dominate the Ussuri
Province, if not annex it, or restore it to the Chinese empire from
which it was taken a generation ago.
Japan is unlikely to seek any territorial aggrandisement beyond the
frontier of Korea; but she does wish to attain and maintain a position
which will allow her to dictate absolutely in what manner the two
southern provinces of Manchuria and the Ussuri province of Siberia
shall be occupied and exploited. If she has a strong military force at
Harbin she will be able to effect this end. It is, I believe, a part
of Japan’s policy. It means that Japan will control the sea board from
the southernmost point of Korea to the mouth of the Amur, if not still
farther north to the sea of Okhotsk and Kamtschatka. Japan views as
rightly within her sphere of influence all the territory eastward of
the Liao river, the southern branch of the Eastern Chinese Railway, and
eastward of the Sungari from Harbin, the northern boundary being the
River Amur. In this territory Japan hopes to see Russia’s influence
wane and ultimately vanish. It is to that end she is working.
Japan may have to be content with very much less. Russia will give
most grudgingly ever so little, and only the force of very adverse
circumstances would compel her to grant so much. Possibly Japan must be
satisfied with a dominion which does not extend far north of Mukden,
but certainly will reach to the Liao.
Beyond Korea, therefore, certain portions of Manchuria will be won from
the Russians by the Japanese. It may be assumed that the territory
extends to the Amur, or the Sungari, or the Liao, or any other point.
What are the intentions of Japan with regard to such territory?
As conqueror she may, presumably, annex and occupy it absolutely.
For several reasons she has no intention of occupying Manchuria
permanently. She intends that the territory she wins back from Russia
shall revert to China, upon conditions.
The first condition is that the provinces ceded shall not again be
invaded by Russia; that there shall not again be any possibility of
Russia threatening Korea and Japan. Russia must not have an ice-free
port, not a naval base, not a dock, or repairing yard, nor must she be
allowed to occupy any fortified post which from its position may be
regarded as dangerous to Korea or Japan.
Port Arthur will be dismantled; the earthworks will be demolished;
the dockyard cleared, and the place reduced to an unimportant railway
terminus and fishing village, with some commerce coastwise in small
native craft. The fame and the value of Port Arthur are wholly
artificial. It is not the proper situation for the terminus of the
trans-continental railway; as a naval base it is useful only to Russia,
or some other European power having a forward policy in the Far East.
It will sink again to the obscurity from which Russia raised it--not
until then will it be handed over again to China.
Of Dalny even the expenditure of much government money has been unable
to make a success. The site was ill chosen; the place has no trade,
serves no real purpose, and by the Russians was termed “Lishni,” the
“unwanted.” Dalny is dead.
The Eastern Chinese Railway, of which Port Arthur was the military and
Dalny the commercial terminus, will continue to serve both places so
long as there is any traffic, and local traffic there always will be.
It may increase, but it will do so slowly unless nursed by some such
artificial methods as Russia employed. The Eastern Chinese Railway
will be joined to the Imperial Chinese Railways by a line of about
forty miles over a flat country between Mukden and Hsinmintun. That
is the direction most of the trans-continental and local traffic will
take; it will give through railway communication between Europe and
Peking.
The railway between Port Arthur and Harbin may be acquired directly
from Russia by the Chinese Government. It is much more likely to
be taken by the Japanese and sold to either the Chinese Railways
Administration, or to a syndicate of British and American capitalists.
The line runs through a rich country, and already there is sufficient
traffic obtainable to pay not only the expenses of working but a
fair interest on the actual heavy cost of construction. In fact,
the Harbin-Dalny section is the most profitable of all the Siberian
railways and its prospects are excellent. Should it be acquired either
by the Chinese, or by a foreign syndicate, it will be doubtless
converted to the standard gauge of the Chinese railways, and be worked
by a similar staff. Already the Japanese are reducing the gauge over
the sections in their possession.
The fate of that section of the Eastern Chinese Railway between Harbin
and Pogranichnaya cannot be foreseen. If the Japanese establish
themselves at Harbin, it may be disposed of in the same manner as
the southern section, or the Russian authorities may have running
powers over it, or it may be allowed to remain wholly in the hands
of Russia--since it connects with the Ussuri railway which has one
terminus at Vladivostok, and the other at Khabarovsk on the River Amur.
For obvious reasons, I think Japan will endeavour to obtain and keep
control of this eastern section, and of the Ussuri railway. Should
she do this the Russian terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway will
be Harbin, unless the northern, original route be continued and the
line prolonged eastward from Stretensk on the Shilka. Russia will be
asked to relinquish the Island of Saghalien--taken from Japan when she
was a weak power--the Aleutian, Prybilov, and other sealing islands
of the north Pacific. These Japan wishes to have absolutely, valuing
them higher than a foothold upon the mainland of Siberia. Japan would
also like to occupy permanently the port, harbour, and works at
Vladivostok, which she considers to be of greater value to her than
is Port Arthur. In short, Japan wishes to possess, or dominate, every
place which Russia might eventually utilize as a naval base. More than
this, Japan is determined to be the naval power of the East Pacific,
and should Russia ever possess a fighting navy, Japan intends to make
it impossible for that navy to have any permanent establishment in
the Far East. It is for this reason, the blocking of Russia from
approaches to ice-free water and the eastern seas, that Japan may find
it necessary to hold Harbin and dominate the lower reaches of the Amur,
and the Ussuri province.
Another point upon which Japan will insist is the opening up of
Manchuria to foreign trade. She will require of China, as a condition
precedent to handing over the territory, that at every place along the
railway lines and rivers at which Russia has, or had, settlements,
foreigners shall be free to reside and to carry on their calling, as in
the treaty ports. This has already been made known to China. As usual
the Chinese authorities demur to concede this, but Japan remains firm;
she will insist, and if necessary she will defy China, occupying and
administering the country, and dare China to turn her out by force of
arms.
This attitude of Japan is undoubtedly correct. By it she proves to the
powers that she has been fighting Russia on their behalf, and probably
she believes that she will have their moral support in obtaining her
end. But moral support may prove insufficient. Already the Chinese know
that Russia is not the great invincible military power they believed
her to be. They think that they are capable of doing what Japan has
done, and the northern viceroys talk of fighting Japan in preference
to having only a limited authority granted them in Manchuria. Their
attitude must be taken into account when the conditions of peace are
ripe for decision.
The next point profitable to consider is the intention of Japan
with reference to the immediate exploitation or development of
those portions of China she is winning back from Russia. As already
stated, Port Arthur is to be dismantled. No foreigners will in any
circumstances be allowed to stay there until after the conclusion of
the war. The same rule will apply to Dalny and Talienwan, for the whole
of the Kuan-tung peninsula is required by Japan as a naval and military
base. After the war, if it ends in favour of Japan, it is improbable
than any European firm will desire to become established there, other
places offering greater inducements.
For sufficient reasons, which need not be set forth in detail, the
Japanese will object to any Russians remaining longer on Manchurian
territory in their military occupation. They will object also to
persons of French, German, and Scandinavian nationality. Both
French and German subjects in the Far East, and especially those in
Manchuria, Siberia, and the quondam treaty port of Newchwang, have
shown themselves sympathisers with Russia, if not actual partisans in
the war. The Scandinavians, chiefly through the Danish East-Asiatic
Company, are still more closely identified with Russians, and the
Japanese even go so far as to say that the Danish and the Russian
flags are for all practical purposes identical. Throughout the Far
East Denmark is represented by the Russian Consuls; some of the Danish
East-Asiatic Company’s steamers were owned in their entirety and
absolutely by Russians, a fact the Japanese do not overlook, and will
not forget.
Manchuria therefore will be open first to persons of British and
American nationality. If they are quick to establish themselves there,
other nationals will be subject to the same adverse conditions as
British subjects endured under Russian rule and occupation.
Another point upon which Japan has decided is the future rule of
Manchuria. Japan does not intend that the three provinces shall revert
to the cruel despotism that obtained there under Chinese sovereignty.
Japan has proved in Formosa that brigands, outlaws, and the savage
natives the Chinese exploited, have become industrious law-abiding
peasants under the just administration of equitable laws.
The Hunghuses and outlaws of Manchuria are more likely than the
Formosan natives to appreciate a liberal government, and laws
administered with justice. All nations should support Japan in her
endeavour to free the enslaved Manchurian peasant. The Chinese coolie
is capable of being made into a law-abiding, sober, industrious, frugal
labourer, and if the experiment succeeds in Manchuria it may lead to
a reform in the government of the eighteen provinces of China Proper.
Possibly the moral, social, and physical welfare of the people count
for less than the correct division of the territorial spoils of war
among the conquerors; but this issue is fraught with such gigantic
potentialities, that it is to be hoped Japan will obtain her end,
and be the means of freeing the Chinese peoples from the tyranny of
a corrupt mandarin rule. The real opening up of Manchuria to foreign
settlement and trade will effect more than centuries of missionary
effort to the enlightenment of the people and the amelioration of
their lot. This opportunity must on no account be missed, whatever the
opinion of the Chinese Court may be on the subject.
The spoils of war which will go to the victors will include government,
freehold and leasehold estate; fortresses, dockyards, armaments and
munitions of war. The Chinese Eastern Railway may be regarded as
government property, and such rights as Russia legally possesses in it
will pass to the Japanese. There will be a war indemnity, but in the
Far East it is believed that whichever side wins, the war indemnity,
whatever its amount, will have to be paid by China. Should the Japanese
prove ultimate conquerors the war indemnity levied upon Russia will be
collected of China on account of the territory returned to the dominion
of the Chinese Emperor. Should Russia win, Japan will be unable to pay
a heavy indemnity, and China will be required to reimburse Russia for
the expense to which she will have been put in repelling the Japanese
invasion of Chinese territory. China’s protests will be futile in
either event.
The material gain Japan expects to win by the war may be summarized as
follows:--
(_a_) Saghalien and the sealing islands to become Japanese territory.
(_b_) The port and harbour of Vladivostok to be occupied by Japan
indefinitely.
(_c_) Port Arthur to be dismantled and made over to China on conditions.
(_d_) The rights of Russia in the Chinese Eastern Railway and in the
territory leased from China by Russia.
(_e_) The opening of Manchuria to Japanese trade and exploitation.
(_f_) The opening of the Amur and its tributaries to international
navigation.
(_g_) A war indemnity of unknown amount, to be paid by China.
These requirements are for the most part immaterial to European Powers.
The supporters of Japanese policy may expect to share in the privileges
Japan secures for her own people as traders in Manchuria, and in the
right of way in Siberian waters.
They will be neither gainers nor losers by the transference of
Saghalien, and the Russian islands in the Pacific, nor by the change in
the ownership of Vladivostok. Whilst some nationals will be losers by
the dismantling of Port Arthur and the disappearance from the Pacific
of the Russian naval stations, in all probability the world will be
distinctly the gainer, if, as is proposed, Manchuria and “Japanese
Siberia,” are opened to free commerce.
The empire of China expects to benefit largely if Japan wins, but if
this benefit is to be paid for by the Chinese people in extra taxes
levied in order that Japan may be paid out her share in the reconquered
Manchuria, then the Chinese people will have good reason to curse a war
which has added to their burdens and in no other way ameliorated their
condition.
China is as corrupt as her empire is vast; even the Japanese with whom
I have conversed on the subject declared that the task of regenerating
China was too great for them to attempt; the Chinese were hopelessly
incorrigible.
The bulk of the Chinese, though bound by tradition and the slaves of
their environment, are sensible, law-abiding people, whose greatest
need is a good government. It is not that there is one law for the rich
and another for the poor--there are laws for any and every class--but
there is justice for no one, only the foreigner.
I will take an instance. A rich corporation had a difference with a
rich contractor as to the quality of certain material supplied. In
England it would have been a case for a civil court, but in order to
obtain the return of their money they put the man in the _yamen_, and
being rich, paid the expected cumshaws, and in the course of time the
sum they demanded was extorted from the contractor. By that time the
_yamen_ officials had discovered that he was wealthy, and he was not
released until he was not only beggared, but his daughters had been
sold into slavery. The handful of snow thrown at the man became an
avalanche which overwhelmed him.
The magistrates are appointed for a term of three years, and count upon
receiving in cumshaws the first year as much as they paid in order to
secure the position; double that sum the second year, and the third
year double the second year’s income.
Is there any crime which justifies the State in flaying a woman to
death?
Perchance the visitor to a big Chinese city may happen on such an
execution in one of its streets. He may shut his eyes to the horrible
spectacle and pass by as the foreign resident does, or as a tourist he
may stay and watch, and as a souvenir buy at a German photographer’s a
set of snap-shots showing the various stages of the ghastly performance
of tearing the skin from the sentient flesh of a writhing human being
tied to the stake.
Only last September in modern Shanghai, a man was slowly starved to
death whilst exhibited in a wooden cage outside the gates of the city,
but only one English newspaper in the settlement thought the affair
called for mention. And Shanghai is the model settlement possessing a
municipal council which recently thought “shocking” an application to
permit newspapers to be sold in the streets!
A woman employed at one of the mills stole a small quantity of cotton
which she said she wrapped round her body in order to keep herself
warm; she was sentenced to 100 blows for this offence at the Mixed
Court, when the American assessor was on the bench with the Chinese
magistrate. The case is reported, without comment, in the _North China
Daily News_, January 20, 1904. This is a punishment which would not be
inflicted in England, and British mill owners in China ought to work
with conditions similar to those made in this country.
In another case, a British boy, name not published, was prosecuted
in the Consular Court for a long series of petty thefts from his
employers. In order not to spoil his future career he was ordered one
day’s imprisonment and immediately set free.
There are different punishments for an identical offence, the variation
being due to the nationality of the culprit. The penalty inflicted
upon a Chinese offender also varies in accordance with the nationality
of the accuser, or the assessor. The purpose of a European assessor
sitting conjointly with a Chinese magistrate is that a guilty person
shall not escape sentence, but the magistrate is not influenced by
Chinese law or the gravity of the offence so much as the consideration
of the penalty which will satisfy the foreigner. A convict may get 100,
200, or 500 blows, the number depending upon whether the assessor is
British, French, or German.
Generations of foreign intercourse, and the establishment of great
foreign settlements at her ports do not seem to have affected in the
least the essentially barbaric legal customs of China, or to have
ameliorated appreciably the condition of her people.
Missionary effort has not been much more successful. The very afternoon
that I sat with the Rev. John Ross in his beautiful home at Mukden,
outside the west gate of the city a woman of twenty-two was being
cruelly hacked into a thousand pieces before the eyes of an indifferent
concourse of idlers. For thirty years Mr. Ross has laboured valiantly
in Manchuria, but the customs, the laws and the barbarity of the people
continue as of old. And Mr. Ross is only one of some 4,000 missionaries
in China, men who strive and work on year after year, and hope, but
see no marked change in the masses, or prospect of changes to be
inaugurated by their rulers.
One reason for this failure is that Chinese converts are for the most
part men of poor station, men without power and possessing little or no
influence with the high officials. Indeed many of them are destitute,
the “rice-Christians” maintained by foreign charity, and despised by
their fellows.
The status of a Christian convert in China is similar to that of an
avowed atheist in this country. His relations plead with him and
reproach him, the bulk of the people contemn him, the officials despise
him and are not ready to help him. If persuasion will not win him back
to the conventions of the public his family try threats; the rage of
his ancestors at his apostasy, the dishonour he has brought upon them
and upon his living relatives; such wickedness as the gods will not
allow to go unpunished. If he remain obdurate they tell him of the fate
of other Christian converts, ask him if he wishes to be a tortured
martyr, hint that there is a strong secret body of the orthodox faith,
the old true believers of China, who mean to drive out of China the
foreign devils, and destroy all who believe as the foreigners believe,
and have forsaken the sacred faith of their forefathers and mock
the true religion. And the Chinaman, timid by nature, is influenced
at last; terrorized by these hints he goes to the missionary with a
story of a secret society of blood-thirsty vegetarians, the fearful
_tsiliti_, who are plotting to murder the missionaries and their
converts. The same story in various forms comes from so many converts
that the missionaries become alarmed, and write to the Consul, and
if the Consul has many such communications he too takes fright and
requests the presence of a gunboat, or some other drastic remedy, and
at once you have all the ingredients of an ugly international incident.
The Chinaman, of course, has not much chance if he tries to set the law
in motion against the foreigner. He has just to suffer what they put on
him.
When I was in Tientsin there was a coolie staggering under a prodigious
load of bricks, slowly pushing the barrow to which he was harnessed
along the correct side of the road, when a Cossack rode up from behind,
and finding a carriage coming the other way, so not allowing him room
to pass until it had gone by the barrow, he commenced to lash the bare
coolie with his whip for no other reason than that he was where he was,
and where he had a perfect right to be. An Englishman interfered, but
it was in the French Concession, and there, no more than in the British
or the Russian Concessions, would the coolie be likely to obtain
redress.
The future of the Chinese empire is of less moment than the fate of the
Chinese people. After so many attempts have been made to coerce the
Government, and to influence the people, it seems hopeless that any
plan will succeed.
But this war affords an opportunity for an experiment which I hope will
be tried--the establishment of a real Japanese control in China, in the
reconquered province of South Manchuria. Let the Japanese prove there
that they are not only warriors, but of a race capable of raising the
eastern people to their own level, able to instil new ideals, to imbue
others with self-respect. Let them establish in their midst courts of
justice, and schools such as exist in Japan. In the country they have
won let them govern. In China as in Japan let there be only one law,
applicable both to natives and foreigners; let there be fostered a
respect for justice and for authority; let there be a beginning made
with the real work of regenerating China, and the work done where the
Peking official will be powerless to interfere with its development, to
check its growth, or to stamp it out and reduce Manchuria to the level
of the China of to-day. If this be the outcome of the war, then Japan,
as a true civilizing force, will not have expended her strength and her
treasure in vain.
Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.
The Russo-Japanese Conflict
Its Causes and Issues
By K. ASAKAWA, PH.D.
_Lecturer on the Civilization and History of East Asia at Dartmouth College;
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us a soldier who united the loftiest daring with the most watchful
humanity and responsive affection, whose lofty ambition had no alloy
of selfishness and no taint of the feeling of rivalry.”--_Blackwood’s
Magazine._
The Second Afghan War 1878-80
By COLONEL H. B. HANNA. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. With Maps and Plans. Vol. I.,
10/- net; Vol. II., 15/- net.
Mr. S. S. Thorburn says in _The Speaker_: “His work has great value.
For soldiers the volume is full of instruction.”
“A book which soldiers and all men having authority should read.
An extremely accurate, painstaking, and clear account of a very
unsatisfactory war.”--_Pall Mall Gazette._
Transcriber’s Notes.
Italic text is indicated with _underscores_, bold text with =equals=.
Small/mixed capitals have been replaced with ALL CAPITALS.
Evident typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected
silently. Inconsistent spelling/hyphenation has been normalised.
A Half-title page has been discarded.
Text in the list of illustrations has been amended to match the
illustration captions.
The text "and Manchuria" has been added to the heading for Chapter II,
to match the table of contents.
A "tipped-in" addendum has been appended to the list of illustrations.
To improve text flow, illustrations have been relocated between
paragraphs.