CHINA AND THE TEEMING MILLIONS OF ASIA
China is potentially the greatest Power on the western littoral of the
Pacific. Her enormous territory has vast agricultural and mineral
resources. Great rivers give easy access to some of the best of her
lands. A huge population has gifts of patient labour and craftsmanship
that make the Chinaman a feared competitor by every White worker in the
world. In courage he is not inferior to the Japanese, as General Gordon
found. In intelligence, in fidelity and in that common sense which
teaches "honesty to be the best policy," the Chinaman is far superior to
the Japanese.
The Chinaman has been outstripped up to the present by the Japanese in
the acquirement of the arts of Western civilisation, not because of his
inferior mind, but because of his deeper disdain. He has stood aside
from the race for world supremacy on modern lines, not as one who is too
exhausted for effort, but as one who is too experienced to try. China
has in the past experimented with many of the vaunted ideas and methods
of the new civilisation, from gunpowder to a peerage chosen by
competitive examination, and long ago came to the conclusion that all
was vanity and vexation of spirit.
The Chinaman is not humble; not content to take an inferior place in the
world. He has all the arrogance of Asia. The name of "Heavenly Kingdom"
given to the land by its inhabitants, the grandiose titles assumed by
its rulers, the degrading ceremonies which used to be exacted from
foreigners visiting China as confessions of their inferiority to the
Celestial race, show an extravagant pride of birth. In the thirteenth
century, when Confucian China, alike with Christian Europe, had to fear
the growing power of the fanatical Mohammedans, a treaty of alliance was
suggested between France and China: and the negotiations were broken off
because of the claim of China that France should submit to her as a
vassal, by way of preliminary. The Chinaman's idea of his own importance
has not abated since then. His attitude towards the "foreign devils" is
still one of utter contempt. But at present that contempt has not the
backing of naval and military strength, and so in practice counts for
nothing.
China cherishes the oldest of living civilisations. Her legendary
history dates back to 2404 B.C., her actual history to 875 B.C., when a
high state of mental culture had been reached, and a very advanced
material civilisation also; though some caution is necessary in
accepting the statements that at that time China made use of gunpowder,
of the mariner's compass, and of printing type. But certainly weaving,
pottery, metal-working, and pictorial art flourished. The noble height
to which philosophy had reached centuries before the Christian Era is
shown by the records of Confucianism and Taoism. Political science had
been also cultivated, and there were then Chinese Socialists to claim
that "everyone should sow and reap his own harvest."
There seem to have been at least two great parent races of the present
population of the Chinese Empire--a race dwelling in the valleys and
turning its thoughts to peace and the arts, and a race dwelling on the
Steppes and seeking joy in war. It was the Tartar and Mongol tribes of
the Steppes which sent wave after wave of attack westward towards
Europe, under chiefs the greatest of whom was Gengis Khan. But it was
the race of the valleys, the typical Chinese, stolid, patient,
laborious, who established ultimate supremacy in the nation, gradually
absorbing the more unruly elements and producing modern China with its
contempt for military glory. But the Mongols by their wars left a deep
impression on the Middle Ages, founding kingdoms which were tributary to
China, in Persia, Turkestan and as far west as the Russian Volga.
The earliest record of European relations with China was in the seventh
century, when the Emperor Theodosius sent an embassy to the Chinese
Emperor. In the thirteenth century Marco Polo visited the Court of the
Grand Khan at Pekin, and for a while fairly constant communication
between Europe and China seems to have been maintained, the route
followed being by caravan across Asia. Christian missionaries settled in
China, and in 1248 there is a record of the Pope and the Grand Khan
exchanging greetings.
When towards the end of the fourteenth century the Ming dynasty
supplanted the Mongol dynasty, communication with Europe was broken off
for more than a century. But in 1581 Jesuit missionaries again entered
China, and the Manchu dynasty of the seventeenth century at first
protected the Christian faith and seemed somewhat to favour Western
ideas. But in the next century the Christian missions were persecuted
and almost extirpated, to be revived in 1846. Since that date "the
mailed fist" of Europe has exacted from the Chinese a forced tolerance
of European trade and missions.
But Chinese prejudice against foreign intrusion was given no reason for
abatement by the conduct of the European Powers, as shown, for example,
in the Opium War of 1840. That prejudice, smouldering for long, broke
out in the savage fanaticism of the Boxer outbreak of 1900, which led to
a joint punitive expedition by the European Powers, in conjunction with
Japan. China had the mortification then of being scourged not only by
the "white devils" but also by an upstart Yellow Man, who was her near
and her despised neighbour. All China that knew of the expedition to
Pekin of 1900 and understood its significance, seems to have resolved
then on some change of national policy involving the acceptance of
European methods, in warfare at least. Responding to the stimulus of
Japan's flaunting of her success in acquiring the ways of the European,
China began to consider whether there was not after all something useful
to be learned from the Western barbarians. The older Asiatic country has
a deep contempt for the younger: but proof of Japan's superior position
in the world's estimation had become too convincing to be disregarded.
China saw Japan treated with respect, herself with contumely. She found
herself humiliated in war and in diplomacy by the upstart relative. The
reason was plain, the conclusion equally plain. China began to arm and
lay the foundations of a modern naval and military system. The national
spirit began to show, too, in industry. Chinese capital claimed its
right and its duty to develop the resources of China.
Early in the twentieth century "modern ideas" had so far established
themselves in China that Grand Councillor Chang Chih-tung was able,
without the step being equivalent to suicide, to memorialise the Throne
with these suggestions for reform:--
1. That the Government supply funds for free education.
2. That the Army and Navy be reorganised without delay.
3. That able and competent officials be secured for Government services.
4. That Princes of the blood be sent abroad to study.
5. That arsenals for manufacturing arms, ammunition, and other weapons
of war, and docks and shipbuilding yards for constructing warships, be
established without delay.
6. That only Chinese capital be invested in railway and mining enterprises.
7. That a date be given for the granting of a Constitution.
Chang Chih-tung may be taken as the representative of the new school of
Chinese thought. His book _Chuen Hsueh Pien_ (China's Only Hope) is the
Bible of the moderate reformers. He states in that book:--
"In order to render China powerful, and at the same time preserve our
own institutions, it is absolutely necessary that we should utilise
Western knowledge. But unless Chinese learning is made the basis of
education, and a Chinese direction given to thought, the strong will
become anarchists, and the weak slaves. Thus the latter end will be
worse than the former.... Travel abroad for one year is more profitable
than study at home for five years. It has been well said that seeing is
a hundred times better than hearing. One year's study in a foreign
institution is better than three years in a Chinese. Mencius remarks
that a man can learn foreign things best abroad; but much more benefit
can be derived from travel by older and experienced men than by the
young, and high mandarins can learn more than petty officials.... Cannot
China follow the _viam mediam_, and learn a lesson from Japan? As the
case stands to-day, study by travel can be better done in that country
than in Europe, for the following reasons.... If it were deemed
advisable, some students could afterwards be sent to Europe for a fuller
course."
After the Russian-Japanese War Chinese students went to Japan in
thousands, and these students laid the foundation of the Republican
school of reformers which is the greatest of the forces striving for
mastery in China to-day. The flow of students to Japan was soon checked
by the then Chinese Government, for the reason that Republican
sentiments seemed to be absorbed in the atmosphere of Japan, despite the
absolutism of the Government there. In the United States and in Europe
the Chinese scholar was able, however, to absorb Western knowledge
without acquiring Republican opinions! There is some suggestion of a
grim jest on the part of the Chinese in holding to this view. It recalls
Boccaccio's story of the Christian who despaired of the conversion of
his Jewish friend when he knew that he contemplated a visit to Rome. The
Chinese seemed to argue that a safe precaution against acquiring
Republican views is to live in a Republican country. Chinese confidence
in the educational advantages offered by the United States has been
justified by results. American-educated Chinese are prominent in every
phase of the Reform movement in China, except Republican agitation. The
first Reform Foreign Minister in China, the first great native Chinese
railway builder, the first Chinese women doctors, the greatest native
Chinese banker, are examples of American training.
It would be outside the scope of this work to attempt to deal in any way
exhaustively with the present position in China. What the ultimate
outcome will be, it is impossible to forecast. At present a Republic is
in process of formation, after the baby Emperor through the Dowager
Empress had promulgated an edict stating:
"We, the Emperor, have respectfully received the following Edict from
her Majesty the Dowager:
"In consequence of the uprising of the Republican Army, to which the
people in the Provinces have responded, the Empire seethed liked a
boiling cauldron, and the people were plunged in misery. Yuan Shih-kai,
therefore, commanded the despatch of Commissioners to confer with the
Republicans with a view to a National Assembly deciding the form of
government. Months elapsed without any settlement being reached. It is
now evident that the majority of the people favour a Republic, and, from
the preference of the people's hearts, the will of Heaven is
discernible. How could we oppose the desires of millions for the glory
of one family? Therefore, the Dowager Empress and the Emperor hereby
vest the sovereignty in the people. Let Yuan Shih-kai organise with
full powers a provisional Republican Government, and let him confer with
the Republicans on the methods of establishing a union which shall
assure the peace of the Empire, and of forming a great Republic, uniting
Manchus, Chinese, Mongols, Mohammedans, and Tibetans."
But all men whom I have met who have had chances of studying Chinese
conditions at first hand, agree that the Chinese national character is
not favourable to the permanent acceptance of Republican ideas. If there
is one thing which seems fixed in the Chinese character it is
ancestor-worship, and that is essentially incompatible with
Republicanism.[3] But what seems absolutely certain is that a new China
is coming to birth. Slowly the great mass is being leavened with a new
spirit.
Now a new China, armed with modern weapons, would be a terrible engine
of war. A new China organised to take the field in modern industry would
be a formidable rival in neutral markets to any existing nation. The
power of such a new China put at the disposal of Japan could at least
secure all Asia for the Asiatics and hold the dominant position in the
Northern Pacific. Possibly it could establish a world supremacy, unless
such a Yellow union forced White Races to disregard smaller issues and
unite against a common foe. Fortunately a Chinese-Japanese alliance is
not at present in the least likely. The Chinese hatred of the Japanese
is of long standing and resolute, though it is sometimes dissembled. The
Japanese have an ill-concealed contempt for the Chinese. Conflict is
more likely than alliance between the two kindred races.
Further, the Chinese will probably move far more slowly on any path of
aggression than did the Japanese, for they are intensely pacific. For
many generations they have been taught to regard the soldier as
contemptible, the recluse scholar as admirable. Ideas of overseas Empire
on their part are tempered by the fanatic wish of every Chinaman that
his bones should rest in his native land. It will only be in response to
enormous pressure that China will undertake a policy of adventure.
That pressure is now being engendered from within and without. From
without it is being engendered by insolent robberies of territory and
other outrages on the part of foreign Powers. More particularly of late
has the modern arrogance of Japan impressed upon the old-fashioned
arrogance of China the fact that the grave scholar, skilled in all the
lore of Confucius, is a worthless atom beside a drilled coolie who can
shoot straight. From within the pressure is being engendered by the
great growth of population. For some time past infanticide has been
common in China as a Malthusian check. Now European missionaries seek to
discourage that. European medicine further sets itself to teach the
Yellow Man to cope with plague, smallpox, and cholera, while European
engineering abates the terrors of flood and of crop failure.
Machiavelli would have found prompting for some grim aphorism in this
curious eagerness of Europe to teach the teeming millions of Asia to rid
themselves of checks on their greater growth, and thus to increase the
pressure of the Asiatic surplus seeking an outlet at the expense of
Europe. It is in respect to the urgent demand for room for an
overcrowding population that there exists alike to China and Japan the
strongest stimulus to warlike action in the Pacific. China in particular
wants colonies, even if they be only such colonies as provide
opportunities for her coolies to amass enough wealth to return in old
age to China. From the fertile basin of China there have been overflow
waves of humanity ever since there has been any record of history.
Before the era of White settlement in the Pacific the Chinese population
had pushed down the coast of Asia and penetrated through a great part of
the Malay Archipelago, an expansion not without its difficulties, for
the fierce Malay objected to the patient Chinaman and often the Chinaman
remained to fertilise but not to colonise the alien soil. By some
Providential chance neither the Chinaman nor the Japanese ever reached
to Australia in the early days of the Pacific, though there are records
of Japanese fishermen getting as far as the Hawaiian Group, a much more
hazardous journey. If the Asiatics had reached Australia the great
island would doubtless have become the southern province of Asia, for
its native population could have offered no resistance to the feeblest
invader.
In the past, however, the great natural checks kept the Asiatic
populations within some limits. Internal wars, famines, pestilences,
infanticide--all claimed their toll. Nature exercised on man the checks
which exist throughout the whole animal kingdom, and which in some
regions of biology are so stern that it is said that only one adult
survives of 5,000,000 spawn of a kind of oyster. Now European influence
is steadily directed in Asia to removing all obstacles to the growth of
population. When the Asiatics wish to fight among themselves Europe is
inclined to interfere (as at the time of the Boxer outbreak in China),
on the ground that a state of disorder cannot be tolerated. In India
internecine warfare is strictly prohibited by the paramount Power. In
Japan all local feuds have been healed by pressure from Europe and
America, and the fighting power of the people concentrated for external
warfare.
Not alone by checking internal warfare does Europe insist on encouraging
the growth of the Asiatic myriads. European science suggests railways,
which make famine less terrible; flood prevention works which save
millions of lives. European moralists make war on such customs as the
suicide of young widows and the exposure for death of female children.
But, far more efficacious than all, European scientists come forward to
teach to the Asiatics aseptic surgery, inoculation, and the rest of the
wisdom of preventive and curative medicine. Sometimes Nature is stronger
than science. The Plague, for instance, still claims its millions. But
even the Plague diminishes before modern medical science.
In his _Health and Empire_ (1911), Dr Francis Fremantle tells of the
campaign against plague in India. He writes:
"The death-rate from plague in 1904 in the Lahore and Amritsar districts
in which I worked was 25 per 1000. Over 1,000,000 Indians died of plague
in 1904, over 1,000,000 in 1905; in 1906, 332,000, and it was thought
the end was in sight. But 640,000 died in the first four months of 1907;
in 1908, 321,000 died; in 1909 only 175,000, but in 1910 again very
nearly 500,000, and this year more than ever. The United Provinces had
barely been reached by the epidemic in 1904; now with a population equal
to that of the United Kingdom, they have been losing 20,000 every week;
and the Punjab 34,000 in one week, 39,000, 47,000, 54,000, 60,000 and so
on--over 430,000 in the first four months of this year in a population
of 25,000,000. Imagine Great Britain and Ireland losing the same
proportion--over 1,000,000 from plague in half a year. And India as a
whole has in fifteen years lost over 7,000,000 from plague. Why wonder
at her unrest?
"What, then, can the Government do? Extermination of rats is impossible;
disinfection on a large scale is impracticable; evacuation of villages
cannot be done voluntarily on any universal scale; the Government will
not apply compulsion, and such evacuation is quite useless without a
rigid cordon of police or military that will prevent communication
between one infected village and others not yet infected. A cordon, it
has been proved over and over again, cannot be maintained; the native
who wishes to pass it has only to present some official with a cautious
rupee. Extermination of rats in an Asiatic country has often failed; but
here is without a shadow of doubt the key to the problem. The methods
formerly adopted had been to give a capitation grant for every rat
brought to the appointed place, and before long it was found, for
instance in Bombay, that an extensive trade had grown up in the breeding
of rats, whereby, at a few annas apiece from the Government, many
families were able to sustain a comfortable existence.... But since
sentence on the rat-flea has been pronounced for the murder of 7,000,000
persons and over, the best method for his extermination will not be far
off.
"It is often debated whether even half-measures are worth being
continued. Professor W. J. Simpson, in his exhaustive monograph on the
plague, and in 1907 in his _Croonian Lectures_, has shown how in history
epidemics of plague have come and gone in different countries with long
intervals between them, often of one hundred and thirty to one hundred
and fifty years. In the eighteenth century, for instance, India seems to
have been almost free of the plague, but early in the seventeenth
century it suffered severely. The present epidemic is assuming, as far
as we can trust previous records, unprecedented proportions; probably
after a few years it will die out again.
"An occasional cynic may argue that, since we have saved so many
thousands of lives annually from famine and wars, it may be just as well
to let the plague take their place. To such a pessimistic and inhuman
conclusion it is impossible for one moment to submit. It may be that for
economic reasons some parts of the Indian Empire would be happier if
their population were less dense; but it does not follow that we should
allow Death to stalk uninterrupted, unopposed, and apparently without
limit, throughout the country. Economics apart, we may yet be absolutely
convinced, whether as doctors or as statesmen, that it is our mission,
our duty, to protect the populations included under British rule to the
best of our ability against every scourge as it may arise; and therefore
it is urgent that such measures as we have be pushed forward with the
utmost vigour."
That tells (in a more convincing way, because of the impatience of the
doctor, accustomed to European conditions, at the slow result of work in
India) how resolute is the White Man's campaign against the Yellow Man's
death-rate in one part of Asia. Such a campaign in time must succeed in
destroying the disease against which it is directed and thus adding
further to the fecundity of Asia.
Nor is the fight against diseases confined to those parts of Asia under
direct White rule. The cult of White medicine spreads everywhere,
carried by Japanese as well as by European doctors and missionaries. Its
effects already show in the enormous increase of Asiatic population,
proved wherever definite figures are available. That growth adds year by
year to the danger that the Yellow Man will overrun the Pacific and
force the White Man to a second place in the ocean's affairs, perhaps
not even leaving him that.
An older and sterner school of thought would have condemned as fatuous
the White Races' humanitarian nurture of the Yellow Races. But the
gentler thought of to-day will probably agree with Dr Fremantle that the
White Man cannot "allow Death to stalk uninterrupted, unopposed" even
through the territory of our racial rivals. But we must give serious
thought to the position which is thus created, especially in view of the
"levelling" racial tendency of modern weapons of warfare. China has a
population to-day, according to Chinese estimates, of 433,000,000;
according to an American diplomatist's conclusions, of not much more
than half that total. But it is, without a doubt, growing as it never
grew before; and modern reform ideas will continue to make it grow and
render the menace of its overflow more imminent.
At present the trend of thought in China is pacific. But it is not
possible to be sure that there will not be a change in that regard with
the ferment of new ideas. The discussion to-day of a Republic in China,
of womanhood suffrage in China, of democratic socialism in China,
suggests that the vast Empire, which has been for so long the example of
conservative immobility most favoured by rhetoricians anxious to
illustrate a political argument, may plunge into unexpected adventures.
China has in the past provided great invaders of the world's peace. She
may in the near future turn again to the thoughts of military adventure.
The chance of this would be increased if in the settlement of her
constitutional troubles a long resort to arms were necessary. Then the
victorious army, whether monarchical or Republican, might aspire to win
for a new China recognition abroad.
It is a fortunate fact that supposing a revival of militancy in China, a
revival which is possible but not probable, the first brunt of the
trouble would probably fall upon Japan. At the present moment Japan is
the most serious offender against China's national pride. As the
conqueror of Corea and the occupier of Manchuria, she trespasses most of
all foreign Powers on the territories and the rights of China. After
Japan, Russia would have to expect a demand for a reckoning; Great
Britain would come third and might come into collision with an
aggressive China, either because of the existence of such settlements as
Hong Kong or because of the Thibetan boundary. A China in search of
enemies, however, would find no lack of good pretexts for quarrelling.
There are, for instance, the offensive and humiliating restrictions on
Chinese immigration of the United States, of Canada, New Zealand and
Australia.
I find it necessary, however, to conclude that so far as the near
future is concerned, China will not take a great warrior part in the
determining of Pacific issues. She may be able to enforce a more
wholesome respect for her territorial integrity: she may push away some
intruders: she may even insist on a less injurious and contemptuous
attitude towards her nationals abroad. But she will not, I think, seek
greatness by a policy of aggression. There is no analogy between her
conditions and those of Japan at the time of the Japanese acceptance of
European arts and crafts. Japan at the time was a bitterly quarrelsome
country: she turned from civil to foreign war. China has been
essentially pacific for some centuries. Japan was faced at the outset of
her national career with the fact that she had to expand her territory
or else she could not hope to exist as a great Power. China has within
her own borders all that is necessary for national greatness.
If at a later date the Chinese, either from a too-thorough study of the
lore of European civilisation, or from the pressure of a population
deprived of all Malthusian checks and thus finding an outlet absolutely
necessary, should decide to put armies and navies to work for the
obtaining of new territory, the peril will be great to the White Man.
Such a Chinese movement could secure Asia for the Asiatics, and might
not stop at that point. But that danger is not of this decade, though
it may have to be faced later by the White Power which wins the
supremacy of the Pacific.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] A very clear statement as to the position in China was that given in
London during January of 1912 by Mr Kwei Chih, a secretary of the
Chinese Legation.
"None of the dynasties in China," he said, "has ever maintained a
tyrannical _régime_ for any length of time, least of all the Manchu
dynasty, the policy of which has consisted rather of a mixture of
paternalism and obscurantism than of hard repression of the people....
The present unanimous desire of the Chinese to remove the Manchu dynasty
arises solely from the fact that the Chinese have fully awakened to the
realisation that only a policy of thoroughgoing Westernisation can save
China from disruption and partition. The removal of the Manchu dynasty
is of no greater national moment to China than would be the fall of a
Cabinet to any European country. Personal animus enters, indeed, so
little into the determination of the new Chinese _régime_ that the
question of setting apart lands for the deposed dynasty, and even of
granting it ex-territorial privileges, may eventually be accepted in the
way of a solution. In regard to the adoption of Republican ideas, it may
be said that the Chinese statesman does not understand the meaning of
the Republican principle, and if a new _régime_ should declare itself
Republican, its Republicanism will be of a much more strongly democratic
type than any known to Europe. It will even be more popular in its
constitution than the American, and will far more fully seek the
development of the common weal than most bureaucratic systems bearing
the name. The suggested application of Christian principles to the new
_régime_ may be regarded as wholly impossible. Confucianism, by which
China stands or falls, is a secular philosophy, the only semblance of a
spiritual or religious tenet in which is the principle of
ancestor-worship, and though a theocratic idea is admitted in the
creation of the universe, the question of a life hereafter is wholly
excluded from its teachings."