It is an open secret that the southern movement has not received the undivided support of all the forces present in Canton which are opposed to the northern government. Tang Shao Yi, for example, was notable for his absence at the time of the inauguration, having found it convenient to visit the graves of his ancestors at that time. The provincial governor, General Chen Kwang Ming, was in favor of confining efforts to the establishment of provincial autonomy and the encouragement of similar movements in other provinces, looking forward to an eventual federal, or confederated, government of at least all the provinces south of the Yangtse. Many of his generals wanted to postpone action until Kwantung province had made a military alliance with the generals in the other southwestern provinces, so as to be able to resist the north should the latter undertake a military expedition. Others thought the technical legal argument for the new move was being overworked, and while having no objections to an out and out revolutionary movement against Peking, thought that the time for it had not yet come. They are counting on Chang Tso Lin's attempting a monarchical restoration and think that the popular revulsion against that move would create the opportune time for such a movement as has now been prematurely undertaken. However in spite of reports of open strife freely circulated by British and Peking government newspapers, most of the opposition elements are now loyally suppressing their opposition and supporting the government of Sun Yat Sen. A compromise has been arranged by which the federal government will confine its attention to foreign affairs, leaving provincial matters wholly in the hands of Governor Chen and his adherents. There is still room for friction however, especially as to the control of revenues, since at present there are hardly enough funds for one administration, let alone two.

2.

The members of the new southern government are strikingly different in type from those one meets elsewhere whether in Peking or the provincial capitals. The latter men are literally mediaeval when they are not late Roman Empire, though most of them have learned a little modern patter to hand out to foreigners. The former are educated men, not only in the school sense and in the sense that they have had some special training for their jobs, but in the sense that they think the ideas and speak the language current among progressive folk all over the world. They welcome inquiry and talk freely of their plans, hopes and fears. I had the opportunity of meeting all the men who are most influential in both the local and federal governments; these conversations did not take the form of interviews for publication, but I learned that there are at least three angles from which the total situation is viewed.

Governor Chen has had no foreign education and speaks no English. He is distinctively Chinese in his training and outlook. He is a man of force, capable of drastic methods, straightforward intellectually and physically, of unquestioned integrity and of almost Spartan life in a country where official position is largely prized for the luxuries it makes possible. For example, practically alone among Chinese provincial officials of the first rank he has no concubines. Not only this, but he proposed to the provincial assembly a measure to disenfranchise all persons who have concubines. (The measure failed because it is said its passage would have deprived the majority of the assemblymen of their votes.) He is by all odds the most impressive of all the officials whom I have met in China. If I were to select a man likely to become a national figure of the first order in the future, it would be, unhesitatingly, Governor Chen. He can give and also command loyalty—a fact which in itself makes him almost unique.

His views in gist are as follows: The problem of problems in China is that of real unification. Industry and education are held back because of lack of stability of government, and the better elements in society seclude themselves from all public effort. The question is how this unification is to be obtained. In the past it has been tried by force used by strong individuals. Yuan Shi Kai tried and failed; Feng Kuo Chang tried and failed; Tuan Chi Jui tried and failed. That method must be surrendered. China can be unified only by the people themselves, employing not force but the methods of normal political evolution. The only way to engage the people in the task is to decentralize the government. Futile efforts at centralization must be abandoned. Peking and Canton alike must allow the provinces the maximum of autonomy; the provincial capitals must give as much authority as possible to the districts, and the districts to the communities. Officials must be chosen by and from the local districts and everything must be done to encourage local initiative. Governor Chen's chief ambition is to introduce this system into Kwantung province. He believes that other provinces will follow as soon as the method has been demonstrated, and that national unity will then be a pyramid built out of the local blocks.

With extreme self-government in administrative matters, Governor Chen will endeavor to enforce a policy of centralized economic control. He says in effect that the west has developed economic anarchy along with political control, with the result of capitalistic domination and class struggle. He wishes to avert this consequence in China by having government control from the first of all basic raw materials and all basic industries, mines, transportation, factories for cement, steel, etc. In this way the provincial authorities hope to secure an equable industrial development of the province, while at the same time procuring ample revenues without resorting to heavy taxation. Since almost all the other governors in China are using their power, in combination with the exploiting capitalists native and foreign, to monopolize the natural resources of their provinces for private profit, it is not surprising that Governor Chen's views are felt to be a menace to privilege and that he is advertised all over China as a devout Bolshevist. His views have special point in view of British efforts to get an economic stranglehold upon the province—efforts which are dealt with in a prior chapter.

Another type of views lays chief stress upon the internal political condition of China. Its adherents say in effect: Why make such a fuss about having two governments for China, when, in point of fact, China is torn into dozens of governments? In the north, war is sure to break out sooner or later between Chang Tso Lin and his rivals. Each military governor is afraid of his division generals. The brigade generals intrigue against the division leaders, and even colonels are doing all they can to further their personal power. The Peking government is a stuffed sham, taking orders from the military governors of the provinces, living only on account of jealousies among these generals, and by the grace of foreign diplomatic support. It is actually bankrupt, and this actual state will soon be formally recognized. The thing for us to do is to go ahead, maintain in good faith the work of the revolution, give this province the best possible civil administration; then in the inevitable approaching debacle, the southern government will be ready to serve as the nucleus of a genuine reconstruction. Meantime we want, if not the formal recognition of foreign governments, at least their benevolent neutrality.

Dr. Sun still embodies in himself the spirit of the revolution of 1911. So far as that was not anti-Manchu it was in essence nationalistic, and only accidentally republican. The day after the inauguration of Dr. Sun, a memorial was dedicated to the seventy-two patriot heroes who fell in an abortive attempt in Canton to throw off the Manchu yoke, some six months before the successful revolt. The monument is the most instructive single lesson which I have seen in the political history of the revolution. It is composed of seventy-two granite blocks. Upon each is engraved: Given by the Chinese National League of Jersey City, or Melbourne, or Mexico, or Liverpool, or Singapore, etc. Chinese nationalism is a product of Chinese migration to foreign countries; Chinese nationalism on foreign shores financed the revolution, and largely furnished its leaders and provided its organization. Sun Yat Sen was the incarnation of this nationalism, which was more concerned with freeing China—and Asia—from all foreign domination than with particular political problems. And in spite of the movement of events since that day, he remains essentially at that stage, being closer in spirit to the nationalists of the European irredentist type than to the spirit of contemporary young China. A convinced republican, he nevertheless measures events and men in the concrete by what he thinks they will do to promote the independence of China from foreign control, rather than by what they will do to promote a truly democratic government. This is the sole explanation that can be given for his unfortunate coquetting a year ago with the leaders of the now fallen Anfu Club. He allowed himself to be deceived into thinking that they were ready to turn against the Japanese if he would give them his support; and his nationalist imagination was inflamed by the grandiose schemes of little Hsu for the Chinese subjugation of Mongolia.

More openly than others, Dr. Sun admits and justifies the new southern government as representing a division of China. If, he insists, it had not been for the secession of the south in 1917, Japan would now be in virtually complete control of all China. A unified China would have meant a China ready to be swallowed whole by Japan. The secession localized Japanese aggressions, made it evident that the south would fight rather than be devoured, and gave a breathing spell in which public opinion in the north rallied against the Twenty-one Demands and against the military pact with Japan. Thus it saved the independence of China. But, while it checked Japan, it did not checkmate her. She still expects with the assistance of Chang Tso Lin to make northern China her vassal. The support which foreign governments in general and the United States in particular are giving Peking is merely playing into the hands of the Japanese. The independent south affords the only obstacle which causes Japan to pause in her plan of making northern China in effect a Japanese province. A more than usually authentic rumor says that upon the occasion of the visit of the Japanese consul general to the new president (no other foreign official has made an official visit), the former offered from his government the official recognition of Dr. Sun as president of all China, if the latter would recognize the Twenty-one Demands as an accomplished fact. From the Japanese standpoint the offer was a safe one, as this acceptance of Japanese claims is the one thing impossible to the new government. But meantime the offer naturally confirms the nationalists of Dr. Sun's type in their belief that the southern split is the key to maintaining the political independence of China; or, as Dr. Sun puts it, that a divided China is for the time being the only means to an ultimately independent China.

These views are not given as stating the whole truth of the situation. They are ex parte. But they are given as setting forth in good faith the conceptions of the leaders of the southern movement and as requiring serious attention if the situation of China, domestic and international, is to be understood. Upon my own account, and not simply as expressing the views of others, I have reached a conclusion quite foreign to my thought before I visited the south. While it is not possible to attach too much importance to the unity of China as a part of the foreign policy of the United States, it is possible to attach altogether too much importance to the Peking government as a symbol of that unity. To borrow and adapt the words of one southern leader, while the United States can hardly be expected to do other than recognize the Peking as the de facto government, there is no need to coddle that government and give it face. Such a course maintains a nominal and formal unity while in fact encouraging the military and corrupt forces that keep China divided and which make for foreign aggression.

In my opinion as the outcome of two years' observation of the Chinese situation, the real interests of both China and the United States would be served if, in the first place, the United States should take the lead in securing from the diplomatic body in Peking the serving of express notice upon the Peking government that in no case would a restoration of the monarchy be recognized by the Powers. This may seem in America like an unwarranted intervention in the domestic affairs of a foreign country. But in fact such intervention is already a fact. The present government endures only in virtue of the support of foreign Powers. The notice would put an end to one kind of intrigue, one kind of rumor and suspicion, which is holding industry and education back and which is keeping China in a state of unrest and instability. It would establish a period of comparative quiet in which whatever constructive forces exist may come to the front. The second measure would be more extreme. The diplomacy of the United States should take the lead in making it clear that unless the promises about the disbanding of the army, and the introduction of general retrenchment are honestly and immediately carried out, the Powers will pursue a harsh rather than a benevolent policy toward the Peking government, insisting upon immediate payment of interest and loans as they fall due and holding up the government to the strictest meeting of all its obligations. The notification to be effective might well include a virtual threat of withdrawal of recognition in case the government does not seriously try to put its profuse promises into execution. It should also include a definite discouragement of any expenditures designed for military conquest of the south.

Diplomatic recognition of the southern government is out of the question at present. It is not out of the question to put on the financial screws so that the southern government will be allowed space and time to demonstrate what it can do by peaceful means to give one or more provinces a decent, honest and progressive civil administration. It is unnecessary to enumerate the obstacles in the way of carrying out such a policy. But in my judgment it is the only policy by which the Great Powers will not become accomplices in perpetuating the weakness and division of China. It is the most straightforward way of meeting whatever plans of aggression Japan may entertain.

May, 1921.



VI

Federalism in China

The newcomer in China in observing and judging events usually makes the mistake of attaching too much significance to current happenings. Occurrences take place which in the western world would portend important changes—and nothing important results. It is not easy to loosen the habit of years; and so the visitor assumes that an event which is striking to the point of sensationalism must surely be part of a train of events having a definite trend; some deep-laid plan must be behind it. It takes a degree of intellectual patience added to time and experience to make one realize that even when there is a rhythm in events the tempo is so retarded that one must wait a long time to judge what is really going on. Most political events are like daily changes in the weather, fluctuations back and forth which may seriously affect individuals but which taken one by one tell little about the movement of the seasons. Even the occurrences which are due to human intention are usually sporadic and casual, and the observer errs by reading into them too much plot, too comprehensive a scheme, too farsighted a plan. The aim behind the event is likely to be only some immediate advantage, some direct increase of power, the overthrow of a rival, the grasping at greater wealth by an isolated act, without any consecutive or systematic looking ahead.

Foreigners are not the only ones who have erred, however, in judging the Chinese political situation of the last few years. Beginning two years ago, one heard experienced Chinese with political affiliations saying that it was impossible for things to go on as they were for more than three months longer. Some decisive change must occur. Yet outwardly the situation has remained much the same not only for three months but for two years, the exception being the overthrow of the Anfu faction a year ago. And this occurrence hardly marked a definite turn in events, as it was, to a considerable extent, only a shifting of power from the hands of one set of tuchuns to another set. Nevertheless at the risk of becoming a victim of the fallacy which I have been setting forth, I will hazard the remark that the last few months have revealed a definite and enduring trend—that through the diurnal fluctuations of the strife for personal power and wealth a seasonal political change in society is now showing itself. Certain lines of cleavage seem to show themselves, so that through the welter of striking, picturesque, sensational but meaningless events, a definite pattern is revealed.

This pattern is indicated by the title of this chapter—a movement toward the development of a federal form of government. In calling the movement one toward federalism, there is, however, more of a jump into the remote future than circumstances justify. It would be more accurate, as well as more modest, to say that there is a well defined and seemingly permanent trend toward provincial autonomy and local self-government accompanied by a hope and a vague plan that in the future the more or less independent units will recombine into the United or Federated States of China. Some who look far into the future anticipate three stages; the first being the completion of the present secessionist movement; the second the formation of northern and southern confederations respectively; the third a reunion into a single state.

To go into the detailed evidence for the existence of a definite and lasting movement of this sort would presume too much on the reader's knowledge of Chinese geography and his acquaintance with specific recent events. I shall confine myself to quite general features of the situation. The first feature is the new phase which has been assumed by the long historic antagonism of the north and the south. Roughly speaking, the revolution which established the republic and overthrew the Manchus represented a victory for the south. But the transformation during the last five years of the nominal republic into a corrupt oligarchy of satraps or military governors or feudal lords has represented a victory for the north. It is a significant fact, symbolically at least, that the most powerful remaining tuchun or military governor in China—in some respects the only powerful one who has survived the vicissitudes of the last few years—namely Chang Tso Lin, is the uncrowned king of the three Manchurian provinces. The so-called civil war of the north and south is not, however, to be understood as a conflict of republicanism located in the south and militarism in the north. Such a notion is directly contrary to facts. The "civil war" till six or eight months ago was mainly a conflict of military governors and factions, part of that struggle for personal power and wealth which has been going on all over China.

But recently events have taken a different course. In four of the southern provinces, tuchuns who seemed all powerful have toppled over, and the provinces have proclaimed or tacitly assumed their independence of both the Peking and the former military Canton governments—the province in which Canton situated being one of the four. I happened to be in Hunan, the first of the southerly provinces to get comparative independence, last fall, not long after the overthrow of the vicious despot who had ruled the province with the aid of northern troops. For a week a series of meetings were held in Changsha, the capital of the province. The burden of every speech was "Hunan for the Hunanese." The slogan embodies the spirit of two powers each aiming at becoming the central authority; it is a conflict of the principle of provincial autonomy, represented by the politically more mature south, with that of militaristic centralization, represented by Peking.

As I write, in early September (1921), the immediate issue is obscured by the fight which Wu Pei Fu is waging with the Hunanese who with nominal independence are in aim and interest allied with the south. If, as is likely, Wu Pei Fu wins, he may take one of two courses. He may use his added power to turn against Chang Tso Lin and the northern militarists which will bring him into virtual alliance with the southerners and establish him as the antagonist of the federal principle. This is the course which his earlier record would call for. Or he may yield to the usual official lust for power and money and try once more the Yuan Shi Kai policy of military centralization with himself as head, after trying out conclusions with Chang Tso Lin as his rival. This is the course which the past record of military leaders indicates. But even if Wu Pei Fu follows precedent and goes bad, he will only hasten his own final end. This is not prophecy. It is only a statement of what has uniformly happened in China just at the moment a military leader seemed to have complete power in his grasp. In other words, a victory for Wu Pei Fu may either accelerate or may retard the development of provincial autonomy according to the course he pursues. It cannot permanently prevent or deflect it.

The basic factor that makes one sure that this trend toward local autonomy is a reality and not merely one of those meaningless shiftings of power which confuse the observer, is that it is in accord with Chinese temperament, tradition and circumstance. Feudalism is past and gone two thousand years ago, and at no period since has China possessed a working centralized government. The absolute empires which have come and gone in the last two millenniums existed by virtue of non-interference and a religious aura. The latter can never be restored; and every episode of the republic demonstrates that China with its vast and diversified territories, its population of between three hundred and fifty and four hundred million, its multitude of languages and lack of communications, its enormous local attachments sanctified by the family system and ancestral worship, cannot be managed from a single and remote centre. China rests upon a network of local and voluntary associations cemented by custom. This fact has given it its unparallelled stability and its power to progress even under the disturbed political conditions of the past ten years. I sometimes think that Americans with their own traditional contempt for politics and their spontaneous reliance upon self-help and local organization are the ones who are naturally fitted to understand China's course. The Japanese with their ingrained reliance upon the state have continually misjudged and misacted. The British understand better than we do the significance of local self-government; but they are misled by their reverence for politics so that they cannot readily find or see government when it does not take political form.

It is not too much to say that one great cause for the overthrow of the Manchus was the fact that because of the pressure of international relations they attempted to force, especially in fiscal matters, a centralization upon the provinces wholly foreign to the spirit of the people. This created hostility where before there had been indifference. China may possibly not emerge from her troubles a unified nation, any more than a much smaller and less populous Europe emerged from the break-up of the Holy Roman Empire, a single state. Indeed one often wonders, not that China is divided, but that she is not much more broken up than she is. But one thing is certain. Whatever progress China finally succeeds in making will come from a variety of local centres, not from Peking or Canton. It will be effected by means of associations and organizations which even though they assume a political form are not primarily political in nature.

Criticisms are passed, especially by foreigners, upon the present trend of events. The criticisms are more than plausible. It is evident that the present weakness of China is due to her divided condition. Hence it is natural to argue that the present movement being one of secession and general disintegration will increase the weakness of the country. It is also evident that many of China's troubles are due to the absence of any efficient administrative system; it is reasonable to argue that China cannot get even railways and universal education without a strong and stable central government. There is no doubt about the facts. It is not surprising that many friends of China deeply deplore the present tendency while some regard it as the final accomplishment of the long predicted breakup of China. But remedies for China's ills based upon ignoring history, psychology and actual conditions are so utopian that it is not worth while to argue whether or not they are theoretically desirable. The remedy of China's troubles by a strong, centralized government is on a par with curing disease by the expulsion of a devil. The evil of sectionalism is real, but since it is real it cannot be dealt with by trying a method which implies its non-existence. If the devil is really there, he will not be exorcized by a formula. If the trouble is internal, not due to an external demon, the disease can be cured only by using the factors of health and vigor which the patient already possesses. And in China while these factors of recuperation and growth are numerous, they all exist in connection with local organizations and voluntary associations. The increasing volume of the cry that the "tuchuns must go" comes from the provincial and local interests which have been insulted and violated by a nominally centralized but actually chaotic situation. After this negative work is completed, the constructive rebuilding of China can proceed only by utilizing local interests and abilities. In China the movement will be the opposite of that which occurred in Japan. It will be from the periphery to the centre.

Another objection to the present tendency has force especially from the foreign standpoint. As already stated, the efforts of the Manchu dynasty in its latter days to enhance central power were due to international pressure. Foreign nations treated Peking as if it were a capital like London, Paris or Berlin, and in its efforts to meet foreign demands it had to try to become such a centre. The result was disaster. But foreign nations still want to have a single centre which may be held responsible. And subconsciously, if not consciously, this desire is responsible for much of the objection of foreign nationals to the local autonomy movement. They well know that it is going to take a long time to realize the ideal of federation, and meantime where and what is to be the agency responsible for diplomatic relations, the enforcing of indemnities and the securing of concessions?

In one respect the secessionist tendency is dangerous to China herself as well as inconvenient to the powers. It will readily stimulate the desire and ability of foreign nations to interfere in China's domestic affairs. There will be many centres at which to carry on intrigues and from which to get concessions instead of one or two. There is also danger that one foreign nation may line up with one group of provinces, and another foreign nation with another group, so that international friction will increase. Even now some Japanese sources and even such an independent liberal paper as Robert Young's Japan Chronicle are starting or reporting the rumor that the Cantonese experiment is supported by subsidies supplied by American capitalists in the hope of economic concessions. The rumor was invented for a sinister purpose. But it illustrates the sort of situation that may come into existence if there are several political centres in China and one foreign nation backs one and another nation, another.

The danger is real enough. But it cannot be dealt with by attempting the impossible—namely checking the movement toward local autonomy, even though disintegration may temporarily accompany it. The danger only emphasizes the fundamental fact of the whole Chinese situation; that its essence is time. The evils and troubles of China are real enough, and there is no blinking the fact that they are largely of her own making, due to corruption, inefficiency and absence of popular education. But no one who knows the common people doubts that they will win through if they are given time. And in the concrete this means that they be left politically alone to work out their own destiny. There will doubtless be proposals at the Pacific Conference to place China under some kind of international tutelage. This chapter and the events connected with the tendency which it reports will be cited as showing this need. Some of the schemes will spring from motives that are hostile to China. Some will be benevolently conceived in a desire to save China from herself and shorten her period of chaos and confusion. But the hope of the world's peace, as well as of China's freedom, lies in adhering to a policy of Hands Off. Give China a chance. Give her time. The danger lies in being in a hurry, in impatience, possibly in the desire of America to show that we are a power in international affairs and that we too have a positive foreign policy. And a benevolent policy of supporting China from without, instead of promoting her aspirations from within, may in the end do China about as much harm as a policy conceived in malevolence.

July, 1921.



VII

A Parting of the Ways for America

1

The realities of American policy in China and toward China are going to be more seriously tested in the future than they ever have been in the past. Japanese papers have been full of protests against any attempt by the Pacific Conference to place Japan on trial. Would that American journals were full of warnings that America is on trial at the Conference as to the sincerity and intelligent goodwill behind her amiable professions. The world will not stop with the Pacific Conference; the latter, however important, will not arrest future developments, and the United States will continue to be on trial till she has established by her acts a permanent and definite attitude. For the realities of the situation cannot be exhausted in any formula or in any set of diplomatic agreements, even if the Conference confounds the fears of pessimists and results in a harmonious union of the powers in support of China's legitimate aspirations for free political and economic growth.

The Conference, however, stands as a symbol of the larger situation; and its decisions or lack of them will be a considerable factor in the determination of subsequent events. Sometimes one is obliged to fall back on a trite phrase. We are genuinely at a parting of the ways. Even if we should follow in our old path, there would none the less be a parting of the ways, for we cannot consistently tread the old path unless we are animated by a much more conscious purpose and a more general and intelligent knowledge of affairs than have controlled our activities in the past.

The ideas expressed by an English correspondent about the fear that America is soon to be an active source of danger in the Far East are not confined to persons on foreign shores. The prevailing attitude in some circles of American opinion is that called by President Hibben cynical pessimism. All professed radicals and many liberals believe that if our course has been better in the past it has been due to geographical accidents combined with indifference and with our undeveloped economic status. Consequently they believe that since we have now become what is called a world-power and a nation which exports instead of importing capital, our course will soon be as bad as that of any of the rest of them. In some quarters this opinion is clearly an emotional reaction following the disillusionments of Versailles. In others, it is due to adherence to a formula: nothing in international affairs can come out of capitalism and America is emphatically a capitalistic country. Whether or not these feelings are correct, they are not discussable; neither an emotion nor an absolute formula is subject to analysis.

But there are specific elements in the situation which give grounds for apprehension as to the future. These specific elements are capable of detection and analysis. An adequate realization of their nature will be a large factor in preventing cynical apprehensions from becoming actual. This chapter is an attempt at a preliminary listing, inadequate, of course, as any preliminary examination must be. While an a priori argument based on a fatalistic formula as to how a "capitalistic nation" must conduct itself does not appeal to me, there are nevertheless concrete facts which are suggested by that formula. Part of our comparatively better course in China in the past is due to the fact that we have not had the continuous and close alliance between the State Department and big banking interests which is found in the case of foreign powers. No honest well-informed history of developments in China could be written in which the Russian Asiatic Bank, the Foreign Bank of Belgium, the French Indo-China Bank and Banque Industrielle, the Yokohama Specie Bank, the Hongkong-Shanghai Bank, etc., did not figure prominently. These banks work in the closest harmony, not only with railway and construction syndicates and big manufacturing interests at home, but also with their respective foreign offices. It is hardly too much to say that legations and banks have been in most important matters the right and left hands of the same body. American business interests have complained an the past that the American government does not give to American traders abroad the same support that the nationals of other states receive. In the past these complaints have centred largely about actual wrongs suffered or believed to have been suffered by American business undertakings carried on in a foreign country. With the present expansion of capital and of commerce, the same complaints and demands are going to be made not with reference to grievances suffered, but with reference to furthering, to pushing American commercial interests in connection with large banking groups. It would take a credulous person to deny the influence of big business in domestic politics. As we become more interested in commerce and banking enterprises what assurance have we that the alliance will not be transferred to international politics?

It should be noted that the policy of the open door as affirmed by the great powers—and as frequently violated by them—even if it be henceforth observed in good faith, does not adequately protect us from this danger. The open door policy is not primarily a policy about China herself but rather about the policies of foreign powers toward one another with respect to China. It demands equality of economic opportunity for different nations. Were it enforced, it would prevent the granting of monopolies to any one nation: there is nothing in it to render impossible a conjoint exploitation of China by foreign powers, an organized monopoly in which each nation has its due share with respect to others. Such an organization might conceivably reduce friction among the great powers, and thereby reduce the danger of future wars—as long as China herself is impotent to go to war. The agreement might conceivably for a considerable time be of benefit to China herself. But it is clear that for the United States to become a partner in any such arrangement would involve a reversal of our historic policy in the Far East. It might be technically consistent with the open door policy, but it would be a violation of the larger sense in which the American people has understood and praised that ideal. He is blind who does not see that there are forces making for such a reversal. And since we are all more or less blind, an opening of our eyes to the danger is one of the conditions of its not being realized.

One of the forces which is operative is indicated by the phrase that an international agreement on an economic and financial basis might be of value to China herself. The mere suggestion that such a thing is possible is abhorrent to many, especially to radicals. There seems to be something sinister in it. So it is worth explaining how and why it might be so. In the first place, it would obviously terminate the particularistic grabbing for "leased" territory, concessions and spheres of influence which has so damaged China. At the present time, the point of this remark lies in its implied reference to Japan, as at one time it might have applied to Russia. Fear of Japan's aims in China is not confined to China; the fear is widespread. An international economic arrangement may therefore be plausibly presented as the easiest and most direct method of relieving China of the Japanese menace. For Japan to stay out would be to give herself away; if she came in, it would subject Japanese activities to constant scrutiny and control. There is no doubt that part of the fear of Japan regarding the Pacific Conference is due to a belief that some such arrangement is contemplated. The case is easily capable of such presentation as to make it appeal to Americans who are really friendly to China and who haven't the remotest interest in her economic exploitation.

The arrangement would, for example, automatically eliminate the Lansing-Ishii agreement with its embarrassing ambiguous recognition of Japan's special interests in China.

The other factor is domestic. The distraction and civil wars of China are commonplaces. So is the power exercised by the military governors and generals. The greater one's knowledge, the more one perceives how intimately the former evil is dependent upon the latter. The financial plight of the Chinese government, its continual foreign borrowings which threaten bankruptcy in the near future, depend upon militaristic domination and wild expenditure for unproductive purposes and squeeze. Without this expense, China would have no great difficulty henceforth in maintaining a balance in her budget. The retardation of public education whose advancement—especially in elementary schools—is China's greatest single need is due to the same cause. So is the growth in official corruption which is rapidly extending into business and private life.

In fact, every one of the obstacles to the progress of China is connected with the rule of military factions and their struggles with one another for complete mastery. An economic international agreement among the great powers can be made which would surely reduce and possibly eliminate the greatest evils of "militarism." Many liberal Chinese say in private that they would be willing to have a temporary international receivership for government finance, provided they could be assured of its nature and the exact date and conditions of its termination—a proviso which they are sensible enough to recognize would be extremely difficult of attainment. American leadership in forming and executing any such scheme would, they feel, afford the best reassurance as to its nature and terms. Under such circumstances a plausible case can be made out for proposals which, under the guise of traditional American friendship for China, would in fact commit us to a reversal of our historic policy.

There are radicals abroad and at home who think that our entrance into a Consortium already proves that we have entered upon the road of reversal and who naturally see in the Pacific Conference the next logical step. I have previously stated my own belief that our State Department proposed the Consortium primarily for political ends, as a means of checking the policy pursued by Japan of making unproductive loans to China in return for which she was getting an immediate grip on China's natural resources and preparing the way for direct administrative and financial control when the day of reckoning and foreclosure should finally come. I also said that the Consortium was between two stools, the financial and the political and that up to the present its chief value had been negative and preventive, and that jealousy or lack of interest by Japan and Great Britain in any constructive policy on the part of the Consortium was likely to maintain the same condition. I have seen no reason thus far to change my mind on this point, nor in regard to the further belief that probably the interests of China in the end will be best served by the continuation of this deterrent function. But the question is bound to arise: why continue the Consortium if it isn't doing anything? The pressure of foreign powers interested in the exploitation of China and of impatient American economic interests may combine to put an end to the present rather otiose existence led by the Consortium. The two stools between which the past action of the American government has managed to swing the Consortium may be united to form a single solid bench.

At the risk of being charged with credulous gullibility, or something worse, I add that up to the present time the American phase of the Consortium hasn't shown perceptible signs of becoming a club exercised by American finance over China's economic integrity and independence. I believe the repeated statements of the American representative that he himself and the interests he represents would be glad if China proved her ability to finance her own public utilities without resorting to foreign loans. This belief is confirmed by the first public utterance of the new American minister to China who in his reference to the Consortium laid emphasis upon its deterrent function and upon the stimulation it has given to Chinese bankers to finance public utilities. And it is the merest justice to Mr. Stevens, the American representative, to say that he represents the conservative investment type of banker, not the "promotion" type, and that thus far his great concern has been the problem of protecting the buyer of such securities as are passed on by the banks to the ultimate investor—so much so that he has aroused criticism from American business interests impatient for speedy action. But there is a larger phase of the Consortium concerning which I think apprehensions may reasonably be entertained.

Suppose, if merely by way of hypothesis, that the American government is genuinely interested in China and in making the policy of the open door and Chinese territorial and administrative integrity a reality, not merely a name, and suppose that it is interested in doing so from an American self-interest sufficiently enlightened to perceive that the political and economic advancement of the United States is best furthered by a policy which is identical with China's ability to develop herself freely and independently: what then would be the wise American course? In short, it would be to view our existing European interests and issues (due to the war) and our Far Eastern interests and issues as parts of one and the same problem. If we are actuated by the motive hypothetically imputed to our government and we fail in its realization, the chief reason will be that we regard the European question and the Asiatic problem as two different questions, or because we identify them from the wrong end.

Our present financial interest in Europe is enormous. It involves not merely foreign governmental loans but a multitude of private advances and commitments. These financial entanglements affect not merely our industry and commerce but our politics. They involve much more immediately pressing concerns than to our Asiatic relations, and they involve billions where the latter involve millions. The danger under such conditions that our Asiatic relations will be sacrificed to our European is hardly fanciful.

To make this abstract statement concrete, the firm of bankers, J. P. Morgan & Co., which is most heavily involved in European indebtedness to the United States, is the firm which is the leading spirit in the Consortium for China. It seems almost inevitable that the Asiatic problem should look like small potatoes in comparison with the European one, especially as our own industrial recuperation is so closely connected with European relations, while the Far East cuts a negligible figure. To my mind the real danger to set out upon selfish exploitation of China: intelligent self-interest, tradition and the fact that our chief asset in China is our past freedom from a predatory course, dictate a course of cooperation with China. The danger is that China will be subordinated and sacrificed because of primary preoccupation with the high finance and politics of Europe, that she will be lost in the shuffle.

The European aspect of the problem can be made more concrete by reference to Great Britain in particular. That country suffers from the embarrassment of the Japanese alliance. She has already made it sufficiently clear that she would like to draw America into the alliance, making it tripartite, since that would be the easiest way of maintaining good relations with both Japan and the United States. There is no likelihood that any such step will be consummated. But British diplomacy is experienced and astute. And by force of circumstances our high finance has contracted a sort of economic alliance with Great Britain. There is no wish to claim superior virtue for America or to appeal to the strong current of anti-British sentiment. But the British foreign office exists and operates apart from the tradition of liberalism which has mainly actuated English domestic politics. It stands peculiarly for the Empire side of the British Empire, no matter what party is in the saddle in domestic affairs. Every resource will be employed to bring about a settlement at the Pacific Conference which, even though it includes some degree of compromise on the part of Great Britain, will bend the Asiatic policy of the United States to the British traditions in the Far East, instead of committing Great Britain to combining with the United States in making a reality of the integrity of China to which both countries are nominally committed. It does not seem an extreme statement to say that the immediate issues of the Conference depend upon the way in which our financial commitments in Europe are treated, either as reasons for our making concessions to European policy or on the other hand as a means of securing an adherence of the European powers to the traditional American policy.

A publicist in China who is of British origin and a sincere friend of China remarked in private conversation that if the United States could not secure the adherence of Great Britain to her Asiatic policy by persuasion (he was deploring the Japanese alliance) she might do so by buying it—through remission of her national debt to us. It is not necessary to resort to the measure so baldly suggested. But the remark at least suggests that our involvement in European, especially British, finance and politics may be treated in either of two ways for either of two results.

2

That the Chinese people generally speaking has a less antagonistic feeling toward the United States than towards other powers seems to me an undoubted fact. The feeling has been disturbed at divers times by the treatment of the Chinese upon the Pacific coast, by the exclusion act, by the turning over of our interest in the building of the Peking-Canton (or Hankow) railway to a European group, by the Lansing-Ishii agreement, and finally by the part played by President Wilson in the Versailles decision regarding Shantung. Those disturbances in the main, however, have made them dubious as to our skill, energy and intelligence rather than as to our good-will. Americans, taken individually and collectively, are to the Chinese—at least such was my impression—a rather simple folk, taking the word in its good and its deprecatory sense. In noting the Chinese reaction to the proposed Pacific Conference, it was interesting to see the combination of an almost unlimited hope that the United States was to lead in protecting them from further aggressions and in rectifying existing evils, with a lack of confidence, a fear that the United States would have something put over on it.

Friendly feeling is of course mainly based upon a negative fact, the fact that the United States has taken no part in "leasing" territories, establishing spheres and setting up extra-national post-offices. On the positive side stands the contribution made by Americans to education, especially medical, and that of girls and women, and to philanthropy and relief. Politically, there are the early service of Burlinghame, the open door policy of John Hay (though failure to maintain it in fact while securing signatures to it on paper is a considerable part of the Chinese belief in our defective energy) and the part played by the United States in moderating the terms of the settlement of the Boxer outbreak, in addition to a considerable number of minor helpful acts. China also remembers that we were the only nation to take exception to the treaties embodying the Twenty-one Demands. While our exception was chiefly made on the basis of our own interests which these treaties might injuriously affect, a sentiment exists that the protest was a pledge of assistance to China when the time should be opportune for raising the whole question. And without doubt the reservation made on May 16, 1915, by our State Department is a strong card at the forthcoming Conference if the Department wishes to play it.

From an American standpoint, the open door principle represents one of the only two established principles of American diplomacy, the other being, of course, the Monroe Doctrine. In connection with sentimental or idealistic associations which have clustered about it, it constitutes us in some vague fashion in both the Chinese and American public opinion a sort of guardian or at least spokesman of the interests of China in relation to foreign powers. Although, as was pointed out in a former chapter, the open door policy directly concerns other nations in their relation to China rather than China herself, yet the violation of the policy by other powers has been so frequent and so much to the detriment of China, that American interest, prestige and moral sentiment are now implicated in such an enforcement of it as will redound to the advantage of China.

Citizens of other countries are often irritated by a suggestion of such a relationship between the United States and China. It presents itself as a proclamation of superior national virtue under cover of which the United States aims to establish its influence in China at the expense of other countries. The irritation is exasperated by the fact that the situation as it stands is an undoubted economic and political asset of the United States in China. We may concede without argument any contention that the situation is not due to any superior virtue but rather to contingencies of history and geography—in which respect it is not unlike many things that pass for virtues with individuals. The contention may be admitted without controversy because it is not pertinent to the main issue. The question is not so much how the state of affairs came about as what it now is, how it is to be treated and what consequences are in flow from it. It is a fact that up to the present an intelligent self-interest of America has coincided with the interests of a stable, independent and progressive China. It is also a fact that American traditions and sentiments have gathered about this consideration so that now there is widespread conviction in the American people of moral obligations of assistance and friendly protection owed by us to China. At present, no policy can be entered upon that does not bear the semblance of fairness and goodwill. We have at least so much protection against the dangers discussed in the prior chapter.

Among Americans in China and presumably at home there is a strong feeling that we should adopt for the future stronger and more positive policies than we have maintained in the past. This feeling seems to me fraught with dangers unless we make very clear to ourselves in just what respects we are to continue and make good in a more positive manner our traditional policy. To some extent our past policy has been one of drifting. Radical change in this respect may go further than appears upon the surface in altering other fundamental aspects of our policy. What is condemned as drifting is in effect largely the same thing that is also praised as non-interference. A detailed settled policy, no matter how "constructive" it may appear to be, can hardly help involving us in the domestic policies of China, an affair of factions and a game which the Chinese understand and play much better than any foreigners. Such an involvement would at once lessen a present large asset in China, aloofness from internal intrigues and struggles.

The specific protests of Chinese in this country—mainly Cantonese—against the Consortium seem to me mainly based on misapprehension. But their general attitude of opposition nevertheless conveys an important lesson. It is based on a belief that the effect of the Consortium will be to give the Peking government a factitious advantage in the internal conflict which is waging in China, so that to all intents and purposes it will mark a taking of sides on our part. It is well remembered that the effect of the "reorganization" loan of the prior Consortium—in which the United States was not a partner—was to give Yuan Shi Kai the funds which seated him and the militarist faction after him, firmly in the governmental saddle. Viewing the matter from a larger point of view than that of Canton vs. Peking, the most fundamental objection I heard brought by Chinese against the Consortium was in effect as follows: The republican revolution in China has still to be wrought out; the beginning of ten years ago has been arrested. It remains to fight it out. The inevitable effect of increased foreign financial and economic interest in China, even admitting that its industrial effect was advantageous to China, would be to create an interest in stabilizing China politically, which in effect would mean to sanctify the status quo, and prevent the development of a revolution which cannot be accomplished without internal disorders that would affect foreign investments unfavorably. These considerations are not mentioned for the sake of throwing light on the Consortium: they are cited as an illustration of the probability that a too positive and constructive development of our tradition of goodwill to China would involve us in an interference with Chinese domestic affairs injurious to China's welfare, to that free and independent development in which we profess such interest.

But how, it will be asked, are we to protect China from foreign depredations, particularly those of Japan, how are we to change our nominal goodwill into a reality, if we do not enter much more positive and detailed policies? If there was in existence at the present time any such thing as a diplomacy of peoples as distinct from a diplomacy of governments, the question would mean something quite different from what it now means. As things now stand the people should profoundly distrust the politicians' love for China. It is too frequently the reverse side of fear and incipient hatred of Japan, colored perhaps by anti-British feeling.

There should be no disguising of the situation. The aggressive activities of other nations in China, centering but not exhausted at this time in Japan, are not merely sources of trouble to China but they are potential causes of trouble in our own international relationships. We are committed by our tradition and by the present actualities of the situation to attempting something positive for China as respects her international status, to live up to our responsibility is a most difficult and delicate matter. We have on the one side to avoid getting entangled in quasi-imperialistic European policies in Asia, whether under the guise of altruism, of putting ourselves in a position where we can exercise a more effective supervision of their behavior, or by means of economic expansion. On the other side, we have to avoid drifting into that kind of covert or avowed antagonism to European and Japanese imperialism which will only increase friction, encourage a combination especially of Great Britain and Japan—-or of France and Japan—against us, and bring war appreciably nearer.

We need to bear in mind that China will not be saved from outside herself. Even if by a successful war we should relieve China from Japanese encroachments, from all encroachments, China would not of necessity be brought nearer her legitimate goal of orderly and prosperous internal development. Apart from the question of how far war can now settle any fundamental issues without begetting others as dangerous, China of all countries is the one where settlement by force, especially by outside force, is least applicable, and most likely to be enormously disserviceable. China is used to taking time to deal with her problems: she can neither understand not profit by impatient methods of the western world which are profoundly alien to her genius. Moreover a civilization which is on a continental scale, which is so old that the rest of us are parvenus in comparison, which is thick and closely woven, cannot be hurried in its development without disaster. Transformation from within is its sole way out, and we can best help China by trying to see to it that she gets the time she needs in order to effect this transformation, whether or not we like the particular form it assumes at any particular time.

A successful war in behalf of China would leave untouched her problems of education, of factional and sectional forces, of political immaturity showing itself in present incapacity for organization. It would affect her industrial growth undoubtedly, but in all human probability for the worse, increasing the likelihood that she would enter upon an industrialization which would repeat the worst evils of western industrial life, without the immunities, resistances and remedial measures which the West has evolved. The imagination cannot conceive a worse crime than fastening western industrialism upon China before she has developed within herself the meaning of coping with the forces which it would release. The danger is great enough as it is. War waged in China's behalf by western powers and western methods would make the danger practically irresistible. In addition we should gain a permanent interest in China which is likely to be of the most dangerous character to ourselves. If we were not committed by it to future imperialism, we should be luckier than we have any right to hope to be. These things are said against a mental protest to admitting even by implication the prospect of war with Japan, but it seems necessary to say them.

These remarks are negative and vague as to our future course. They imply a confession of lack of such wisdom as would enable me to make positive definite proposals. But at least I have confidence in the wisdom and goodwill of the American and other peoples to deal with the problem, if they are only called into action. And the first condition of calling wisdom and goodwill into effective existence is to recognize the seriousness of the problem and the utter futility of trying to force its solution by impatient and hurried methods. Pro-Japanese apologetics is dangerous; it obscures the realities of the situation. An irritated anti-Japanism that would hasten the solution of the Chinese problem merely by attacking Japan is equally fatal to discovering and applying a proper method.

More specifically and also more generically, proper publicity is the greatest need. If, as Secretary Hughes has intimated, a settlement of the problems of the Pacific is made a condition of arriving at an agreement regarding reduction and limitation of armaments, it is likely that the Conference might better never be held. In eagerness to do something which will pass as a settlement, either China's—and Siberia's—interests will be sacrificed in some unfair compromise, or irritation and friction will be increased—and in the end so will armaments. In any literal sense, it is ridiculous to suppose that the problems of the Pacific can be settled in a few weeks, or months—or years. Yet the discussion of the problems, in separation from the question of armament, may be of great use. For it may further that publicity which is a pre-condition of any genuine settlement. This involves the public in diplomacy. But it also involves a wider publicity, one which will enlighten the world about the facts of Asia, internal and international.

Scepticism about Foreign Offices, as they are at present conducted, is justified. But scepticism about the power of public opinion, if it can be aroused and instructed, to reshape Foreign Office policies means hopelessness about the future of the world. Let everything possible be done to reduce armament, if only to secure a naval holiday on the part of the three great naval powers, and if only for the sake of lessening taxation. Let the Conference on Problems devote itself to discussing and making known as fully and widely as possible the element and scope of those problems, and the fears—or should one call them hopes?—of the cynics will be frustrated. It is not so important that a decision in the American sense of the Yap question be finally and forever arrived at, as it is that the need of China and the Orient in general for freer and fuller communications with the rest of the world be made clear—and so on, down or up the list of agenda. The commercial open door is needed. But the need is greater that the door be opened to light, to knowledge and understanding. If these forces will not create a public opinion which will in time secure a lasting and just settlement of other problems, there is no recourse save despair of civilization. Liberals can do something better than predicting failure and impugning motives. They can work for the opened door of open diplomacy, of continuous and intelligent inquiry, of discussion free from propaganda. To shirk this responsibility on the alleged ground that economic imperialism and organized greed will surely bring the Conference to failure is supine and snobbish. It is one of the factors that may lead the United States to take the wrong course in the parting of the ways.

October, 1921.

THE END