The Far Eastern Problem
I
EARLY in August, the Washington correspondent of the Philadelphia Ledger announced that it was the intention of the United States Government to ‘make the settlement of the Far Eastern situation a condition precedent to the discussion of the curtailment of armaments.’ If this be so, supreme importance must attach to whatever scheme of settlement is eventually framed and proposed by the State Department. Seldom, indeed, have the prospects of peace in our time been more directly dependent upon the knowledge and breadth of vision of a few statesmen. America, because of her unchallengeable wealth and resources, holds the master-key to the gates of peace and war in the regions of the Pacific. If, at this juncture, her foreign policy is based upon recognition of the realities of the Far Eastern situation (including recognition of the instinct of self-preservation which underlies Japan’s expansion on the Asiatic mainland), the Conference should pave the way, at least, to what President Harding calls ‘approximate disarmament,’ and thus relieve the world of the burden and danger of acute naval rivalry.
At the outset it may be asked, why should America seek to make an international agreement for disarmament dependent upon the settlement of the Far Eastern question, more than upon t he removal of any other potential cause of conflict? The answer lies obviously in the fact that every nation’s foreign policy is inevitably inspired by the fundamental instinct of survival, which compels It to seek and preserve, at all costs, national security. Also, that many things have happened during the past ten years to lead public opinion in the United States to the belief that America’s security is menaced by Japan’s rapid rise to the front rank of world powers and by the activities and ambitions of her military party.
When, after the Russo-Japanesc War, the United States played the part of host and peacemaker at the making of the Treaty of Portsmouth (1905), the general sentiment of the American nation was one of unmistakable sympathy and friendship for Japan; but since then much has occurred to change this feeling into one of apprehension and increasing antagonism. First came the Russo-Japanese Entente of 1907, followed by the definite agreement of July, 1910, which made the Treaty of Portsmouth a dead letter and definitely abrogated the principle of the Open Door in Manchuria and Mongolia. Next came the humiliating fiasco of Mr. Secretary Knox’s scheme for the neutralization of railways in Manchuria; and finally, the annexation of Korea by Japan. But more significant than all these indications of Japan’s activities as a world power was her increasing insistence on the principle of racial equality, combined with the assertion of rights of migration to the American continent. Thus, before the revolution in China and the great war in Europe gave Japan new and unexpected opportunities for advancing her outposts and accelerating her economic penetration in the comparatively undeveloped regions of the Asiatic mainland adjacent to Korea, the Yellow Peril (as proclaimed by Homer Lea in the Valor of Ignorance) had begun to loom largely on the political horizon, and public opinion in America had become definitely imbued with the conviction that Japan’s ambitions must involve a challenge to Western civilization and, ultimately, a claim to the mastery of the Pacific.
The course of events during and since the great war—the elimination of Russia as an Asiatic power, the increasing chaos in China, and the swift rise of the United States to leadership in the council of nations— has served to increase the points of contact and to accentuate the economic and political differences between the two nations which confront each other across the Pacific. The racial aspect of the antagonism thus created was emphasized at Versailles, and finds expression today in a widely prevalent belief in the idea of a ‘color war,’ wherein the forces of Pan-Asia (and even Pan-Africa), organized and led by Japan, will challenge and overthrow the dominant white race. Mr. Lothrop Stoddard’s Rising Tide of Color, and other works of the same kind, have given form and substance to a Yellow Peril spectre, as fantastic in its way as Kaiser Wilhelm’s famous vision of China’s warlike millions ranged in battle array against the pale legions of the West.
The limits of this article do not permit, nor does the occasion require, any detailed exposition of the absurdity of this Pan-Asian delusion. In propounding their scheme for the settlement of the Far Eastern question to the Washington Conference, the American State Department and the British Foreign Office will have work and to spare in dealing with the actual and immediate difficulties of the situation. The theory of profound racial antagonism is obviously incompatible with the proclaimed intention of the British and American governments to substitute a spirit of cooperation and mutuality for the intense spirit of competition in solving the problems which arise out of the political and financial disorganization of China. It is a theory that cannot be invoked without weakening the whole Anglo-American position in the matter of the Asiatic Exclusion acts, and stultifying their essential justification, which rests on economic, as distinct from racial, grounds.
Mr. Lloyd George has recently declared that the foreign policy of Great Britain, as a partly Asiatic empire, ‘can never range itself in any sense upon the differences of race and civilization between East and West. It would be fatal to the Empire. No greater calamity can overtake the world than any further accentuation of its divisions upon the lines of race. We look confidently to the Government and people of the United States for their understanding and sympathy in this respect. Friendly coöperation with the United States is for us a cardinal principle, dictated by what seems to us the proper nature of things, dictated by instinct quite as much as by reason and by common sense.’
Mr, Lloyd George’s words undoubtedly express the sentiments of the great majority of his countrymen. Every discussion of the question of the AngloJapanese Alliance, by the Imperial Conference, in Parliament, and in the press, has served to emphasize the general opinion that the treaty should be renewed, but in a form that will give no umbrage, and evoke no misgivings, in the United States. The Australian Premier has declared that ‘Australia’s safety lies in a renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, and that it is her bounden duty to use every means at her disposal to effect such a modus vivendi as will secure it in a form agreeable to the United States.’ On a later occasion, Mr. Hughes expressed the opinion (which has found wide support in the British press) that, in the event of a tripartite understanding being reached between America, Great Britain, and Japan, dealing with the Far East and with disarmament, there would be no necessity for a renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.
II
As matters now stand, the first thing necessary, to remove the immediate difficulties and dangers of the Far Eastern situation, and to diminish the causes of friction between Japan and the Lnited States, is the conclusion of an international agreement for the restoration, by concerted action, of the powers of law and order in China. Unless steps are taken, and that speedily, to this end, there can be no prospect of any permanent settlement of the Far Eastern question. American participation in such an agreement, and in an‘International Council’ to carry it into effect, is a solution that presents obvious difficulties; nevertheless, it is the only one that affords practical means of carrying out the American idea of friendly cooperation, and the only way of putting an end to the chaos of misrule in China, in a spirit of genuine friendship for the Chinese people. Failing active American participation, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, renewed under conditions consistent with the Covenant of the League of Nations, would appear to offer the only alternative solution of the problem; the only one, at all events, that would provide England with the leverage necessary to secure the future maintenance of the Open Door for trade, a revision of the Shantung question, and the settlement of other points of difference in the Far East.
Assuming that the first desideratum for the Washington Conference is a spirit of harmony and helpfulness between the representatives of those powers, whose ultimate object is the limitation of armaments, the decision to invite China’s participation in the Conference, though diplomatically and theoretically sound, is calculated, in practice, to frustrate the ends desired. For there is already ample evidence in the press, here and in the United States, that China’s representatives on this occasion will conform faithfully to their traditional policy of setting one barbarian against another, and will do everything in their power to make the Conference an arena of enmity and suspicion. All the undeniable eloquence and intelligence of that highly vocal element of Young China which professes its present belief in American institutions and ideals will be concentrated in an appeal to the chivalrous support of the American people, and this appeal will no doubt be powerfully supported by many of the missionary societies and the Y.M.C.A., which naturally sympathize with the aspirations of their pupils and protégés to become the dominant force in Chinese politics. There is already evidence that the public utterances of adroit diplomats and lawyers like Mr. Wellington Koo and Dr. Wang, and the press propaganda. conducted by Putnam Weale, and other foreigners in Chinese pay, to which Professor Dewey’s distinguished reputation lends additional force, have achieved considerable results in the direction indicated; that is to say, they have created an atmosphere of hostility toward Japan, and toward the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, in the United States. Something of the effect of China’s propaganda and appeals may even be discerned in the dispatches of the State Department that form part of the correspondence antecedent to the establishment of the International Financial Consortium last year.
Briefly stated, the object of the American Government, as expressed in these dispatches, was to eliminate all special claims in particular spheres of interest in China and to throw open the whole
country, including Manchuria and Mongolia, without reserve, to the combined activities of the Consortium. The British Government, at the outset, gave friendly support to this proposal; but inasmuch as it conflicted obviously with certain accomplished facts and recorded pacts, it was possible to do so only by concurring vaguely in the benevolent argument that, ‘with the establishment of the Consortium, a new era was about to dawn, in which conditions have changed, and that the powers therefore propose henceforward to work together in harmonious and friendly coöperation, rather than in competition.’
The Japanese Ambassador’s reply to the dispatch in which Lord Curzon supported this argument tactfully refrained from discussing the practical effects of the ‘new era’ upon international politics. He contented himself with reiterating his Government’s reliance upon the British Government’s explicit assurance that the powers would refuse to countenance any activities of the Consortium ‘affecting the security of the economic life or the national defense of Japan,’ a reservation capable of the widest application, and one w hieh leaves the question of Japan’s ‘special interests’ in the same nebulous condition as that in which it remained after the Lansing-Ishii agreement of 1917.
III
The line that China’s representatives and advisers may be expected to adopt at Washington was clearly indicated some months ago by the Chinese Minister in London, Mr. Wellington Koo, well known in the United States. They will undoubtedly present a glowing picture of the Chinese Republic, successfully progressing toward Utopia by the development of liberal ideas and democratic institutions, all regardless of the fact that these are as remote as the planet Mars from all the realities of the situation in China. They will make eloquent appeal to the sympathies of the civilized world, in the name of Democracy, on behalf of Young China’s chimerical Republic, and of its splendid programme of purely imaginary reforms. In the typical words of Putnam Weale, they will ‘claim their place in the family of nations, not only on terms of equality, but as representatives of Liberalism and subscribers to all those sanctions on which the civilization of peace rests.’ They will continue to describe the social activities and academic theories of a few thousand ‘Western-learning’ students and journalists as truly representative of the political convictions and institutions of the Chinese people.
And all the while they will complacently ignore the lamentable and notorious facts of China’s actual position, the utter demoralization and inevitable bankruptcy of the Peking Government, the lawlessness and insatiable greed of the military chieftains, whose rabble armies have devastated the country for the last ten years, and the untold sufferings of the defenseless people, more pitiful to-day than ever they were under the Manchus. Above all, they will carefully refrain from admission of the undeniable truth that the political and financial ascendancy which Japan has established at Peking, and the rapid advance of her ‘peaceful penetration’ in Manchuria and Mongolia, are direct results of the incorrigible money-lust of the mandarin class, more flagrantly displayed by the officials of the Republic than under the old regime. They will earnestly invoke the assistance of America and England against Japan, for the restoration of China’s rights in Shantung, and of her unfettered sovereignty over the Northern dependencies; but they will say nothing of the lamentable fact that, since the death of Yuan Shih-k’ai (1916), the several political factions that have struggled for mastery at Peking have vied with each other in mortgaging to Japan, in return for subsidies and loans, many rights, privileges, and concessions calculated to jeopardize their country’s political independence.
Early this year, the Chinese Minister in London gave the Foreign Office an indication of the attitude to be adopted by China’s representatives at the forthcoming Conference in regard to the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. They desire to protest, in the first place, against any reference in the treaty, if renewed, to ‘the preservation of the territorial integrity and political independence of China,’ as an implication derogatory to the dignity of China as a sovereign State, and distasteful to the sentiment of her people.
Inasmuch as the first object of their presence at the Conference is to invoke assistance for the maintenance of China’s sovereign rights, this initial protest may be regarded as a face-saving device, a mild bluff for the benefit of the gallery, based on the oldest traditions of Oriental statecraft. Next, they will ask for the abrogation of t he ‘twenty-one demands’ agreement (signed by Yuan Shih-k’ai in May, 1915, under pressure of a Japanese ultimatum), and for the restoration of China’s full sovereignty in Shantung. Here we reach a crucial point of the Far Eastern question. For it is undeniable that, in these twentyone demands, Japan availed herself of the opportunities created by the war in Europe and the demoralization of China, to regularize and consolidate her position at China’s expense, in Shantung (as successor to Germany), and in Manchuria, Eastern Inner Mongolia, and on the coast of Fukhien province.
Now, it must be obvious that no satisfactory results are to be expected from the Washington Conference, except upon the initial assumption that henceforward Japan, in concert with England and the United States, is prepared to cooperate loyally in practical measures for the restoration of law, order, trade, and sound finance, in China. This assumption implies, not only the definite cessation of the Japanese military party’s activities in Peking, but the abandonment by Japan, as part of a general self-sacrificing agreement between the powers, of all claims to ‘special interests’ in any province of China proper, such as those which were created by the twenty-one demands in 1915, and subsequently by the secret ‘military agreement,’ concluded in March, 1918, with the corrupt clique then in power at Peking.
Having discussed these questions with many of the leading statesmen and publicists in Japan, I firmly believe that the Japanese Government is prepared to welcome an Anglo-AmericanJapanese understanding, having as its avowed object a common reconstructive policy in China. Even before the prospect of a limitation of armaments had emphasized the desirability of such an understanding, the Japanese Prime Minister had declared (1919) his Government’s readiness to coöperate in the difficult task of restoring financial and administrative order in China, with due regard to her sovereign rights. Many things have happened in the last five years to lead the rulers of Japan to perceive that persistence in the aggressive ‘forward’ policy of the military party can lead only to a dangerous position of national isolation, besides involving the over-taxed people in further heavy expenditure. For these and other reasons, there appear to be valid grounds for expecting good results from the Conference, provided that responsible American opinion be not misled by the specious pleadings of China’s representatives, into finding in the gospel of the ‘new era,’ tidings of comfort and joy for all the world — with the exception, and to the detriment, of Japan.
In particular, the question of Shantung, though apparently simple enough in its broad moral aspect, will require delicate handling. China and the United States, not being parties to the Treaty of Versailles, may be justified in questioning the decision of the Allies, whereby Japan obtained the reversion of Germany’s exclusive privileges in Shantung; but the fact must not. be overlooked that America’s representative and President was a consenting party to that decision; also that, because of it, Japan agreed to withdraw from discussion the thorny question ol ‘racial equality.’ In originally raising that question, Japan practically claimed recognit ion of her right to equal opportunity in the matter of migration overseas; and President Wilson, unable to concede that claim, was fain to compromise it along the line of least resistance— that is, at China’s expense.
As for the position of China in the matter, it is evident that the activities of her diplomats and publicists are inspired rather by the desire to create dissension between Japan and the United States than by genuine zeal lor the integrity and independence of their country. For the men who strain so noisily at the Shantung gnat are the same as those who quietly swallowed the camel of the secret military agreement (to which I have already referred) — a pact concluded by their Government, of its own accord, with Japan, which made Peking, for all practical purposes, a subsidized dependency of Tokyo.
IV
Two fundamental facts must be faced at the outset by the Conference if the Far Eastern problem is to be solved in a spirit of mutuality and helpfulness. First, that China’s military weakness, financial chaos, and internecine strife now constitute the root-cause of the problem. This fact requires no demonstration for anyone who has studied the situation. Second, that Japan is impelled, by acute economic pressure, eit her to seek new outlets for her surplus population overseas, or to endeavor to secure such a position of economic advantage in the undeveloped regions of the Asiatic mainland, adjacent to her frontiers, as shall enable her to maintain and increase her industries, and thereby feed her people, at home.
Japan’s imperative need of expansion is, indeed, an undeniable and constant factor in the Far Eastern problem. Morally spcaking, and from the political idealist’s point of view, it is, of course, lamentable that any race or nation should expand at the expense of another; nevertheless, pace the ‘new-era’ doctrine, the struggle for supremacy and survival between races has not ended with the Treaty of Versailles, and the ideal of self-determination must always prove to be an empty phrase when confronted with the elemental instinct of self-preservation. Japan has expanded into Korea, and is thence expanding northward and westward, impelled by the same instincts and impulses as those which have peopled England’s colonies and doubled the territory and number of the United States.
America’s naval programme affords more convincing testimony to the realities of the situation than all the acts of the apostles of pacifism. The conflict between benevolent idealism and the stern facts of existence is as old as the hills; and despite humanitarians and vegetarians, the inexorable law remains that all life on this planet exists and persists at the cost of other lives. Charm they never so wisely, it will need more than the eloquence of the idealists to convince responsible statesmen that this instinct and the economic pressure behind it can be exorcised by invoking a new era of universal altruism. The philosophers have not yet found the stone which will satisfy a people that cries for bread.
Considered in this light, the crux of the Far Eastern discussion will probably be found to lie in the question of Japan’s claim to ‘special interests’ in Manchuria and Mongolia. In seeking the abrogation of the twenty-onedemands agreement of 1915, China asks, in fact, that Japan should vacate the ‘leased’ territory of the Liaotung peninsula, including Dairen and Port Arthur, at the date named in the original Russian lease (that is to say, in March, 1923), and that the ninetyyears’ term — subsequently conceded in compliance with the twenty-onedemands ultimatum — should now be annulled. But no good purpose can be served by ignoring the truth that the original ‘lease’ of the Liaotung peninsula by China to Russia was never anything but a diplomatic fiction, a politic device whereby the face of Li HungChang was partially saved. Common sense, if not common justice, compels recognition of the lamentable truth, that China’s sovereign rights in Manchuria and Mongolia were virtually doomed when Russian diplomacy concluded the original ‘lease’ compact with China’s complaisant rulers. By that compact, Japan’s economic existence and national security were threatened with dangers so imminent, that war between her and Russia became inevitable.
The development of a position of economic and political ascendancy by Japan in Manchuria and Mongolia — euphemistically described in the Lansing-Ishii agreement as ‘special’ interests — became equally inevitable when, by the Treaty of Portsmouth, Russia handed over to her conqueror the leased territory of Liaotung and the South Manchurian railway. China not only consented to this arrangement, but by certain secret clauses of an agreement voluntarily concluded between her Government and Japan in December, 1905, she deprived herself of valuable rights, specifically reserved for her by the Treaty of Portsmouth, in regard to the economic and industrial development of Manchuria. By pledging herself not to build any railways which might compete with the South Manchurian line, she made it. possible for Japan to veto (as she subsequently did, in partnership with Russia) all British and American enterprises in that region. To-day, Japan’s privileged position and paramount influence on the mainland to the north and west of Korea is regarded by the nation, not only as one of vital necessity, but of indisputable right —a right established at the cost of two victorious wars, and subsequently developed by means of concessions freely granted by China’s rulers in return for money loans. To suggest (as was done by Lord Curzon and Mr. Lansing in the Consortium dispatches of 1919) that Manchuria and Mongolia are actually integral ‘provinces’ of China, to be regarded and dealt with internationally in the same way as the eighteen provinces of China proper, is to ignore the basic realities of the situation, not to mention elementary geography and history.
Mongolia, as a dependency, stands toward China in precisely the same relation as Tibet. It is not easy to understand upon what grounds Great Britain, after having required China to abandon her claims to effective sovereignty over autonomous Tibet, can profess to regard Mongolia (which has asserted its independence of Peking) as a ‘province’ of China. Nor can any valid process of reasoning justify England or America in supporting China’s contention that Japan should now surrender, or greatly modify, her claims to ‘special interests’ in Manchuria. The arguments and attitude of Japan’s representatives at Versailles clearly demonstrated their determination to insist upon recognition of those interests, as an equitable quid pro quo for our Asiatic Exclusion acts and all that they imply. The same determination was unmistakably manifested in the negotiation and conclusion of the LansingIshii agreement in 1917.
To sum up. If England, America, and Japan now concur in recognizing the critical condition of affairs in China, and unite, in a common purpose of good-will, to restore her stability of government and to protect her sovereignty, the resources of diplomacy should be capable of devising a practical and equitable solution of the Ear Eastern problem. Frank discussion of the existing situation should entail, pari passu with reasonable recognition of Japan’s established position in Manchuria and Mongolia, the simultaneous restoration to China, by all the powers concerned, of ‘leased’ territories in China proper, the withdrawal of all foreign garrisons and post-offices from the eighteen provinces, and the abandonment therein of all claims to spheres of influence and concessions, which conflict with the sovereignty of China and the principle of equal opportunity.
Given such an agreement, concerted measures for the restoration of the Central Government’s authority and fiscal machinery, for the effective disbandment of the iuchuns’ irregular forces, and for financial reorganization, might be profitably discussed with China’s representatives. But, pending the application of such remedial measures, it is foolish and futile to talk of restoring the unfettered authority of the Chinese Government in Manchuria and Mongolia, for the simple reason that there is no effective government in China. Under existing conditions, the rapid economic development of these dependencies, which has resulted from Japan’s railway and mining enterprises, has proved of immediate benefit, not only to China’s revenues, but to large numbers of Chinese workers and settlers, who have poured into the country from Shantung and Chihli, attracted by good wages and the prospect of immunity from the lawlessness that preys upon all forms of productive industry, as the result of chronic misrule under the Chinese Republic.
A word, in conclusion, with the political idealists who would have us believe in the impending federation of the world by virtue of Christianity and faith in the blessings of Democracy. It were well for the peace of mankind if they could be led to realize the simple truth that the impact and influence of the West have tended to destroy the cohesive and self-sufficient qualities of China’s patriarchal system of government, without supplying anything of practical value in its place. A venerable civilization, probably the wisest, and certainly the oldest, that humanity has produced, is now in danger of perishing, as so many others have perished, by contact with our machine-driven, armor-plated culture, in combination with soulless international finance. Time will show whether the process of disintegration wrought by these disruptive influences can possibly be arrested by a new policy of harmonious coöperation, for China’s good, between the friendly powers, so as to preserve her independence as a nation and to restore peace and prosperity to her people. Reduced to simple terms, this is the real Far Eastern question, which awaits the deliberations of the Washington Conference.