The Fight For The Republic In China

The Monarchist Plot

2008-08-25T23:16:00.005-07:00

THE PAMPHLET OF YANG TU
A shiver of impotent rage passed over the country when the nature and acceptance of the Japanese Ultimatum became generally known. The Chinese, always an emotional people responding with quasi- feminine volubility to oppressive acts, cried aloud at the ignominy of the diplomacy which had so cruelly crucified them. One and all declared that the day of shame which had been so harshly imposed upon them would never be forgotten and that Japan would indeed pay bitterly for her policy of extortion.
Two movements were started at once: one to raise a National Salvation Fund to be applied towards strengthening the nation in any way the government might decide; the other, to boycott all Japanese articles of commerce. Both soon attained formidable proportions. The nation became deeply and fervently interested in the double-idea; and had Yuan Shih-kai possessed true political vision there is little doubt that by responding to this national call he might have ultimately been borne to the highest pinnacles of his ambitions without effort on his part. His oldest enemies now openly declared that henceforth he had only to work honourably and whole-heartedly in the nation's interest to find them supporting him, and to have every black mark set against his name wiped out.
In these circumstances what did he do? His actions form one of the most incredible and, let it be said, contemptible chapters of contemporary history.
In dealing with the origins of the Twenty-one Demands we have already discussed the hints the Japan Representative had officially made when presenting his now famous Memorandum. Briefly Yuan Shih-kai had been told in so many words that since he was already autocrat of all the Chinese, he had only to endorse the principle of Japanese guidance in his administration to find that his Throne would be as good as publicly and solidly established. Being saturated with the doleful diplomacy of Korea, and seeing in these proposals a mere trap, Yuan Shih-kai, as we have shown, had drawn back in apparent alarm. Nevertheless the words spoken had sunk in deep, for the simple and excellent reason that ever since the coup d'etat of the 4th November, 1913, the necessity of "consolidating" his position by something more permanent than a display of armed force had been a daily subject of conversation in the bosom of his family. The problem, as this misguided man saw it, was simply by means of an unrivalled display of cunning to profit by the Japanese suggestion, and at the same time to leave the Japanese in the lurch.
His eldest son, an individual of whom it has been said that he had absorbed every theory his foreign teachers had taught him without being capable of applying a single one, was the leader in this family intrigue. The unhappy victim of a brutal attempt to kill him during the Revolution, this eldest son had been for years semi-paralyzed: but brooding over his disaster had only fortified in him the resolve to succeed his father as legitimate Heir. Having saturated himself in Napoleonic literature, and being fully aware of how far a bold leader can go in times of emergency, he daily preached to his father the necessity of plucking the pear as soon as it was ripe. The older man, being more skilled and more cautious in statecraft than this youthful visionary, purposely rejected the idea so long as its execution seemed to him premature. But at last the point was reached when he was persuaded to give the monarchy advocates the free hand they solicited, being largely helped to this decision by the argument that almost anything in China could be accomplished under cover of the war,-- SO LONG AS VESTED FOREIGN INTERESTS WERE NOT JEOPARDIZED.
In accordance with this decision, very shortly after the 18th January, the dictator's lieutenants had begun to sound the leaders of public opinion regarding the feasibility of substituting for the nominal Republic a Constitutional Monarchy. Thus, in a highly characteristic way, all through the tortuous course of the Japanese negotiations, to which he was supposed to be devoting his sole attention in order to save his menaced fatherland, Yuan Shih- kai was assisting his henchmen to indoctrinate Peking officialdom with the idea that the salvation of the State depended more on restoring on a modified basis the old empire than in beating off the Japanese assault. It was his belief that if some scholar of national repute could be found, who would openly champion these ideas and urge them with such persuasiveness and authority that they became accepted as a Categorical Imperative, the game would be as good as won, the Foreign Powers being too deeply committed abroad to pay much attention to the Far East. The one man who could have produced that result in the way Yuan Shih-kai desired to see it, the brilliant reformer Liang Chi-chao, famous ever since 1898, however, obstinately refused to lend himself to such work; and, sooner than be involved in any way in the plot, threw up his post of Minister of Justice and retired to the neighbouring city of Tientsin from which centre he was destined to play a notable part.
This hitch occasioned a delay in the public propaganda, though not for long. Forced to turn to a man of secondary ability, Yuan Shih- kai now invoked the services of a scholar who had been known to be his secret agent in the Old Imperial Senate under the Manchus--a certain Yang Tu--whose constant appeals in that chamber had indeed been the means of forcing the Manchus to summon Yuan Shih-kai back to office to their rescue on the outbreak of the Wuchang rebellion in 1911. After very little discussion everything was arranged. In the person of this ex-Senator, whose whole appearance was curiously Machiavellian and decadent, the neo-imperialists at last found their champion.
Events now moved quickly enough. In the Eastern way, very few weeks after the Japanese Ultimatum, a society was founded called the Society for the Preservation of Peace and hundreds of affiliations opened in the provinces. Money was spent like water to secure adherents, and when the time was deemed ripe the now famous pamphlet of Yang Tu was published broadcast, being in everybody's hands during the idle summer month of August. This document is so remarkable as an illustration of the working of that type of Chinese mind which has assimilated some portion of the facts of the modern world and yet remains thoroughly reactionary and illogical, that special attention must be directed to it. Couched in the form of an argument between two individuals --one the inquirer, the other the expounder--it has something of the old Testament about it both in its blind faith and in its insistence on a few simple essentials. It embodies everything essential to an understanding of the old mentality of China which has not yet been completely destroyed. From a literary standpoint it has also much that is valuable because it is so naive; and although it is concerned with such a distant region of the world as China its treatment of modern political ideas is so bizarre and yet so acute that it will repay study.
It was not, however, for some time, that the significance of this pamphlet was generally understood. It was such an amazing departure from old precedents for the Peking Government to lend itself to public propaganda as a revolutionary weapon that the mind of the people refused to credit the fatal turn things were taking. But presently when it became known that the "Society for the Preservation of Peace" was actually housed in the Imperial City and in daily relations with the President's Palace; and that furthermore the Procurator-General of Peking, in response to innumerable memorials of denunciation, having attempted to proceed against the author and publishers of the pamphlet, as well as against the Society, had been forced to leave the capital under threats against his life, the document was accepted at its face- value. Almost with a gasp of incredulity China at last realized that Yuan Shih-kai had been seduced to the point of openly attempting to make himself Emperor. From those August days of 1915 until the 6th June of the succeeding year, when Fate had her own grim revenge, Peking was given up to one of the most amazing episodes that has ever been chronicled in the dramatic history of the capital. It was as if the old city walls, which had looked down on so much real drama, had determined to lend themselves to the staging of an unreal comedy. For from first to last the monarchy movement had something unreal about it, and might have been the scenario of some vast picture-play. It was acting pure and simple--acting done in the hope that the people might find it so admirable that they would acclaim it as real, and call the Dictator their King. But it is time to turn to the arguments of Yang Tu and allow a Chinese to picture the state of his country:
A DEFENCE OF THE MONARCHICAL MOVEMENT

PART I

Mr. Ko : Since the establishment of the
Republic four years have passed, and upon the President depends the preservation of order at home and the maintenance of prestige abroad. I suppose that after improving her internal administration for ten or twenty years, China will become a rich and prosperous country, and will be able to stand in the front rank with western nations.
Mr. Hu: No! No! If China does not make any change in the form of government there is no hope for her becoming strong and rich; there is even no hope for her having a constitutional government. I say that China is doomed to perish.
Mr. Ko: Why so?
Mr. Hu: The republican form of government is responsible. The Chinese people are fond of good names, but they do not care much about the real welfare of the nation. No plan to save the country is possible. The formation of the Republic as a result of the first revolution has prevented that.
Mr. Ko: Why is it that there is no hope of China's becoming strong?
Mr. Hu: The people of a republic are accustomed to listen to the talk of equality and freedom which must affect the political and more especially the military administration. In normal circumstances both the military and student classes are required to lay great emphasis upon unquestioned obedience and respect for those who hold high titles. The German and Japanese troops observe strict discipline and obey the orders of their chiefs. That is why they are regarded as the best soldiers in the world. France and America are in a different position. They are rich but not strong. The sole difference is that Germany and Japan are ruled by monarchs while France and America are republics. Our conclusion therefore is that no republic can be strong.
But since the French and American peoples possess general education, they are in a position to assume responsibility for the good government of their nations which they keep in good order. On that account, although these republics are not strong in dealing with the Powers, they can maintain peace at home. China, however, is unlike these countries, for her standard of popular education is very low. Most of the Chinese soldiers declare as a commonplace; "We eat the imperial food and we must therefore serve the imperial master." But now the Imperial family is gone, and for it has been substituted an impersonal republic, of which they know nothing whatsoever. These soldiers are now law-abiding because they have awe-inspiring and respectful feelings for the man at the head of the state. But as the talk of equality and freedom has gradually influenced them, it has become a more difficult task to control them. As an example of this corrupt spirit, the commanders of the Southern troops formerly had to obey their subordinate officers and the subordinate officers had to obey their soldiers. Whenever there was an important question to be discussed, the soldiers demanded a voice and a share in the solution. These soldiers were called the republican army. Although the Northern troops have not yet become so degenerate, still they never hesitate to disobey the order of their superiors whenever they are ordered to proceed to distant localities. Now we have come to the point when we are deeply satisfied if the army of the Republic does not openly mutiny! We cannot expect any more from them save to hope that they will not mutiny and that they will be able to suppress internal disturbances. In the circumstances there is no use talking about resistance of a foreign invasion by these soldiers. As China, a republic, is situated between two countries, Japan and Russia, both of which have monarchical governments, how can we resist their aggression once diplomatic conversations begin? From this it is quite evident that there is nothing which can save China from destruction. Therefore I say there is no hope of China becoming strong.
Mr. Ko: But why is it that there is no hope of China ever becoming rich?
Mr. Hu: People may not believe that while France and America are rich China must remain poor. Nevertheless, the reason why France and America are rich is that they were allowed to work out their own salvation without foreign intervention for many years, and that at the same time they were free from internal disturbances. If any nation wishes to become rich, it must depend upon industries for its wealth. Now, what industries most fear is disorder and civil war. During the last two years order has been restored and many things have returned their former State, but our industrial condition is the same as under the Manchu Dynasty. Merchants who lost their capital during the troublous times and who are now poor have no way of retrieving their losses, while those who are rich are unwilling to invest their money in industrial undertakings, fearing that another civil war may break out at any moment, since they take the recent abortive second revolution as their warning. In future, we shall have disquietude every few years; that is whenever the president is changed. Then our industrial and commercial condition will be in a still worse condition. If our industries are not developed, how can we expect to be strong? Take Mexico as a warning. There is very little difference between that country and China, which certainly cannot be compared with France and America. Therefore I say there is no hope for China ever becoming rich.
Mr. Ko: Why is it that you say there is no hope for China having a Constitutional Government?
Mr. Hu: A true republic must be conducted by many people possessing general education, political experience and a certain political morality. Its president is invested with power by the people to manage the general affairs of the state. Should the people desire to elect Mr. A their president today and Mr. B tomorrow, it does not make much difference; for the policy of the country may be changed together with the change of the president without there being any danger of disorder of chaos following such change. We have a very different problem to solve in China. The majority of our people do not know what the republic is, nor do they know anything about a Constitution nor have they any true sense of equality and freedom. Having overthrown the Empire and established in its place a republic they believe that from now on they are subservient to no one, and they think they can do as they please. Ambitious men hold that any person may be president and if they cannot get the presidency by fair means of election they are prepared to fight for it with the assistance of troops and robbers. The second revolution is an illustration of this point. From the moment that the Emperor was deposed, the centralization of power in the government was destroyed; and no matter who may be at the head of the country, he cannot restore peace except by the re-establishment of the monarchy. So at the time when the republic was formed, those who had previously advocated Constitutional Government turned into monarchists. Although we have a Provisional Constitution now and we have all kinds of legislative organs, which give to the country an appearance of a constitutional government, China has a constitutional government in name only and is a monarchy in spirit. Had the government refrained from exercising monarchical power during the last four years, the people could not have enjoyed one day of peace. In short, China's republic must be governed by a monarchy through a constitutional government. If the constitutional government cannot govern the republic, the latter cannot remain. The question of constitutional government is therefore very important, but it will take ten or twenty years before it can be solved.
Look at the people of China today! They know that something terrible is going to come sooner or later. They dare not think of the future. The corrupt official lines his pocket with unrighteous money, preparing to flee to foreign countries or at least to the Foreign Settlements for safety. The cautious work quietly and do not desire to earn merit but merely try to avoid giving offence. The scholars and politicians are grandiloquent and discourse upon their subjects in a sublime vein, but they are no better than the corrupt officials. As for our President, he can remain at the head of the State for a few years. At most he may hold office for several terms,--or perhaps for his whole life. Then questions must arise as to who shall succeed him; how to elect his successor; how many rivals will there be; whether their policies will be different from his, etc., etc. He personally has no idea regarding the solution of these questions. Even if the president is a sagacious and capable man, he will not be able to make a policy for the country or fix a Constitution which will last for a hundred years. Because of this he is driven merely to adopt a policy so as to maintain peace in his own country and to keep the nation intact so long as he may live. In the circumstances such a president can be considered the best executive head we can have. Those who are worshippers of the constitutional government cannot do more than he does. Here we find the reason for the silence of the former advocates of a constitutional administration. They have realized that by the formation of the republic the fundamental problem of the country has been left unsolved. In this wise it happens that the situation is something like this. Whilst the country is governed by an able president, the people enjoy peace and prosperity. But once an incapable man assumes the presidency, chaos will become the order of the day, a state of affairs which will finally lead to the overthrow of the president himself and the destruction of the country. In such circumstances, how can you devise a general policy for the country which will last for a hundred years? I say that there is no hope for China establishing a truly constitutional government.
Mr. Ko: In your opinion there is no hope for China becoming strong and rich or for her acquiring a constitutional government. She has no choice save ultimately to disappear. And yet is there no plan possible whereby she may be saved?
Mr. Hu: If China wishes to save herself from ultimate disappearance from the face of the earth, first of all she must get rid of the republic. Should she desire wealth and strength, she must adopt a constitutional government. Should she want constitutional government she must first establish a monarchy.
Mr. Ko: How is it that should China desire wealth and strength she must first adopt the constitutional form of government?
Mr. Hu: Wealth and strength is the object of the country, and a constitutional government is the means to realizing this object. In the past able rulers could accomplish their purpose without a constitutional government. We refer to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty and Emperor Tai Chung of the Tang Dynasty. However, when these able rulers died their system of administration died with them. This contention can be supported by numerous historical instances; but suffice to say that in China as well as in Europe, the lack of a constitutional government has been the cause of the weakness of most of the nations in ancient times. Japan was never known as a strong nation until she adopted a constitutional government. The reason is this: when there is no constitutional government, the country cannot continue to carry out a definite policy.
Within comparatively recent times there was born in Europe the constitutional form of government. European nations adopted it, and they became strong. The most dangerous fate that can confront a nation is that after the death of an able ruler the system of administration he has established disappears with him; but this the constitutional form of government is able to avert. Take for instance William I of Germany who is dead but whose country continues to this day strong and prosperous. It is because of constitutional government. The same is true of Japan, which has adopted constitutional government and which is becoming stronger and stronger every day. The change of her executive cannot affect her progress in respect of her strength. From this it is quite clear that constitutional government is a useful instrument for building up a country. It is a government with a set of fixed laws which guard the actions of both the people and the president none of whom can overstep the boundary as specified in the laws. No ruler, whether be he a good man or a bad man, can change one iota of the laws. The people reap the benefit of this in consequence. It is easy to make a country strong and rich but it is difficult to establish a constitutional government. When a constitutional government has been established, everything will take care of itself, prosperity following naturally enough. The adoption of a constitutional government at the present moment can be compared to the problem of a derailed train. It is hard to put the train back on the track, but once on the track it is very easy to move the train. What we should worry about is not how to make the country rich and prosperous, but how to form a genuine constitutional government. Therefore I say that if China desires to be strong and prosperous, she should first of all adopt the constitutional form of government.
Mr. Ko: I do not understand why it is that a monarchy should be established before the constitutional form of government can be formed?
Mr. Hu: Because if the present system continues there will be intermittent trouble. At every change of the president there will be riot and civil war. In order to avert the possibility of such aweful times place the president in a position which is permanent. It follows that the best thing is to make him Emperor. When that bone of contention is removed, the people will settle down to business and feel peace in their hearts, and devote their whole energy and time to the pursuit of their vocations. It is logical to assume that after the adoption of the monarchy they will concentrate their attention on securing a constitutional government which they know is the only salvation for their country. As for the Emperor, knowing that he derives his position from the change from a republic, and filled with the desire of pacifying the people, he cannot help sanctioning the formation of the constitutional form of government, which in addition, will insure to his offspring the continuation of the Throne. Should he adopt any other course, he will be exposed to great personal danger. If he is broadminded, he will further recognize the fact that if no constitutional form of government is introduced, his policy will perish after his death. Therefore I say that before the adoption of the constitutional form of government, a monarchy should be established. William I of Germany and the Emperor Meiji of Japan both tried the constitutional form of government and found it a success.
Mr. Ko: Please summarize your discussion.
Mr. Hu: In short, the country cannot be saved except through the establishment of a constitutional form of government. No constitutional government can be formed except through the establishment of a monarchy. The constitutional form of government has a set of fixed laws, and the monarchy has a definite head who cannot be changed, in which matters lies the source of national strength and wealth.
Mr. Ko: What you have said in regard to the adoption of the constitutional monarchy as a means of saving the country from dismemberment is quite true, but I would like to have your opinion on the relative advantages and disadvantages of a republic and a monarchy, assuming that China adopts the scheme of a monarchy.
Mr. Hu: I am only too glad to give you my humble opinion on this momentous question.
Mr. Ko: You have said that China would be devastated by contending armies of rival leaders trying to capture the presidency. At what precise moment will that occur?
Mr. Hu: The four hundred million people of China now rely upon the President alone for the protection of their lives and property. Upon him likewise falls the burden of preserving both peace and the balance of power in the Far East. There is no time in the history of China that the Head of the State has had to assume such a heavy responsibility for the protection of life and property and for the preservation of peace in Asia; and at no time in our history has the country been in greater danger than at the present moment. China can enjoy peace so long as His Excellency Yuan Shih- kai remains the President, and no longer. Should anything befall the President, every business activity will at once be suspended, shops will be closed, disquietude will prevail, people will become panic-stricken, the troops uncontrollable, and foreign warship will enter our harbours. European and American newspapers will be full of special dispatches about the complicated events in China, and martial law will be declared in every part of the country. All this will be due to the uncertainty regarding the succession to the presidency.
It will be seen from the first section of this long and extraordinary pamphlet how the author develops his argument. One of his major premises is the inherent unruliness of Republican soldiery,--the armies of republics not to be compared with the armed forces of monarchies,--and consequently constituting a perpetual menace to good government. Passing on from this, he lays down the proposition that China cannot hope to become rich so long as the fear of civil war is ever-present; and that without a proper universal education a republic is an impossibility. The exercise of monarchical power in such circumstances can only be called an inevitable development,--the one goal to be aimed at being the substitution of Constitutional Government for the dictatorial rule. The author deals at great length with the background to this idea, playing on popular fears to reinforce his casuistry. For although constitutional government is insisted upon as the sole solution, he speedily shows that this constitutionalism will depend more on the benevolence of the dictator than on the action of the people. And should his advice be not heeded, when Fortune wills that Yuan Shih-kai's rule shall end, chaos will ensue owing to the "uncertainty" regarding the succession.
Here the discussion reaches its climax--for the demand that salvation be sought by enthroning Yuan Shih-kai now becomes clear and unmistakable. Let the author speak for himself.
Mr. Ko: But it is provided in the Constitutional Compact that a president must be selected from among the three candidates whose names are now kept in a golden box locked in a stone room. Do you think this provision is not sufficient to avert the terrible times which you have just described?
Mr. Hu: The provision you have mentioned is useless. Can you find any person who is able to be at the head of the state besides His Excellency Yuan Shih-kai? The man who can succeed President Yuan must enjoy the implicit confidence of the people and must have extended his influence all over the country and be known both at home and abroad. He must be able to maintain order, and then no matter what the constitution provides, he will be unanimously elected President. He must also be able to assure himself that the two other candidates for the presidency have no hope for success in the presidential campaign. The provision in the constitution, as well as the golden casket in which the names of the three candidates are kept which you have mentioned, are nothing but nominal measures. Moreover there is no man in China who answers the description of a suitable successor which I have just given. Here arises a difficult problem; and what has been specified in the Constitutional Compact is a vain attempt to solve it. It is pertinent to ask why the law-makers should not have made the law in such a way that the people could exercise their free choice in the matter of the presidential successor? The answer is that there is reason to fear that a bad man may be elected president by manipulations carried out with a masterly hand, thereby jeopardizing the national welfare. This fear has influenced the constitution-makers to settle upon three candidates from among whom the president must be elected. Then it may be asked why not fix upon one man instead of upon three since you have already deprived the people of part of their freedom? The answer is that: there is not a single man whose qualifications are high enough to be the successor. As it is, three candidates of equal qualifications are put forward for the people to their selection. No matter how one may argue this important question from the legal point of view, there is the fact that the law makers fixed upon three candidates for the presidency, believing that we do not possess a suitable presidential successor. The vital question of the day setting aside all paper talk, is whether or not China has a suitable man to succeed President Yuan Shih-kai. Whether or not the constitutional compact can be actually carried out in future I do not know; but I do know that that instrument will eventually become ineffective.
Mr. Ko: I desire a true picture of the chaos which you have hinted will ensue in this country. Can you tell me anything along that line?
Mr. Hu: In a time of confusion, the soldiers play the most important part, virtuous and experienced and learned statesmen being unable to cope with the situation. The only qualification which a leader at such a time needs to possess is the control of the military, and the ability to suppress Parliament. Should such a person be made the president, he cannot long hold his enviable post in view of the fact that he cannot possess sufficient influence to control the troops of the whole country. The generals of equal rank and standing will not obey each other, while the soldiers and politicians, seeing a chance in these differences for their advancement, will stir up their feelings and incite one another to fight. They will fight hard among themselves. The rebels, who are now exiles in foreign lands, taking advantage of the chaos in China, will return in very little time to perpetrate the worst crimes known in human history. The royalists who are in retirement will likewise come out to fish in muddy waters. Persons who have the qualifications of leaders will be used as tools to fight for the self-aggrandizement of those who use them. I do not wish to mention names, but I can safely predict that more than ten different parties will arise at the psychological moment. Men who will never be satisfied until they become president, and those who know they cannot get the presidency but who are unwilling to serve others, will come out one after another. Confusion and disturbance will follow with great rapidity. Then foreign countries which have entertained wild ambitions, availing themselves of the distressful situation in China, will stir up ill-feelings among these parties and so increase the disturbances. When the proper time comes, various countries, unwilling to let a single country enjoy the privilege of controlling China, will resort to armed intervention. In consequence the eastern problem will end in a rupture of the international peace. Whether China will be turned at that time into a battleground for the Chinese people or for the foreign Powers I cannot tell you. It is too dreadful to think of the future which is enshrouded in a veil of mystery. However, I can tell you that the result of this awful turmoil will be either the slicing of China like a melon or the suppression of internal trouble with foreign assistance which will lead to dismemberment. As to the second result some explanation is necessary. After foreign countries have helped us to suppress internal disturbances, they will select a man of the type of Li Wang of Korea, who betrayed his country to Japan, and make him Emperor of China. Whether this man will be the deposed emperor or a member of the Imperial family or the leader of the rebel party, remains to be seen. In any event he will be a figurehead in whose hand will not be vested political, financial and military power, which will be controlled by foreigners. All the valuable mines, various kinds of industries and our abundant natural resources will likewise be developed by others. China will thus disappear as a nation.
In selecting a man of the Li Wang type, the aforesaid foreign countries will desire merely to facilitate the acquisition of China's territory. But there can be easily found such a man who bears remarkable resemblance to Li Wang, and who will be willing to make a treaty with the foreigners whereby he unpatriotically sells his country in exchange for a throne which he can never obtain or keep without outside assistance. His procedure will be something like this: He will make an alliance with a foreign nation by which the latter will be given the power to carry on foreign relations on behalf of his country. In the eyes of foreigners, China will have been destroyed, but the people will continue deceived and made to believe that their country is still in existence. This is the first step. The second step will be to imitate the example of Korea and make a treaty with a certain power, whereby China is annexed and the throne abolished. The imperial figure-head then flees to the foreign country where he enjoys an empty title. Should you then try to make him devise means for regaining the lost territory it will be too late. For China will have been entirely destroyed by that time. This is the second procedure in the annexation of Chinese territory. The reason why that foreign country desires to change the republic into the monarchy is to set one man on the throne and make him witness the whole process of annexation of his country, thereby simplifying the matter. When that time has come, the people will not be permitted to make any comment upon the form of government suitable for China, or upon the destruction of their country. The rebels who raised the standard of the republic have no principles and if they now find that some other tactics will help to increase their power they will adopt these tactics. China's republic is doomed, no matter what happens. If we do not change it ourselves, others will do it for us. Should we undertake the change ourselves we can save the nation: otherwise there is no hope for China to remain a nation. It is to be regretted that our people now assume an attitude of indifference, being reluctant to look forward to the future, and caring not what may happen to them and their country. They are doomed to become slaves after the loss of their national independence.
Mr. Ko: I am very much frightened by what you have said. You have stated that the adoption of a constitutional monarchy can avert such terrible consequences; but is there not likely to be disturbance during the change of the republic to monarchy, since such disturbance must always accompany the presidential election?
Mr. Hu: No comparison can be formed between these two things. There may be tumult during the change of the form of government, but it will be better in comparison with the chaos that will some day ensue in the republic. There is no executive head in the country when a republic endeavours to select a presidential successor. At such a time, the ambitious try to improve their future, while the patriotic are at a loss now to do anything which will assist in the maintenance of order. Those who are rebellious rise in revolt while those who are peace-loving are compelled by circumstances to join their rank and file. Should the form of government be transformed into a monarchical one, and should the time for change of the head of the state come, the successor having already been provided for, that will be well-known to the people. Those who are patriotic will exert their utmost to preserve peace, and as result the heir-apparent can peacefully step on the throne. There are persons who will contend for the office of the President, but not for the throne. Those who contend for the office of President do not commit any crime, but those who try to seize the throne are rebels. Who dares to contend for the Throne?
At the time of the change of the president in a republic, ambitious persons arise with the intention of capturing this most honourable office, but not so when the emperor is changed. Should there be a body of persons hostile to the heir-apparent, that body must be very small. Therefore I say that the enemies of a succeeding Emperor are a few, whilst there are many in the case of a presidential successor. This is the first difference.
Those who oppose the monarchy are republican enthusiasts or persons who desire to make use of the name of the republic for their own benefit. These persons will raise trouble even without the change of the government. They do not mind disturbing the peace of the country at the present time when the republic exists. It is almost certain that at the first unfurling of the imperial flags they will at once grasp such an opportune moment and try to satisfy their ambition. Should they rise in revolt at the time when the Emperor is changed the Government, supported by the loyal statesmen and officials, whose interests are bound up with the welfare of the imperial family and whose influence has spread far and wide, will be able to deal easily with any situation which may develop. Therefore I declare that the successor to the throne has more supporters while the presidential successor has few. This is the second difference between the republic and the constitutional monarchy.
Why certain persons will contend for the office of the President can be explained by the fact that there is not a single man in the country whose qualifications are above all the others. Succession to the throne is a question of blood-relation with the reigning Emperor, and not a question of qualifications. The high officials whose qualifications are unusually good are not subservient to others but they are obedient to the succeeding Emperor, because of their gratitude for what the imperial family has done for them, and because their well-being is closely associated with that of the imperial household. I can cite an historical incident to support my contention. Under the Manchu Dynasty, at one time General Chu Chung-tang was entrusted with the task of suppressing the Mohammedan rebellion. He appointed General Liu Sung San generalissimo. Upon the death of General Liu, Chu Chung-tang appointed his subordinate officers to lead the army, but the subordinate officers competed for power. Chu Chung-tang finally made the step-son of General Liu the Commander-in-Chief and the officers and soldiers all obeyed his order as they did his father's. But it may be mentioned that this young man was not more able than any of his father's subordinate commanders. Nevertheless prestige counted. He owed his success to his natural qualification, being a step-son to General Liu. So is the case with the emperor whose successor nobody dares openly to defy--to say nothing of actually disputing his right to the throne. This is the third difference between the republic and the monarchy.
I will not discuss the question: as to whether there being no righteous and able heir-apparent to succeed his Emperor-father, great danger may not confront the nation. However, in order to provide against any such case, I advocate that the formation of a constitutional government should go hand in hand with the establishment of the monarchy. At first it is difficult to establish and carry out a constitutional government, but once it is formed it will be comparatively easy. When the constitutional government has been established, the Emperor will have to seek his fame in such useful things as the defence of his country and the conquest of his enemy. Everything has to progress, and men possessing European education will be made use of by the reigning family. The first Emperor will certainly do all he can to capture the hearts of the people by means of adopting and carrying out in letter as well as in spirit constitutional government. The heir- apparent will pay attention to all new reforms and new things. Should he do so, the people will be able to console themselves by saying that they will always be the people of a constitutional monarchy even after the succession to the throne of the heir- apparent. When the time comes for the heir-apparent to mount the throne the people will extend to him their cordial welcome, and there will be no need to worry about internal disturbances.
Therefore, I conclude that the successor to the presidential chair has to prevent chaos by wielding the monarchical power, while the new emperor can avert internal disquietude forever by means of his constitutional government. This is the fourth difference between the republic and the monarchy. These four differences are accountable for the fact that there will not be as much disturbance at the time of the change of emperors as at the time when the president is changed.
Mr. Ko: I can understand what you have said with regard to the advantages and disadvantages of the republic and the monarchy, but there are many problems connected with the formation of a constitutional monarchy which we have to solve. Why is it that the attempt to introduce constitutional government during the last years of the Manchu Dynasty proved a failure?
Mr. Hu: The constitutional government of the Manchu Dynasty was one in name only, and as such the forerunner of the revolution of 1911. Towards the end of the Manchu Dynasty, the talk of starting a revolution to overthrow the imperial regime was in everybody's mouth, although the constitutional party endeavoured to accomplish something really useful. At that time His Excellency Yuan Shih-kai was the grand chancellor, and realizing the fact that nothing except the adoption of a constitutional government could save the throne of the Manchus, he assumed the leadership of the constitutional party, which surpassed in strength the revolutionary party as a result of his active support. The people's hearts completely turned to the constitutional party for salvation, while the revolutionary party lost that popular support which it had formerly enjoyed. Then it seemed that the imperial household would soon adopt the constitutional monarchy and the threatening revolution could be averted. Unfortunately, the elaborate plans of His Excellency Yuan Shih-kai regarding the adoption of the constitutional government were not carried out by the imperial household. A great change took place: His Excellency retired to his native province; and after losing this powerful leader the constitutional party was pitilessly shattered. A monarchist party suddenly made its appearance on the political arena to assist the imperial family, which pretended to do its very best for the development of a constitutional government, but secretly exerted itself to the utmost for the possession and retention of the real power. This double-dealing resulted in bringing about the revolution of 1911. For instance, when the people cried for the convening of a parliament, the imperial family said "No." The people also failed to secure the abolition of certain official organs for the imperialists. They lost confidence in the Reigning House, and simultaneously the revolutionary party raised its banner and gathered its supporters from every part of the country. As soon as the revolt started at Wuchang the troops all over the country joined in the movement to overthrow the Manchu Dynasty. The members of the Imperial Senate, most of whom were members of the constitutional party, could not help showing their sympathy with the revolutionists. At last the imperial household issued a proclamation containing Nineteen Articles--a veritable magna carta--but it was too late. The constitutional government which was about to be formed was thus laid aside. What the imperial family did was the mere organization of an advisory council. A famous foreign scholar aptly remarked: "A false constitutional government will eventually result in a true revolution." In trying to deceive the people by means of a false constitutional government the imperial house encompassed its own destruction. Once His Excellency Yuan Shih-kai stated in a memorial to the throne that there were only two alternatives: to give the people a constitutional government or to have them revolt. What happened afterwards is a matter of common knowledge. Therefore I say that the government which the imperial family attempted to form was not a constitutional government.
Mr. Ko: Thank you for your discussion of the attempt of the imperial household to establish a constitutional government; but how about the Provisional Constitution, the parliament and the cabinet in the first and second years of the Republic? The parliament was then so powerful that the government was absolutely at its mercy, thereby disturbing the peaceful condition of the country. The people have tasted much of the bitterness of constitutional government. Should you mention the name of constitutional government again they would be thoroughly frightened. Is that true?
Mr. Hu: During the first and second years of the Republic, in my many conversations with the members of the Kuo Ming Tang, I said that the republic could not form an efficient method of control, and that there would be an over centration of power through the adoption of monarchical methods of ruling, knowing as well as I did the standards of our people. When the members of the Kuo Ming Tang came to draw up the Provisional Constitution they purposely took precisely the opposite course of action and ignored my suggestion. It may, however, be mentioned that the Provisional Constitution made in Nanking was not so bad, but after the government was removed to Peking, the Kuo Ming Tang people tied the hand and foot of the government by means of the Cabinet System and other restrictions with the intention of weakening the power of the central administration in order that they might be able to start another revolution. From the dissolution of the Nanking government to the time of the second revolution they had this one object in view, namely to weaken the power of the central administration so that they could contend for the office of the president by raising further internal troubles in China. Those members of the Kuo Ming Tang who made the constitution know as well as I that China's republic must be governed through a monarchical administration; and therefore the unreasonable restrictions in the Provisional Constitution were purposely inserted.
Mr. Ko: What is the difference between the constitutional government which you have proposed and the constitutional government which the Manchu Dynasty intended to adopt?
Mr. Hu: The difference lies in the proper method of procedure and in honesty of purpose, which are imperative if constitutional government expects to be successful.
Mr. Ko: What do you mean by the proper method of procedure?
Mr. Hu: The Provisional Constitution made in Nanking, which was considered good, is not suitable for insertion in the future constitution, should a constitutional monarchy be established. In making a constitution for the future constitutional monarchy we have to consult the constitutions of the monarchies of the world. They can be divided into three classes which are represented by England, Prussia and Japan. England is advanced in its constitutional government, which has been in existence for thousands of years, and is the best of all in the world. The English king enjoys his empty title and the real power of the country is exercised by the parliament, which makes all the laws for the nation. As to Prussia, the constitutional monarchy was established when the people started a revolution. The ruler of Prussia was compelled to convene a parliament and submitted to that legal body a constitution. Prussia's constitution was made by its ruler together with the parliament. Its constitutional government is not so good as the English. As to the Japanese constitutional monarchy, the Emperor made a constitution and then convened a parliament. The constitutional power of the Japanese people is still less than that of the Prussian people. According to the standard of our people we cannot adopt the English constitution as our model, for it is too advanced. The best thing for us to do is to adopt part of the Prussian and part of the Japanese in our constitution-making. As our people are better educated now than ever before, it is decidedly unwise entirely to adopt the Japanese method, that is, for the Emperor to make a constitution without the approval of the parliament and then to convoke a legislative body. In the circumstances China should adopt the Prussian method as described above with some modifications, which will be very suitable to our conditions. As to the contents of the constitution we can copy such articles as those providing the right for the issue of urgent orders and appropriation of special funds, etc. from the Japanese Constitution, so that the power of the ruler can be increased without showing the slightest contempt for the legislative organ. I consider that this is the proper method of procedure for the formation of a constitutional monarchy for China.
Mr. Ko: Can I know something about the contents of our future constitution in advance?
Mr. Hu: If you want to know them in detail I recommend you to read the Constitutions of Prussia and Japan. But I can tell you this much. Needless to say that such stipulations as articles guaranteeing the rights of the people and the power of the parliament will surely be worked into the future constitution. These are found in almost every constitution in the world. But as the former Provisional Constitution has so provided that the power of the parliament is unlimited, while that of the president is very small the Chief Executive, besides conferring decorations and giving Orders of Merit, having almost nothing to do without the approval of the Senate, it is certain that nothing will be taken from that instrument for the future constitution. Nor will the makers of the future constitution take anything from the nineteen capitulations offered by the Manchu Government, which gave too much power to the legislative organ. According to the Nineteen Articles the Advisory Council was to draw up the constitution, which was to be ratified by the parliament; the Premier being elected by the parliament; whilst the use of the army and navy required the parliament's sanction; the making of treaties with foreign countries have likewise to be approved by the parliament, etc., etc. Such strict stipulations which are not even known in such an advanced country in matters constitutional as England were extorted from the imperial family by the advisory council. Therefore it is most unlikely that the makers of the future constitution will take any article from the nineteen capitulations of "confidence." They will use the Constitutions of Japan and Prussia as joint model and will always have in their mind the actual conditions of this country and the standard of the people. In short, they will copy some of the articles in the Japanese constitution, and adopt the Prussian method of procedure for the making of the constitution.
Mr. Ko: What do you mean by honesty?
Mr. Hu: It is a bad policy to deceive the people. Individually the people are simple, but they cannot be deceived collectively. The Manchu Government committed an irretrievable mistake by promising the people a constitutional government but never carrying out their promise. This attitude on the part of the then reigning house brought about the first revolution. As the standard of our people at the present time is not very high, they will be satisfied with less power if it is properly given to them. Should any one attempt to deceive them his cause will finally be lost. I do not know how much power the people and the parliament will get in the constitutional monarchy, but I would like to point out here that it is better to give them less power than to deceive them. If they are given less power, and if they want more, they will contend for it. Should the government deem it advisable to give them a little more, well and good. Should they be unfit for the possession of greater power, the government can issue a proclamation giving the reasons for not complying with their request, and they will not raise trouble knowing the true intention of the government. However, honesty is the most important element in the creation of a constitutional monarchy. It is easy and simple to practise it. The parliament must have the power to decide the laws and fix the budgets. Should its decision be too idealistic or contrary to the real welfare of the country, the Government can explain its faults and request it to reconsider its decision. Should the parliament return the same decision, the Government can dissolve it and convoke another parliament. In so doing the Government respects the parliament instead of despising it. But what the parliament has decided should be carried out strictly by the Government, and thus we will have a real constitutional Government. It is easy to talk but difficult to act, but China like all other countries has to go through the experimental stage and face all kinds of difficulties before a genuine constitutional government can be evolved. The beginning is difficult but once the difficulty is over everything will go on smoothly. I emphasize that it is better to give the people less power at the beginning than to deceive them. Be honest with them is my policy.
Mr. Ko: I thank you very much for what you have said. Your discussion is interesting and I can understand it well. The proper method of procedure and honesty of purpose which you have mentioned will tend to wipe out all former corruption.
Mr. Ko, or the stranger, then departed.
On this note the pamphleteer abruptly ends. Having discussed ad nauseam the inadequacy of all existing arrangements, even those made by Yuan Shih-kai himself, to secure a peaceful succession to the presidency; and having again insisted upon the evil part soldiery cannot fail to play, he introduces a new peril, the certainty that the foreign Powers will set up a puppet Emperor unless China solves this problem herself, the case of Korea being invoked as an example of the fate of divided nations. Fear of Japan and the precedent of Korea, being familiar phenomena, are given a capital in all this debate, being secondary only to the crucial business of ensuring the peaceful succession to the supreme office. The transparent manner in which the history of the first three years of the Republic is handled in order to drive home these arguments will be very apparent. A fit crown is put on the whole business by the final suggestion that the Constitutional Government of China under the new empire must be a mixture of the Prussian and Japanese systems, Yang Tu's last words being that it is best to be honest with the people! No more damning indictment of Yuan Shih-kai's regime could possibly have been penned.

The Origin Of The Twenty-one Demands

2008-08-25T23:16:00.003-07:00

The key to this remarkable business was supplied by a cover sent anonymously to the writer during the course of these negotiations with no indication as to its origin. The documents which this envelope contained are so interesting that they merit attention at the hands of all students of history, explaining as they do the psychology of the Demands as well as throwing much light on the manner in which the world-war has been viewed in Japan.
The first document is purely introductory, but is none the less interesting. It is a fragment, or rather a precis of the momentous conversation which took place between Yuan Shih-kai and the Japanese Minister when the latter personally served the Demands on the Chief Executive and took the opportunity to use language unprecedented even in the diplomatic history of Peking.
The precis begins in a curious way. After saying that "the Japanese Minister tried to influence President Yuan Shih-kai with the following words," several long lines of asterisks suggest that after reflection the unknown chronicler had decided, for political reasons of the highest importance, to allow others to guess how the "conversation" opened. From the context it seems absolutely clear that the excised words have to deal with the possibility of the re-establishment of the Empire in China--a very important conclusion in view of what followed later in the year. Indeed there is no reason to doubt that the Japanese Envoy actually told Yuan Shih-kai that as he was already virtually Emperor it lay within his power to settle the whole business and to secure his position at one blow. In any case the precis begins with these illuminating sentences:
... Furthermore, the Chinese revolutionists are in close touch and have intimate relations with numerous irresponsible Japanese, some of whom have great influence and whose policy is for strong measures. Our Government has not been influenced by this policy, but if your Government does not quickly agree to these stipulations, it will be impossible to prevent some of our irresponsible people from inciting the Chinese revolutionists to create trouble in China.
The majority of the Japanese people are also opposed to President Yuan and Yuan's Government. They all declare that the President entertains anti-Japanese feeling and adopts the policy of "befriending the Far" and "antagonizing the Near" . Japanese public opinion is therefore exceedingly hostile.
Our Government has all along from first to last exerted its best efforts to help the Chinese Government, and if the Chinese Government will speedily agree to these stipulations it will have thus manifested its friendship for Japan.
The Japanese people will then be able to say that the President never entertained anti-Japanese feelings, or adopted the policy of "befriending the Far and antagonizing the Near." Will not this then be indeed a bona fide proof of our friendly relations?
The Japanese Government also will then be inclined to render assistance to President Yuan's Government whenever it is necessary ... .
We are admittedly living in a remarkable age which is making waste paper of our dearest principles. But in all the welter which the world war has made it would be difficult to find anything more extraordinary than these few paragraphs. Japan, through her official representative, boldly tears down the veil hiding her ambitions, and using the undoubted menace which Chinese revolutionary activities then held for the Peking Government, declares in so many words that unless President Yuan Shih-kai bows his head to the dictation of Tokio, the duel which began in Seoul twenty-five years ago would be openly resumed.
Immediately following the "conversation" is the principal document in the dossier. This is nothing less than an exhaustive Memorandum, divided into two sections, containing the policy advocated by the Japanese secret society, called the Black Dragon Society, which is said to have assumed that name on account of the members having studied the situation in the Heilungchiang province of Manchuria. The memorandum is the most remarkable document dealing with the Far East which has come to light since the famous Cassini Convention was published in 1896. Written presumably late in the autumn of 1914 and immediately presented to the Japanese Government, it may undoubtedly be called the fulminate which exploded the Japanese mine of the 18th January, 1915. It shows such sound knowledge of world-conditions, and is so scientific in its detachment that little doubt can exist that distinguished Japanese took part in its drafting. It can therefore be looked upon as a genuine expression of the highly educated Japanese mind, and as such cannot fail to arouse serious misgivings. The first part is a general review of the European War and the Chinese Question: the second is concerned with the Defensive Alliance between China and Japan which is looked upon as the one goal of all Japanese Diplomacy.

PART I. THE EUROPEAN WAR AND THE CHINESE QUESTION

The present gigantic struggle in Europe has no parallel in history. Not only will the equilibrium of Europe be affected and its effect felt all over the globe, but its results will create a New Era in the political and social world. Therefore, whether or not the Imperial Japanese Government can settle the Far Eastern Question and bring to realization our great Imperial policy depends on our being able to skilfully avail ourselves of the world's general trend of affairs so as to extend our influence and to decide upon a course of action towards China which shall be practical in execution. If our authorities and people view the present European War with indifference and without deep concern, merely devoting their attention to the attack on Kiaochow, neglecting the larger issues of the war, they will have brought to nought our great Imperial policy, and committed a blunder greater than which it can not be conceived. We are constrained to submit this statement of policy for the consideration of our authorities, not because we are fond of argument but because we are deeply anxious for our national welfare.
No one at present can foretell the outcome of the European War. If the Allies meet with reverses and victory shall crown the arms of the Germans and Austrians, German militarism will undoubtedly dominate the European Continent and extend southward and eastward to other parts of the world. Should such a state of affairs happen to take place the consequences resulting therefrom will be indeed great and extensive. On this account we must devote our most serious attention to the subject. If, on the other hand, the Germans and Austrians should be crushed by the Allies, Germany will be deprived of her present status as a Federated State under a Kaiser. The Federation will be disintegrated into separate states, and Prussia will have to be content with the status of a second-rate Power. Austria and Hungary, on account of this defeat, will consequently be divided. What their final fate shall be, no one would now venture to predict. In the meantime Russia will annex Galicia and the Austrian Poland: France will repossess Alsace and Lorraine: Great Britain will occupy the German Colonies in Africa and the South Pacific; Servia and Montenegro will take Bosnia, Herzegovina and a certain portion of Austrian Territory; thus making such great changes in the map of Europe that even the Napoleonic War in 1815 could not find a parallel.
When these events take place, not only will Europe experience great changes, but we should not ignore the fact that they will occur also in China and in the South Pacific. After Russia has replaced Germany in the territories lost by Germany and Austria, she will hold a controlling influence in Europe, and, for a long time to come, will have nothing to fear from her western frontier. Immediately after the war she will make an effort to carry out her policy of expansion in the East and will not relax that effort until she has acquired a controlling influence in China. At the same time Great Britain will strengthen her position in the Yangtsze Valley and prohibit any other country from getting a footing there. France will do likewise in Yunnan province using it as her base of operations for further encroachments upon China and never hesitate to extend her advantages. We must therefore seriously study the situation remembering always that the combined action of Great Britain, Russia, and France will not only affect Europe but that we can even foresee that it will also affect China.
Whether this combined action on the part of England, France and Russia is to terminate at the end of the war or to continue to operate, we can not now predict. But after peace in Europe is restored, these Powers will certainly turn their attention to the expansion of their several spheres of interest in China, and, in the adjustment, their interests will most likely conflict with one another. If their interests do not conflict, they will work jointly to solve the Chinese Question. On this point we have not the least doubt. If England, France and Russia are actually to combine for the coercion of China, what course is to be adopted by the Imperial Japanese Government to meet the situation? What proper means shall we employ to maintain our influence and extend our interests within this ring of rivalry and competition? It is necessary that we bear in mind the final results of the European War and forestall the trend of events succeeding it so as to be able to decide upon a policy towards China and determine the action to be ultimately taken. If we remain passive, the Imperial Japanese Government's policy towards China will lose that subjective influence and our diplomacy will be checked forever by the combined force of the other Powers. The peace of the Far East will be thus endangered and even the existence of the Japanese Empire as a nation will no doubt be imperilled. It is therefore our first important duty at this moment to enquire of our Government what course is to be adopted to face that general situation after the war? What preparations are being made to meet the combined pressure of the Allies upon China? What policy has been followed to solve the Chinese Question? When the European War is terminated and peace restored we are not concerned so much with the question whether it be the Dual Monarchies or the Triple Entente which emerge victorious but whether, in anticipation of the future expansion of European influence in the Continents of Europe and Asia, the Imperial Japanese Government should or should not hesitate to employ force to check the movement before this occurrence. Now is the most opportune moment for Japan to quickly solve the Chinese Question. Such an opportunity will not occur for hundreds of years to come. Not only is it Japan's divine duty to act now, but present conditions in China favour the execution of such a plan. We should by all means decide and act at once. If our authorities do not avail themselves of this rare opportunity, great difficulty will surely be encountered in future in the settlement of this Chinese Question. Japan will be isolated from the European Powers after the war, and will be regarded by them with envy and jealousy just as Germany is now regarded. Is it not then a vital necessity for Japan to solve at this very moment the Chinese Question?
No one--not even those who care nothing for politics--can deny that there is in this document an astounding disclosure of the mental attitude of the Japanese not only towards their enemies but towards their friends as well. They trust nobody, befriend nobody, envy nobody; they content themselves with believing that the whole world may in the not distant future turn against them. The burden of their argument swings just as much against their British ally as against Germany and Austria; and the one and only matter which preoccupies Japanese who make it their business to think about such things is to secure that Japan shall forestall Europe in seizing control of China. It is admitted in so many words that it is too early to know who is to triumph in the gigantic European struggle; it is also admitted that Germany will forever be the enemy. At the same time it is expected, should the issue of the struggle be clearcut and decisive in favour of the Allies, that a new three-Power combination formed by England, France and Russia may be made to operate against Japan. Although the alliance with England, twice renewed since 1902, should occupy as important a place in the Far East as the Entente between England and France occupies in Europe, not one Japanese in a hundred knows or cares anything about such an arrangement; and even if he has knowledge of it, he coolly assigns to his country's major international commitment a minimum and constantly diminishing importance. In his view the British Alliance is nothing but a piece of paper which may be consumed in the great bonfire now shedding such a lurid light over the world. What is germane to the matter is his own plan, his own method of taking up arms in a sea of troubles. The second part of the Black Dragon Society's Memorandum, pursuing the argument logically and inexorably and disclosing traces of real political genius, makes this unalterably clear.
Having established clearly the attitude of Japan towards the world--and more particularly towards the rival political combinations now locked together in a terrible death-struggle, this second part of the Memorandum is concerned solely with China and can be broken into two convenient sections. The first section is constructive--the plan for the reconstruction of China is outlined in terms suited to the Japanese genius. This part begins with an illuminating piece of rhetoric.

PART II. THE CHINESE QUESTION AND THE DEFENSIVE ALLIANCE

It is a very important matter of policy whether the Japanese Government, in obedience to its divine mission, shall solve the Chinese Question in a heroic manner by making China voluntarily rely upon Japan. To force China to such a position there is nothing else for the Imperial Japanese Government to do but to take advantage of the present opportunity to seize the reigns of political and financial power and to enter by all means into a defensive alliance with her under secret terms as enumerated below:
The Secret Terms of the Defensive Alliance
The Imperial Japanese Government, with due respect for the Sovereignty and Integrity of China and with the object and hope of maintaining the peace of the Far East, undertakes to share the responsibility of co-operating with China to guard her against internal trouble and foreign invasion and China shall accord to Japan special facilities in the matter of China's National Defence, or the protection of Japan's special rights and privileges and for these objects the following treaty of Alliance is to be entered into between the two contracting parties:
1. When there is internal trouble in China or when she is at war with another nation or nations, Japan shall send her army to render assistance, to assume the responsibility of guarding Chinese territory and to maintain peace and order in China.
2. China agrees to recognize Japan's privileged position in South Manchuria and Inner Mongolia and to cede the sovereign rights of these regions to Japan to enable her to carry out a scheme of local defence on a permanent basis.
3. After the Japanese occupation of Kiaochow, Japan shall acquire all the rights and privileges hitherto enjoyed by the Germans in regard to railways, mines and all other interests, and after peace and order is restored in Tsingtao, the place shall be handed back to China to be opened as an International Treaty port.
4. For the maritime defence of China and Japan, China shall lease strategic harbours along the coast of the Fukien province to Japan to be converted into naval bases and grant to Japan in the said province all railway and mining rights.
5. For the reorganization of the Chinese army China shall entrust the training and drilling of the army to Japan.
6. For the unification of China's firearms and munitions of war, China shall adopt firearms of Japanese pattern, and at the same time establish arsenals in different strategic points.
7. With the object of creating and maintaining a Chinese Navy, China shall entrust the training of her navy to Japan.
8. With the object of reorganizing her finances and improving the methods of taxation, China shall entrust the work to Japan, and the latter shall elect competent financial experts who shall act as first-class advisers to the Chinese Government.
9. China shall engage Japanese educational experts as educational advisers and extensively establish schools in different parts of the country to teach Japanese so as to raise the educational standard of the country.
10. China shall first consult with and obtain the consent of Japan before she can enter into an agreement with another Power for making loans, the leasing of territory, or the cession of the same.
From the date of the signing of this Defensive Alliance, Japan and China shall work together hand-in-hand. Japan will assume the responsibility of safeguarding Chinese territory and maintaining the peace and order in China. This will relieve China of all future anxieties and enable her to proceed energetically with her reforms, and, with a sense of territorial security, she may wait for her national development and regeneration. Even after the present European War is over and peace is restored China will absolutely have nothing to fear in the future of having pressure brought against her by the foreign powers. It is only thus that permanent peace can be secured in the Far East.
But before concluding this Defensive Alliance, two points must first be ascertained and settled. Its bearing on the Chinese Government. Its bearing on those Powers having intimate relations with and great interests in China.
In considering its effect on the Chinese Government, Japan must try to foresee whether the position of China's present ruler Yuan Shih-kai shall be permanent or not; whether the present Government's policy will enjoy the confidence of a large section of the Chinese people; whether Yuan Shi-kai will readily agree to the Japanese Government's proposal to enter into a treaty of alliance with us. These are points to which we are bound to give a thorough consideration. Judging by the attitude hitherto adopted by Yuan Shi-kai we know he has always resorted to the policy of expediency in his diplomatic dealings, and although he may now outwardly show friendliness towards us, he will in fact rely upon the influence of the different Powers as the easiest check against us and refuse to accede to our demands. Take for a single instance, his conduct towards us since the Imperial Government declared war against Germany and his action will then be clear to all. Whether we can rely upon the ordinary friendly methods of diplomacy to gain our object or not it does not require much wisdom to decide. After the gigantic struggle in Europe is over, leaving aside America which will not press for advantage, China will not be able to obtain any loans from the other Powers. With a depleted treasury, without means to pay the officials and the army, with local bandits inciting the poverty-stricken populace to trouble, with the revolutionists waiting for opportunities to rise, should an insurrection actually occur while no outside assistance can be rendered to quell it we are certain it will be impossible for Yuan Shi-kai, single-handed, to restore order and consolidate the country. The result will be that the nation will be cut up into many parts beyond all hope of remedy. That this state of affairs will come is not difficult to foresee. When this occurs, shall we uphold Yuan's Government and assist him to suppress the internal insurrection with the certain assurance that we could influence him to agree to our demands, or shall we help the revolutionists to achieve a success and realize our object through them? This question must be definitely decided upon this very moment so that we may put it into practical execution. If we do not look into the future fate of China but go blindly to uphold Yuan's Government, to enter into a Defensive Alliance with China, hoping thus to secure a complete realization of our object by assisting him to suppress the revolutionists, it is obviously a wrong policy. Why? Because the majority of the Chinese people have lost all faith in the tottering Yuan Shi-kai who is discredited and attacked by the whole nation for having sold his country. If Japan gives Yuan the support, his Government, though in a very precarious state, may possibly avoid destruction. Yuan Shi-kai belongs to that school of politicians who are fond of employing craftiness and cunning. He may be friendly to us for a time, but he will certainly abandon us and again befriend the other Powers when the European war is at an end. Judging by his past we have no doubt as to what he will do in the future. For Japan to ignore the general sentiment of the Chinese people and support Yuan Shi-kai with the hope that we can settle with him the Chinese Question is a blunder indeed. Therefore in order to secure the permanent peace of the Far East, instead of supporting a Chinese Government which can neither be long continued in power nor assist in the attainment of our object, we should rather support the 400,000,000 Chinese people to renovate their corrupt Government, to change its present form, to maintain peace and order in the land and to usher into China a new era of prosperity so that China and Japan may in fact as well as in name be brought into the most intimate and vital relations with each other. China's era of prosperity is based on the China-Japanese Alliance and this Alliance is the foundational power for the repelling of the foreign aggression that is to be directed against the Far East at the conclusion of the European war. This Alliance is also the foundation-stone of the peace of the world. Japan therefore should take this as the last warning and immediately solve this question. Since the Imperial Japanese Government has considered it imperative to support the Chinese people, we should induce the Chinese revolutionists, the Imperialists and other Chinese malcontents to create trouble all over China. The whole country will be thrown into disorder and Yuan's Government will consequently be overthrown. We shall then select a man from amongst the most influential and most noted of the 400,000,000 of Chinese and help him to organize a new form of Government and to consolidate the whole country. In the meantime our army must assist in the restoration of peace and order in the country, and in the protection of the lives and properties of the people, so that they may gladly tender their allegiance to the new Government which will then naturally confide in and rely upon Japan. It is after the accomplishment of only these things that we shall without difficulty gain our object by the conclusion of a Defensive Alliance with China.
For us to incite the Chinese revolutionists and malcontents to rise in China we consider the present to be the most opportune moment. The reason why these men can not now carry on an active campaign is because they are insufficiently provided with funds. If the Imperial Government can take advantage of this fact to make them a loan and instruct them to rise simultaneously, great commotion and disorder will surely prevail all over China. We can intervene and easily adjust matters.
The progress of the European War warns Japan with greater urgency of the imperative necessity of solving this most vital of questions. The Imperial Government can not be considered as embarking on a rash project. This opportunity will not repeat itself for our benefit. We must avail ourselves of this chance and under no circumstances hesitate. Why should we wait for the spontaneous uprising of the revolutionists and malcontents? Why should we not think out and lay down a plan beforehand? When we examine into the form of Government in China, we must ask whether the existing Republic is well suited to the national temperament and well adapted to the thoughts and aspirations of the Chinese people. From the time the Republic of China was established up to the present moment, if what it has passed through is to be compared to what it ought to be in the matter of administration and unification, we find disappointment everywhere. Even the revolutionists themselves, the very ones who first advocated the Republican form of government, acknowledge that they have made a mistake. The retention of the Republican form of Government in China will be a great future obstacle in the way of a Chino- Japanese Alliance. And why must it be so? Because, in a Republic the fundamental principles of government as well as the social and moral aims of the people are distinctly different from that of a Constitutional Monarchy. Their laws and administration also conflict. If Japan act as a guide to China and China models herself after Japan, it will only then be possible for the two nations to solve by mutual effort the Far East Question without differences and disagreements. Therefore to start from the foundation for the purpose of reconstructing the Chinese Government, of establishing a Chino-Japanese Alliance, of maintaining the permanent peace of the Far East and of realizing the consummation of Japan's Imperial policy, we must take advantage of the present opportunity to alter China's Republican form of Government into a Constitutional Monarchy which shall necessarily be identical, in all its details, to the Constitutional Monarchy of Japan, and to no other. This is really the key and first principle to be firmly held for the actual reconstruction of the form of Government in China. If China changes her Republican form of Government to that of a Constitutional Monarchy, shall we, in the selection of a new ruler, restore the Emperor Hsuan T'ung to his throne or choose the most capable man from the Monarchists or select the most worthy member from among the revolutionists? We think, however, that it is advisable at present to leave this question to the exigency of the future when the matter is brought up for decision. But we must not lose sight of the fact that to actually put into execution this policy of a Chino-Japanese Alliance and the transformation of the Republic of China into a Constitutional Monarchy, is, in reality, the fundamental principle to be adopted for the reconstruction of China.
We shall now consider the bearing of this Defensive Alliance on the other Powers. Needless to say, Japan and China will in no way impair the rights and interests already acquired by the Powers. At this moment it is of paramount importance for Japan to come to a special understanding with Russia to define our respective spheres in Manchuria and Mongolia so that the two countries may co-operate with each other in the future. This means that Japan after the acquisition of sovereign rights in South Manchuria and Inner Mongolia will work together with Russia after her acquisition of sovereign rights in North Manchuria and Outer Mongolia to maintain the status quo, and endeavour by every effort to protect the peace of the Far East. Russia, since the outbreak of the European War, has not only laid aside all ill-feelings against Japan, but has adopted the same attitude as her Allies and shown warm friendship for us. No matter how we regard the Manchurian and Mongolian Questions in the future she is anxious that we find some way of settlement. Therefore we need not doubt but that Russia, in her attitude towards this Chinese Question, will be able to come to an understanding with us for mutual co-operation.
The British sphere of influence and interest in China is centred in Tibet and the Yangtsze Valley. Therefore if Japan can come to some satisfactory arrangement with China in regard to Tibet and also give certain privileges to Great Britain in the Yangtsze Valley, with an assurance to protect those privileges, no matter how powerful Great Britain might be, she will surely not oppose Japan's policy in regard to this Chinese Question. While this present European War is going on Great Britain has never asked Japan to render her assistance. That her strength will certainly not enable her to oppose us in the future need not be doubted in the least.
Since Great Britain and Russia will not oppose Japan's policy towards China, it can readily be seen what attitude France will adopt in regard to the subject. What Japan must now somewhat reckon with is America. But America in her attitude towards us regarding our policy towards China has already declared the principle of maintaining China's territorial integrity and equal opportunity and will be satisfied, if we do not impair America's already acquired rights and privileges. We think America will also have no cause for complaint. Nevertheless America has in the East a naval force which can be fairly relied upon, though not sufficiently strong to be feared. Therefore in Japan's attitude towards America there is nothing really for us to be afraid of.
Since China's condition is such on the one hand and the Powers' relation towards China is such on the other hand, Japan should avail herself in the meantime of the European War to definitely decide upon a policy towards China, the most important move being the transformation of the Chinese Government to be followed up by preparing for the conclusion of the Defensive Alliance. The precipitate action on the part of our present Cabinet in acceding to the request of Great Britain to declare war against Germany without having definitely settled our policy towards China has no real connection with our future negotiations with China or affect the political condition in the Far East. Consequently all intelligent Japanese, of every walk of life throughout the land, are very deeply concerned about the matter.
Our Imperial Government should now definitely change our dependent foreign policy which is being directed by others into an independent foreign policy which shall direct others, proclaiming the same with solemn sincerity to the world and carrying it out with determination. If we do so, even the gods and spirits will give way. These are important points in our policy towards China and the result depends on how we carry them out. Can our authorities firmly make up their mind to solve this Chinese Question by the actual carrying out of this fundamental principle? If they show irresolution while we have this heaven-conferred chance and merely depend on the good will of the other Powers, we shall eventually have greater pressure to be brought against the Far East after the European War is over, when the present equilibrium will be destroyed. That day will then be too late for us to repent of our folly. We are therefore impelled by force of circumstances to urge our authorities to a quicker sense of the situation and to come to a determination.
The first point which leaps out of this extraordinarily frank disquisition is that the origin of the Twenty-one Demands is at last disclosed. A perusal of the ten articles forming the basis of the Defensive alliance proposed by the Black Dragon Society, allows us to understand everything that occurred in Peking in the spring of 1915. As far back as November, 1914, it was generally rumoured in Peking that Japan had a surprise of an extraordinary nature in her diplomatic archives, and that it would be merely a matter of weeks before it was sprung. Comparing this elaborate memorandum of the Black Dragon Society with the original text of the Twenty-one Demands it is plain that the proposed plan, having been handed to Viscount Kato, had to be passed through the diplomatic filters again and again until all gritty matter had been removed, and an appearance of innocuousness given to it. It is for this reason that the defensive alliance finally emerges as five compact little "groups" of demands, with the vital things directly affecting Chinese sovereignty labelled desiderata, so that Japanese ambassadors abroad could leave very warm assurances at every Foreign Office that there was nothing in what Japan desired which in any way conflicted with the Treaty rights of the Powers in China. The air of mystery which surrounded the whole business from the 18th January to the 7th May--the day of the ultimatum--was due to the fact that Japan attempted to translate the conspiracy into terms of ordinary intercourse, only to find that in spite of the "filtering" the atmosphere of plotting could not be shaken off or the political threat adequately hidden. There is an arresting piece of psychology in this.
The conviction expressed in the first portion of the Memorandum that bankruptcy was the rock on which the Peking administration must sooner or later split, and that the moment which Japan must seize is the outbreak of insurrections, is also highly instructive in view of what happened later. Still more subtle is the manner in which the ultimate solution is left open: it is consistently admitted throughout the mass of reasoning that there is no means of knowing whether suasion or force will ultimately be necessary. Force, however, always beckons to Japan because that is the simplest formula. And since Japan is the self-appointed defender of the dumb four hundred millions, her influence will be thrown on the side of the populace in order "to usher into China a new era of prosperity" so that China and Japan may in fact as well as in name be brought into the most intimate and vital relations with each other.
The object of the subsidized insurrections is also clearly stated: it is to alter China's republican form of government into a Constitutional Monarchy which shall necessarily be identical in all its details to the Constitutional Monarchy of Japan and to no other. Who the new Emperor is to be is a point left in suspense, although we may here again recall that in 1912 in the midst of the revolution Japan privately sounded England regarding the advisability of lending the Manchus armed assistance, a proposal which was immediately vetoed. But there are other things: nothing is forgotten in the Memorandum. Russia is to be specially placated, England to be specially negotiated with, thus incidentally explaining Japan's recent attitude regarding the Yangtsze Railways. Japan, released from her dependent foreign policy, that is from a policy which is bound by conventions and treaties which others respect, can then carry out her own plans without fear of molestation.
And this brings us to the two last documents of the dossier--the method of subsidizing and arranging insurrections in China when and wherever necessary.
The first document is a detailed agreement between the Revolutionary Party and various Japanese merchants. Trained leaders are to be used in the provinces South of the Yellow River, and the matter of result is so systematized that the agreement specifies the amount of compensation to be paid for every Japanese killed on active service; it declares that the Japanese will deliver arms and ammunition in the districts of Jihchow in Shantung and Haichow in Kiangsu; and it ends by stating that the first instalment of cash, Yen 400,000, had been paid over in accordance with the terms of the agreement. The second document is an additional loan agreement between the interested parties creating a special "trading" corporation, perhaps satirically named "The Europe and Asia Trading Company," which in a consideration of a loan of half a million yen gives Japanese prior rights over all the mines of China.
ALLEGED SECRET AGREEMENT MADE BETWEEN SUN WEN AND THE JAPANESE
In order to preserve the peace in the Far East, it is necessary for China and Japan to enter into an offensive and defensive alliance whereby in case of war with any other nation or nations Japan shall supply the military force while China shall be responsible for the finances. It is impossible for the present Chinese Government to work hand in hand with the Japanese Government nor does the Japanese Government desire to co-operate with the former. Consequently Japanese politicians and merchants who have the peace of the Far East at heart are anxious to assist China in her reconstruction. For this object the following Agreement is entered into by the two parties:
1. Before an uprising is started, Terao, Okura, Tseji Karoku and their associates shall provide the necessary funds, weapons and military force, but the funds so provided must not exceed 1,500,000 yen and rifles not to exceed 100,000 pieces.
2. Before the uprising takes place the loan shall be temporarily secured by 10,000,000 yen worth of bonds to be issued by Sun Wen . It shall however be secured afterwards by all the movable properties of the occupied territory.
3. The funds from the present loan and military force to be provided are for operations in the provinces South of the Yellow River viz: Yunnan, Kweichow, Hunan, Hupeh, Szechuan, Kiangsi, Anhuei, Kiangsu, Chekiang, Fukien, Kwangsi and Kwangtung. If it is intended to invade the Northern provinces North of the Yellow River, Tseji Karoku and his associates shall participate with the revolutionists in all deliberations connected with such operations.
4. The Japanese volunteer force shall be allowed from the date of their enrolment active service pay in accordance with the regulations of the Japanese army. After the occupation of a place, the two parties will settle the mode of rewarding the meritorious and compensating the family of the killed, adopting the most generous practice in vogue in China and Japan. In the case of the killed, compensation for each soldier shall, at the least, be more than 1,000 yen.
5. Wherever the revolutionary army might be located the Japanese military officers accompanying these expeditions shall have the right to advise a continuation or cessation of operations.
6. After the revolutionary army has occupied a region and strengthened its defences, all industrial undertakings and railway construction and the like, not mentioned in the Treaties with other foreign Powers, shall be worked with joint capital together with the Japanese.
7. On the establishment of a new Government in China, all Japan's demands on China shall be recognized by the new Government as settled and binding.
8. All Japanese Military Officers holding the rank of Captain or higher ranks engaged by the Chinese revolutionary army shall have the privilege of being continued in their employment with a limit as to date and shall have the right to ask to be thus employed.
9. The loan shall be paid over in three instalments. The first instalment will be 400,000 yen, the second instalment ... yen and the third instalment ... yen. After the first instalment is paid over, Okura who advances the loan shall have the right to appoint men to supervise the expenditure of the money.
10. The Japanese shall undertake to deliver all arms and ammunition in the Districts of Jih Chao and Haichow .
11. The payment of the first instalment of the loan shall be made not later than three days after the signing of this Agreement.
12. All the employed Japanese Military officers and Japanese volunteers are in duty bound to obey the orders of the Commander of the revolutionary army.
13. The Commander of the revolutionary army shall have the right to send back to Japan those Japanese military officers and Japanese volunteers who disobey his orders and their passage money shall not be paid if such decision meets with the approval of three or more of the Japanese who accompany the revolutionary force.
14. All the commissariat departments in the occupied territory must employ Japanese experts to co-operate in their management.
15. This Agreement takes effect immediately it is signed by the two parties.
The foregoing fifteen articles have been discussed several times between the two parties and signed by them in February. The first instalment of 400,000 yen has been paid according to the terms of this Agreement.
LOAN AGREEMENT MADE BETWEEN THE REVOLUTIONARY PARTY REPRESENTED BY CHANG YAO CHING AND HIS ASSOCIATES OF THE FIRST PART AND KAWASAKI KULANOSKE OF THE SECOND PART
1. The Europe and Asia Trading Company undertakes to raise a loan of 500,000 yen. After the Agreement is signed and sealed by the contracting parties the Japanese Central Bank shall hand over 3/10 of the loan as the first instalment. When Chang Yao Ching and his associates arrive at their proper destination the sum of 150,000 yen shall be paid over as the second instalment. When final arrangements are made the third and last instalment of 200,000 yen shall be paid.
2. When money is to be paid out, the Europe and Asia Trading Company shall appoint supervisers. Responsible individuals of the contracting parties shall jointly affix their seals before money is drawn for expenditure.
3. The Europe and Asia Trading Company shall secure a volunteer force of 150 men, only retired officers of the Japanese army to be eligible.
4. On leaving Japan the travelling expenses and personal effects of the volunteers shall be borne by themselves. After reaching China, Chang Yao Ching and his associates shall give the volunteers the pay of officers of the subordinate grade according to the established regulations of the Japanese army.
5. If a volunteer is wounded while on duty Chang Yao Ching and his associates shall pay him a provisional compensation of not exceeding 1,000 yen. When wounded seriously a provisional compensation of 5,000 yen shall be paid as well as a life pension in accordance with the rules of the Japanese army. If a volunteer meets with an accident, thus losing his life, an indemnity of 50,000 yen shall be paid to his family.
6. If a volunteer is not qualified for duty Chang Yao-ching and his associates shall have the power to dismiss him. All volunteers are subject to the orders of Chang Yao-ching and his associates and to their command in the battlefields.
7. When volunteers are required to attack a certain selected place it shall be their duty to do so. But the necessary expenses for the undertaking shall be determined beforehand by both parties after investigating into existing conditions.
8. The volunteer force shall be organized after the model of the Japanese army. Two Japanese officers recommended by the Europe and Asia Trading Company shall be employed.
9. The Europe and Asia Trading Company shall have the power to dispose of the public properties in the places occupied by the volunteer force.
10. The Europe and Asia Trading Company shall have the first preference for working the mines in places occupied and protected by the volunteer force.
And here ends this extraordinary collection of papers. Is fiction mixed with fact--are these only "trial" drafts, or are they real documents signed, sealed, and delivered? The point seems unimportant. The thing of importance is the undoubted fact that assembled and treated in the way we have treated them they present a complete and arresting picture of the aims and ambitions of the ordinary Japanese; of their desire to push home the attack to the last gasp and so to secure the infeodation of China.

The Twenty-one Demands

2008-08-25T23:16:00.001-07:00

Although the press of the world gave a certain prominence at the time to the astounding demarche with which we now have to deal, there was such persistent mystery about the matter and so many official dementis accompanied every publication of the facts that even to this day the nature of the assault which Japan delivered on China is not adequately realized, nor is the narrow escape assigned its proper place in estimates of the future. Briefly, had there not been publication of the facts and had not British diplomacy been aroused to action there is little doubt that Japan would have forced matters so far that Chinese independence would now be virtually a thing of the past. Fortunately, however, China in her hour of need found many who were willing to succour her; with the result that although she lost something in these negotiations, Japan nevertheless failed in a very signal fashion to attain her main objective. The Pyrrhic victory which she won with her eleventh hour ultimatum will indeed in the end cost her more than would have a complete failure, for Chinese suspicion and hostility are now so deep-seated that nothing will ever completely eradicate them. It is therefore only proper that an accurate record should be here incorporated of a chapter of history which has much international importance; and if we invite close attention to the mass of documents that follow it is because we hold that an adequate comprehension of them is essential to securing the future peace of the Far East. Let us first give the official text of the original Demands:
JAPAN'S ORIGINAL TWENTY-ONE DEMANDS
Translations of Documents Handed to the President, Yuan shih-kai, by Mr. Hioki, the Japanese Minister, on January 18th, 1915.
GROUP I
The Japanese Government and the Chinese Government being desirous of maintaining the general peace in Eastern Asia and further strengthening the friendly relations and good neighbourhood existing between the two nations agree to the following articles:--
Article 1. The Chinese Government engages to give full assent to all matters upon which the Japanese Government may hereafter agree with the German Government relating to the disposition of all rights, interests and concessions, which Germany, by virtue of treaties or otherwise, possesses in relation to the Province of Shantung.
Article 2. The Chinese Government engages that within the Province of Shantung and along its coast no territory or island will be ceded or leased to a third Power under any pretext.
Article 3. The Chinese Government consents to Japan's building a railway from Chefoo or Lungkow to join the Kiaochou-Tsinanfu railway.
Article 4. The Chinese Government engages, in the interest of trade and for the residence of foreigners, to open by herself as soon as possible certain important cities and towns in the Province of Shantung as Commercial Ports. What places shall be opened are to be jointly decided upon in a separate agreement.
GROUP II
The Japanese Government and the Chinese Government, since the Chinese Government has always acknowledged the special position enjoyed by Japan in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia, agree to the following articles:--
Article 1. The two Contracting Parties mutually agree that the term of lease of Port Arthur and Dalny and the term of lease of the South Manchurian Railway and the Antung-Mukden Railway shall be extended to the period of 99 years.
Article 2. Japanese subjects in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia shall have the right to lease or own land required either for erecting suitable buildings for trade and manufacture or for farming.
Article 3. Japanese subjects shall be free to reside and travel in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia and to engage in business and in manufacture of any kind whatsoever.
Article 4. The Chinese Government agrees to grant to Japanese subjects the right of opening the mines in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia. As regards what mines are to be opened, they shall be decided upon jointly.
Article 5. The Chinese Government agrees that in respect of the cases mentioned herein below the Japanese Government's consent shall be first obtained before action is taken:--
Whenever permission is granted to the subject of a third Power to build a railway or to make a loan with a third Power for the purpose of building a railway in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia.
Whenever a loan is to be made with a third Power pledging the local taxes of South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia as security.
Article 6. The Chinese Government agrees that if the Chinese Government employs political, financial or military advisers or instructors in South Manchuria or Eastern Inner Mongolia, the Japanese Government shall first be consulted.
Article 7. The Chinese Government agrees that the control and management of the Kirin-Changchun Railway shall be handed over to the Japanese Government for a term of 99 years dating from the signing of this Agreement.
GROUP III
The Japanese Government and the Chinese Government, seeing that Japanese financiers and the Hanyehping Co. have dose relations with each other at present and desiring that the common interests of the two nations shall be advanced, agree to the following articles:--
Article 1. The two Contracting Parties mutually agree that when the opportune moment arrives the Hanyehping Company shall be made a joint concern of the two nations and they further agree that without the previous consent of Japan, China shall not by her own act dispose of the rights and property of whatsoever nature of the said Company nor cause the said Company to dispose freely of the same.
Article 2. The Chinese Government agrees that all mines in the neighbourhood of those owned by the Hanyehping Company shall not be permitted, without the consent of the said Company, to be worked by other persons outside of the said Company; and further agrees that if it is desired to carry out any undertaking which, it is apprehended, may directly or indirectly affect the interests of the said Company, the consent of the said Company shall first be obtained.
GROUP IV
The Japanese Government and the Chinese Government with the object of effectively preserving the territorial integrity of China agree to the following special articles:--
The Chinese Government engages not to cede or lease to a third Power any harbour or bay or island along the coast of China.
GROUP V
Article 1. The Chinese Central Government shall employ influential Japanese advisers in political, financial and military affairs.
Article 2. Japanese hospitals, churches and schools in the interior of China shall be granted the right of owning land.
Article 3. Inasmuch as the Japanese Government and the Chinese Government have had many cases of dispute between Japanese and Chinese police to settle cases which caused no little misunderstanding, it is for this reason necessary that the police departments of important places shall be jointly administered by Japanese and Chinese or that the police departments of these places shall employ numerous Japanese, so that they may at the same time help to plan for the improvement of the Chinese Police Service.
Article 4. China shall purchase from Japan a fixed amount of munitions of war of what is needed by the Chinese Government or that there shall be established in China a Sino-Japanese jointly worked arsenal. Japanese technical experts are to be employed and Japanese material to be purchased.
Article 5. China agrees to grant to Japan the right of constructing a railway connecting Wuchang with Kiukiang and Nanchang, another line between Nanchang and Hanchow, and another between Nanchang and Chaochou.
Article 6. If China needs foreign capital to work mines, build railways and construct harbour-works in the Provinces of Fukien, Japan shall be first consulted.
Article 7. China agrees that Japanese subjects shall have the right of missionary propaganda in China.
The five groups into which the Japanese divided their demands possess a remarkable interest not because of their sequence, or the style of their phraseology, but because every word reveals a peculiar and very illuminating chemistry of the soul. To study the original Chinese text is to pass as it were into the secret recesses of the Japanese brain, and to find in that darkened chamber a whole world of things which advertise ambitions mixed with limitations, hesitations overwhelmed by audacities, greatnesses succumbing to littlenesses, and vanities having the appearance of velleities. Given an intimate knowledge of Far Eastern politics and Far Eastern languages, only a few minutes are required to re-write the demands in the sequence in which they were originally conceived as well as to trace the natural history of their genesis. Unfortunately a great deal is lost in their official translation, and the menace revealed in the Chinese original partly cloaked: for by transferring Eastern thoughts into Western moulds, things that are like nails in the hands of soft sensitive Oriental beings are made to appear to the steel-clad West as cold-blooded, evolutionary necessities which may be repellent but which are never cruel. The more the matter is studied the more convinced must the political student be that in this affair of the 18th January we have an international coup destined to become classic in the new text-books of political science. All the way through the twenty-one articles it is easy to see the desire for action, the love of accomplished facts, struggling with the necessity to observe the conventions of a stereotyped diplomacy and often overwhelming those conventions. As the thoughts thicken and the plot develops, the effort to mask the real intention lying behind every word plainly breaks down, and a growing exultation rings louder and louder as if the coveted Chinese prize were already firmly grasped. One sees as it were the Japanese nation, released from bondage imposed by the Treaties which have been binding on all nations since 1860, swarming madly through the breached walls of ancient Cathay and disputing hotly the spoils of age-old domains.
Group I, which deals with the fruits of victory in Shantung, has little to detain us since events which have just unrolled there have already told the story of those demands. In Shantung we have a simple and easily-understood repeated performance of the history of 1905 and the settlement of the Russo-Japanese War. Placed at the very head of the list of demands, though its legitimate position should be after Manchuria, obviously the purpose of Group I is conspicuously to call attention to the fact that Japan had been at war with Germany, and is still at war with her. This flourish of trumpets, after the battle is over, however, scarcely serves to disguise that the fate of Shantung, following so hard on the heels of the Russian debacle in Manchuria, is the great moral which Western peoples are called upon to note. Japan, determined as she has repeatedly announced to preserve the peace of the Orient by any means she deems necessary, has found the one and only formula that is satisfactory--that of methodically annexing everything worth fighting about.
So far so good. The insertion of a special preamble to Group II, which covers not only South Manchuria but Eastern Inner Mongolia as well, is an ingenious piece of work since it shows that the hot mood of conquest suitable for Shantung must be exchanged for a certain judicial detachment. The preamble undoubtedly betrays the guiding hand of Viscount Kato, the then astute Minister of Foreign Affairs, who saturated in the great series of international undertakings made by Japan since the first Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902, clearly believes that the stately Elizabethan manner which still characterizes British official phrasing is an admirable method to be here employed. The preamble is quite English; it is so English that one is almost lulled into believing that one's previous reasoning has been at fault and that Japan is only demanding what she is entitled to. Yet study Group II closely and subtleties gradually emerge. By boldly and categorically placing Eastern Inner Mongolia on precisely the same footing as Southern Manchuria--though they have nothing in common--the assumption is made that the collapse in 1908 of the great Anglo- American scheme to run a neutral railway up the flank of Southern Manchuria to Northern Manchuria , coupled with general agreement with Russia which was then arrived at, now impose upon China the necessity of publicly resigning herself to a Japanese overlordship of that region. In other words, the preamble of Group II lays down that Eastern Inner Mongolia has become part and parcel of the Manchurian Question because Japan has found a parallel for what she is doing in the acts of European Powers.
These things, however, need not detain us. Not that Manchuria or the adjoining Mongolian plain is not important; not that the threads of destiny are not woven thickly there. For it is certain that the vast region immediately beyond the Great Wall of China is the Flanders of the Far East--and that the next inevitable war which will destroy China or make her something of a nation must be fought on that soil just as two other wars have been fought there during the past twenty years. But this does not belong to contemporary politics; it is possibly an affair of the Chinese army of 1925 or 1935. Some day China will fight for Manchuria, if it is impossible to recover it in any other way,--nobody need doubt that. For Manchuria is absolutely Chinese--people must remember. No matter how far the town-dwelling Japanese may invade the country during the next two or three decades, no matter what large alien garrisons may be planted there, the Chinese must and will remain the dominant racial element, since their population which already numbers twenty-five millions is growing at the rate of half a million a year, and in a few decades will equal the population of a first-class European Power.
When we reach Group III we touch matters that are not only immediately vital but quite new in their type of audacity and which every one can to-day understand since they are politico- industrial. Group III, as it stands in the original text, is SIMPLY THE PLAN FOR THE CONQUEST OF THE MINERAL WEALTH OF THE YANGTSZE VALLEY which mainly centres round Hankow because the vast alluvial plains of the lower reaches of this greatest of rivers were once the floor of the Yellow Sea, the upper provinces of Hupeh, Hunan, Kiangsi being the region of prehistoric forests clothing the coasts, which once looked down upon the slowly- receding waste of waters, and which to-day contain all the coal and iron. Hitherto every one has always believed that the Yang tsze Valley was par excellence the British sphere in China; and every one has always thought that that belief was enough. It is true that political students, going carefully over all published documents, have ended their search by declaring that the matter certainly required further elucidation. To be precise, this so- called British sphere is not an enclave at all in the proper sense; indeed it can only seem one to those who still believe that it is still possible to pre-empt provinces by ministerial declarations. The Japanese have been the first to dare to say that the preconceived general belief was stupid. They know, of course, that it was a British force which invaded the Yangtsze Valley seventy-five years ago, and forced the signature of the Treaty of Nanking which first opened China to the world's trade; but they are by no means impressed with the rights which that action has been held to confer, since the mineral resources of this region are priceless in their eyes and must somehow be won.
The study of twenty years of history proves this assumption to be correct. Ever since 1895, Japan has been driving wedges into the Yangtsze Valley of a peculiar kind to form the foundations for her sweeping claims of 1915. Thus after the war with China in 1894-95, she opened by her Treaty of Peace four ports in the Yangtsze Valley region, Soochow, Hangchow, Chungking and Shasi; that is, at the two extreme ends of the valley she established politico- commercial points d'appui from which to direct her campaign. Whilst the proximity of Soochow and Hangchow to the British stronghold of Shanghai made it difficult to carry out any "penetration" work at the lower end of the river save in the form of subsidized steam-shipping, the case was different in Hunan and Hupeh provinces. There she was unendingly busy, and in 1903 by a fresh treaty she formally opened to trade Changsha, the capital of the turbulent Hunan province. Changsha for years remained a secret centre possessing the greatest political importance for her, and serving as a focus for most varied activities involving Hunan, Hupeh, and Kiangsi, as well as a vast hinterland. The great Tayeh iron-mines, although entirely Chinese-owned, were already being tapped to supply iron-ore for the Japanese Government Foundry at Wakamatsu on the island of Kiushiu. The rich coal mines of Pinghsiang, being conveniently near, supplied the great Chinese Government arsenal of Hanyang with fuel; and since Japan had very little coal or iron of her own, she decided that it would be best to embrace as soon as possible the whole area of interests in one categorical demand--that is to claim a dominant share in the Hanyang arsenal, the Tayeh iron-mines and the Ping-hsiang collieries. By lending money to these enterprises, which were grouped together under the name of Hanyehping, she had early established a claim on them which she turned at the psychological moment into an international question.
We can pass quickly by Group IV which is of little importance, except to say that in taking upon herself, without consultation with the senior ally, the duty of asking from China a declaration concerning the future non-leasing of harbours and islands, Japan has attempted to assume a protectorship of Chinese territory which does not belong to her historically. It is well also to note that although Japan wished it to appear to the world that this action was dictated by her desire to prevent Germany from acquiring a fresh foothold in China after the war, in reality Group IV was drafted as a general warning to the nations, one point being that she believed that the United States was contemplating the reorganization of the Foochow Arsenal in Fuhkien province, and that as a corollary to that reorganization would be given the lease of an adjoining harbour such as Santuao.
It is not, however, until we reach Group V that the real purpose of the Japanese demands becomes unalterably clear, for in this Group we have seven sketches of things designed to serve as the coup de grace. Not only is a new sphere--Fuhkien province-- indicated; not only is the mid-Yangtsze, from the vicinity of Kiukiang, to serve as the terminus for a system of Japanese railways, radiating from the great river to the coasts of South China; but the gleaming knife of the Japanese surgeon is to aid the Japanese teacher in the great work of propaganda; the Japanese monk and the Japanese policeman are to be dispersed like skirmishers throughout the land; Japanese arsenals are to supply all the necessary arms, or failing that a special Japanese arsenal is to be established; Japanese advisers are to give the necessary advice in finance, in politics, in every department--foreshadowing a complete and all embracing political control. Never was a more sweeping program of supervision presented, and small wonder if Chinese when they learnt of this climax exclaimed that the fate of Korea was to be their own. For a number of weeks after the presentation of these demands everything remained clothed in impenetrable mystery, and despite every effort on the part of diplomatists reliable details of what was occurring could not be obtained. Gradually, however, the admission was forced that the secrecy being preserved was due to the Japanese threat that publicity would be met with the harshest reprisals; and presently the veil was entirely lifted by newspaper publication and foreign Ambassadors began making inquiries in Tokio. The nature and scope of the Twenty-one Demands could now be no longer hidden; and in response to the growing indignation which began to be voiced by the press and the pressure which British diplomacy brought to bear, Japan found it necessary to modify some of the most important items. She had held twenty-four meetings at the Chinese Foreign Office, and although the Chinese negotiators had been forced to give way in such matters as extending the "leasing" periods of railways and territories in Manchuria and in admitting the Japanese right to succeed to all German interests and rights in Shantung , in the essential matters of the Hanyehping concessions and the noxious demands of Group V China had stood absolutely firm, declining even to discuss some of the items.
Accordingly Japanese diplomacy was forced to re-state and re-group the whole corpus of the demands. On the 26th April, acting under direct instructions from Tokio, the Japanese Minister to Peking presented a revised list for renewed consideration, the demands being expanded to twenty-four articles . Most significant, however, is the fact that Group V, was so remodelled as to convey a very different meaning, the group heading disappearing entirely and an innocent-looking exchange of notes being asked for. It is necessary to recall that, when taxed with making Demands which were entirely in conflict with the spirit of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the Japanese Government through its ambassadors abroad had categorically denied that they had ever laid any such Demands on the Chinese Government. It was claimed that there had never been twenty-one Demands, as the Chinese alleged, but only fourteen, the seven items of Group V being desiderata which it was in the interests of china to endorse but which Japan had no intention of forcing upon her. The writer, being acquainted from first to last with everything that took place in Peking from the 18th January to the filing of the Japanese ultimatum of the 7th May, has no hesitation in stigmatising this statement as false. The whole aim and object of these negotiations was to force through Group V. Japan would have gladly postponed sine die the discussion of all the other Groups had China assented to provisions which would have made her independence a thing of the past. Every Chinese knew that, in the main, Group V was simply a repetition of the measures undertaken in Korea after the Russo-Japanese war of 1905 as a forerunner to annexation; and although obviously in the case of China no such rapid surgery could be practised, the endorsement of these measures would have meant a virtual Japanese Protectorate. Even a cursory study of the text that follows will confirm in every particular these capital contentions:
JAPAN'S REVISED DEMANDS
Japan's Revised Demands on China, twenty-four in all, presented April 26, 1915.
NOTE ON ORIGINAL TEXT:

GROUP I
The Japanese Government and the Chinese Government, being desirous of maintaining the general peace in Eastern Asia and further strengthening the friendly relations and good neighbourhood existing between the two nations, agree to the following articles:--
Article 1. The Chinese Government engages to give full assent to all matters upon which the Japanese Government may hereafter agree with the German Government, relating to the disposition of all rights, interests and concessions, which Germany, by virtue of treaties or otherwise, possesses in relation to the Province of Shangtung.
Article 2.
The Chinese Government declares that within the Province of Shantung and along its coast no territory or island will be ceded or leased to any Power under any pretext.
Article 3. The Chinese Government consents that as regards the railway to be built by China herself from Chefoo or Lung kow to connect with the Kiaochow-Tsinanfu Railway, if Germany is willing to abandon the privilege of financing the Chefoo-Weihsien line. China will approach Japanese capitalists to negotiate for a loan.
Article 4. The Chinese Government engages, in the interest of trade and for the residence of foreigners, to open by China herself as soon as possible certain suitable places in the Province of Shantung as Commercial Ports.

The places which ought to be opened are to be chosen and the regulations are to be drafted, by the Chinese Government, but the Japanese Minister must be consulted before making a decision.
GROUP II
The Japanese Government and the Chinese Government, with a view to developing their economic relations in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia, agree to the following articles:--
Article 1. The two contracting Powers mutually agree that the term of lease of Port Arthur and Dalny and the terms of the South Manchuria Railway and the Antung-Mukden Railway shall be extended to 99 years.

The term of lease of Port Arthur and Dalny shall expire in the 86th year of the Republic or 1997. The date for restoring the South Manchurian Railway to China shall fall due in the 91st year of the Republic or 2002. Article 12 in the original South Manchurian Railway Agreement stating that it may be redeemed by China after 36 years after the traffic is opened is hereby cancelled. The term of the Antung-Mukden Railway shall expire in the 96th year of the Republic or 2007.
Article 2. Japanese subjects in South Manchuria may lease or purchase the necessary land for erecting suitable buildings for trade and manufacture or for prosecuting agricultural enterprises.
Article 3. Japanese subjects shall be free to reside and travel in South Manchuria and to engage in business and manufacture of any kind whatsoever.
Article 3a. The Japanese subjects referred to in the preceding two articles, besides being required to register with the local authorities pass-ports which they must procure under the existing regulations, shall also submit to police laws and ordinances and tax regulations, which are approved by the Japanese consul. Civil and criminal cases in which the defendants are Japanese shall be tried and adjudicated by the Japanese consul; those in which the defendants are Chinese shall be tried and adjudicated by Chinese Authorities. In either case an officer can be deputed to the court to attend the proceedings. But mixed civil cases between Chinese and Japanese relating to land shall be tried and adjudicated by delegates of both nations conjointly in accordance with Chinese law and local usage. When the judicial system in the said region is completely reformed, all civil and criminal cases concerning Japanese subjects shall be tried entirely by Chinese law courts.
Article 4.
The Chinese Government agrees that Japanese subjects shall be permitted forthwith to investigate, select, and then prospect for and open mines at the following places in South Manchuria, apart from those mining areas in which mines are being prospected for or worked; until the Mining Ordinance is definitely settled methods at present in force shall be followed.
PROVINCE OF FENG-TIEN
Locality District Mineral
Niu Hsin T'ai Pen-hsi Coal Tien Shih Fu Kou Pen-hsi Coal Sha Sung Kang Hai-lung Coal T'ieh Ch'ang Tung-hua Coal Nuan Ti Tang Chin Coal An Shan Chan region From Liao-yang to Pen-hsi Iron
PROVINCE of KIRIN
Sha Sung Kang Ho-lung Coal and Iron Kang Yao Chi-lin Coal Chia P'i Kou Hua-tien Gold
Article 5. The Chinese Government declares that China will hereafter provide funds for building railways in South Manchuria; if foreign capital is required, the Chinese Government agrees to negotiate for the loan with Japanese capitalists first.
Article 5a. The Chinese Government agrees that hereafter, when a foreign loan is to be made on the security of the taxes of South Manchuria , it will negotiate for the loan with Japanese capitalists first.
Article 6. The Chinese Government declares that hereafter if foreign advisers or instructors on political, financial, military or police matters, are to be employed in South Manchuria, Japanese will be employed first.
Article 7. The Chinese Government agrees speedily to make a fundamental revision of the Kirin-Changchun Railway Loan Agreement, taking as a standard the provisions in railroad loan agreements made heretofore between China and foreign financiers. If, in future, more advantageous terms than those in existing railway loan agreements are granted to foreign financiers, in connection with railway loans, the above agreement shall again be revised in accordance with Japan's wishes.
All existing treaties between China and Japan relating to Manchuria shall, except where otherwise provided for by this Convention, remain in force.
1. The Chinese Government agrees that hereafter when a foreign loan is to be made on the security of the taxes of Eastern Inner Mongolia, China must negotiate with the Japanese Government first.
2. The Chinese Government agrees that China will herself provide funds for building the railways in Eastern Inner Mongolia; if foreign capital is required, she must negotiate with the Japanese Government first.
3. The Chinese Government agrees, in the interest of trade and for the residence of foreigners, to open by China herself, as soon as possible, certain suitable places in Eastern Inner Mongolia as Commercial Ports. The places which ought to be opened are to be chosen, and the regulations are to be drafted, by the Chinese Government, but the Japanese Minister must be consulted before making a decision.
4. In the event of Japanese and Chinese desiring jointly to undertake agricultural enterprises and industries incidental thereto, the Chinese Government shall give its permission.
GROUP III
The relations between Japan and the Hanyehping Company being very intimate, if those interested in the said Company come to an agreement with the Japanese capitalists for co-operation, the Chinese Government shall forthwith give its consent thereto. The Chinese Government further agrees that, without the consent of the Japanese capitalists, China will not convert the Company into a state enterprise, nor confiscate it, nor cause it to borrow and use foreign capital other than Japanese.
GROUP IV
China to give a pronouncement by herself in accordance with the following principle:--
No bay, harbour, or island along the coast of China may be ceded or leased to any Power.
Notes to be Exchanged A
As regards the right of financing a railway from Wuchang to connect with the Kiu-kiang-Nanchang line, the Nanchang-Hangchow railway, and the Nanchang-Chaochow railway, if it is clearly ascertained that other Powers have no objection, China shall grant the said right to Japan.
B
As regards the rights of financing a railway from Wuchang to connect with the Kiu-kiang-Nanchang railway, a railway from Nanchang to Hangchow and another from Nanchang to Chaochow, the Chinese Government shall not grant the said right to any foreign Power before Japan comes to an understanding with the other Power which is heretofore interested therein.
NOTES TO BE EXCHANGED
The Chinese Government agrees that no nation whatever is to be permitted to construct, on the coast of Fukien Province, a dockyard, a coaling station for military use, or a naval base; not to be authorized to set up any other military establishment. The Chinese Government further agrees not to use foreign capital for setting up the above mentioned construction or establishment.
Mr. Lu, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, stated as follows:--
1. The Chinese Government, shall, whenever, in future, it considers this step necessary, engage numerous Japanese advisers.
2. Whenever, in future, Japanese subjects desire to lease or purchase land in the interior of China for establishing schools or hospitals, the Chinese Government shall forthwith give its consent thereto.
3. When a suitable opportunity arises in future, the Chinese Government will send military officers to Japan to negotiate with Japanese military authorities the matter of purchasing arms or that of establishing a joint arsenal.
Mr. Hioki, the Japanese Minister, stated as follows:--
As relates to the question of the right of missionary propaganda the same shall be taken up again for negotiation in future.
An ominous silence followed the delivery of this document. The Chinese Foreign Office had already exhausted itself in a discussion which had lasted three months, and pursuant to instructions from the Presidential Palace prepared an exhaustive Memorandum on the subject. It was understood by now that all the Foreign Offices in the world were interesting themselves very particularly in the matter; and that all were agreed that the situation which had so strangely developed was very serious. On the 1st May, proceeding by appointment to the Waichiaopu the Japanese Minister had read to him the following Memorandum which it is very necessary to grasp as it shows how solicitous China had become of terminating the business before there was an open international break. It will also be seen that this Memorandum was obviously composed for purpose of public record, the fifth group being dealt with in such a way as to fix upon Japan the guilt of having concealed from her British Ally matters which conflicted vitally with the aims and objects of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance Treaty.
MEMORANDUM
Read by the Minister of Foreign Affairs to Mr. Hioki, the Japanese Minister, at a Conference held at Wai Chiao Pu, May 1, 1915.
The list of demands which the Japanese Government first presented to the Chinese Government consists of five groups, the first relating to Shantung, the second relating to South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia, the third relating to Hanyehping Company, the fourth asking for non-alienation of the coast of the country, and the fifth relating to the questions of national advisers, national police, national arms, missionary propaganda, Yangtsze Valley railways, and Fukien Province. Out of profound regard for the intentions entertained by Japan, the Chinese Government took these momentous demands into grave and careful consideration and decided to negotiate with the Japanese Government frankly and sincerely what were possible to negotiate. This is a manifestation to Japan of the most profound regard which the Chinese Government entertains for the relations between the two nations.
Ever since the opening of the negotiations China has been doing her best to hasten their progress holding as many as three conferences a week. As regards the articles in the second group, the Chinese Government being disposed to allow the Japanese Government to develop the economic relations of the two countries in South Manchuria, realizing that the Japanese Government attaches importance to its interests in that region, and wishing to meet the hope of Japan, made a painful effort, without hesitation, to agree to the extension of the 25-year lease of Port Arthur and Dalny, the 36-year period of the South Manchurian Railway and the 15-year period of the Antung-Mukden Railway, all to 99 years; and to abandon its own cherished hopes to regain control of these places and properties at the expiration of their respective original terms of lease. It cannot but be admitted that this is a most genuine proof of China's friendship for Japan.
As to the right of opening mines in South Manchuria, the Chinese Government has already agreed to permit Japanese to work mines within the mining areas designated by Japan. China has further agreed to give Japan a right of preference in the event of borrowing foreign capital for building railways or of making a loan on the security of the local taxes in South Manchuria. The question of revising the arrangement for the Kirin-Changchun Railway has been settled in accordance with the proposal made by Japan. The Chinese Government has further agreed to employ Japanese first in the event of employing foreign advisers on political, military, financial and police matters.
Furthermore, the provision about the repurchase period in the South Manchurian Railway was not mentioned in Japan's original proposal. Subsequently, the Japanese Government alleging that its meaning was not clear, asked China to cancel the provision altogether. Again, Japan at first demanded the right of Japanese to carry on farming in South Manchuria, but subsequently she considered the word "farming" was not broad enough and asked to replace it with the phrase "agricultural enterprises." To these requests the Chinese Government, though well aware that the proposed changes could only benefit Japan, still acceded without delay. This, too, is a proof of China's frankness and sincerity towards Japan.
As regards matters relating to Shangtung the Chinese Government has agreed to a majority of the demands.
The question of inland residence in South Manchuria is, in the opinion of the Chinese Government, incompatible with the treaties China had entered into with Japan and other Powers, still the Chinese Government did its best to consider how it was possible to avoid that incompatibility. At first, China suggested that the Chinese Authorities should have full rights of jurisdiction over Japanese settlers. Japan declined to agree to it. Thereupon China reconsidered the question and revised her counter-proposal five or six times, each time making some definite concession, and went so far to agree that all civil and criminal cases between Chinese and Japanese should be arranged according to existing treaties. Only cases relating to land or lease contracts were reserved to be adjudicated by Chinese Courts, as a mark of China's sovereignty over the region. This is another proof of China's readiness to concede as much as possible.
Eastern Inner Mongolia is not an enlightened region as yet and the conditions existing there are entirely different from those prevailing in South Manchuria. The two places, therefore, cannot be considered in the same light. Accordingly, China agreed to open commercial marts first, in the interests of foreign trade.
The Hanyehping Company mentioned in the third group is entirely a private company, and the Chinese Government is precluded from interfering with it and negotiating with another government to make any disposal of the same as the Government likes, but having regard for the interests of the Japanese capitalists, the Chinese Government agreed that whenever, in future, the said company and the Japanese capitalists should arrive at a satisfactory arrangement for co-operation, China will give her assent thereto. Thus the interests of the Japanese capitalists are amply safeguarded.
Although the demand in the fourth group asking for a declaration not to alienate China's coast is an infringement of her sovereign rights, yet the Chinese Government offered to make a voluntary pronouncement so far as it comports with China's sovereign rights. Thus, it is seen that the Chinese Government, in deference to the wishes of Japan, gave a most serious consideration even to those demands, which gravely affect the sovereignty and territorial rights of China as well as the principle of equal opportunity and the treaties with foreign Powers. All this was a painful effort on the part of the Chinese Government to meet the situation--a fact of which the Japanese Government must be aware.
As regards the demands in the fifth group, they all infringe China's sovereignty, the treaty rights of other Powers or the principle of equal opportunity. Although Japan did not indicate any difference between this group and the preceding four in the list which she presented to China in respect to their character, the Chinese Government, in view of their palpably objectionable features, persuaded itself that these could not have been intended by Japan as anything other than Japan's mere advice to China. Accordingly China has declared from the very beginning that while she entertains the most profound regard for Japan's wishes, she was unable to admit that any of these matters could be made the subject of an understanding with Japan. Much as she desired to pay regard to Japan's wishes, China cannot but respect her own sovereign rights and the existing treaties with other Powers. In order to be rid of the seed for future misunderstanding and to strengthen the basis of friendship, China was constrained to iterate the reasons for refusing to negotiate on any of the articles in the fifth group, yet in view of Japan's wishes China has expressed her readiness to state that no foreign money was borrowed to construct harbour work in Fukien Province. Thus it is clear that China went so far as to see a solution for Japan of a question that really did not admit of negotiation. Was there, then, evasion, on the part of China?
Now, since the Japanese Government has presented a revised list of demands and declared at the same time, that it will restore the leased territory of Kiaochow, the Chinese Government reconsiders the whole question and herewith submits a new reply to the friendly Japanese Government.
In this reply the unsettled articles in the first group are stated again for discussion.
As regards the second group, those articles which have already been initialled are omitted. In connection with the question of inland residence the police regulation clause has been revised in a more restrictive sense. As for the trial of cases relating to land and lease contracts the Chinese Government now permits the Japanese Consul to send an officer to attend the proceedings.
Of the four demands in connection with that part of Eastern Inner Mongolia which is within the jurisdiction of South Manchuria and the Jehol intendency, China agrees to three.
China, also, agrees to the article relating to the Hanyehping Company as revised by Japan.
It is hoped that the Japanese Government will appreciate the conciliatory spirit of the Chinese Government in making this final concession and forthwith give her assent thereto.
There is one more point. At the beginning of the present negotiations it was mutually agreed to observe secrecy but unfortunately a few days after the presentation of the demands by Japan an Osaka newspaper published an "Extra" giving the text of the demands. The foreign and the Chinese press has since been paying considerable attention to this question and frequently publishing pro-Chinese or pro-Japanese comments in order to call forth the World's conjecture--a matter which the Chinese Government deeply regrets.
The Chinese Government has never carried on any newspaper campaign and the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly declared this to the Japanese Minister.
In conclusion, the Chinese Government wishes to express its hope that the negotiations now pending between the two countries will soon come to an end and whatever misgivings foreign countries entertain toward the present situation may be quickly dispelled.
The Peking Government, although fully aware of the perils now confronting it, had dared to draft a complete reply to the revised Demands and had reduced Japanese redundancy to effective limits. Not only were various articles made more compact, but the phraseology employed conveyed unmistakably, if in a somewhat subtle way, that China was not a subordinate State treating with a suzerain. Moreover, after dealing succinctly and seriously with Groups I, II and III, the Chinese reply terminates abruptly, the other points in the Japanese List being left entirely unanswered. It is important to seize these points in the text that follows.
CHINA'S REPLY TO REVISED DEMANDS
China's Reply of May 1, 1915, to the Japanese Revised Demands of April 26, 1915.
GROUP I
The Chinese Government and the Japanese Government, being desirous of maintaining the general peace in Eastern Asia and further strengthening the friendly relations and good neighbourhood existing between the two nations, agree to the following articles:--
Article 1. The Chinese Government declares that they will give full assent to all matters upon which the Japanese and German Governments may hereafter mutually agree, relating to the disposition of all interests, which Germany, by virtue of treaties or recorded cases, possesses in relation to the Province of Shantung.
The Japanese Government declares that when the Chinese Government give their assent to the disposition of interests above referred to, Japan will restore the leased territory of Kiaochow to China; and further recognize the right of the Chinese Government to participate in the negotiations referred to above between Japan and Germany.
Article 2. The Japanese Government consents to be responsible for the indemnification of all losses occasioned by Japan's military operation around the leased territory of Kiaochow. The customs, telegraphs and post offices within the leased territory of Kiaochow shall, prior to the restoration of the said leased territory to China, be administered as heretofore for the time being. The railways and telegraph lines erected by Japan for military purposes are to be removed forthwith. The Japanese troops now stationed outside the original leased territory of Kiaochow are now to be withdrawn first, those within the original leased territory are to be withdrawn on the restoration of the said leased territory to China.
Article 3.
The Chinese Government declares that within the Province of Shantung and along its coast no territory or island will be ceded or leased to any Power under any pretext.
Article 4. The Chinese Government consent that as regards the railway to be built by China herself from Chefoo or Lung kow to connect with the Kiaochow-Tsinanfu railway, if Germany is willing to abandon the privilege of financing the Chefoo-Weihsien line, China will approach Japanese capitalists for a loan.
Article 5. The Chinese Government engage, in the interest of trade and for the residence of foreigners, to open by herself as soon as possible certain suitable places in the Province of Shantung as Commercial Ports.

The places which ought to be opened are to be chosen, and the regulations are to be drafted by the Chinese Government, but the Japanese Minister must be consulted before making a decision.
Article 6. If the Japanese and German Governments are not able to come to a definite agreement in future in their negotiations respecting transfer, etc., this provisional agreement contained in the foregoing articles shall be void.
GROUP II
The Chinese Government and the Japanese Government, with a view to developing their economic relations in South Manchuria, agree to the following articles:--
Article 2. Japanese subjects in South Manchuria may, by arrangement with the owners, lease land required for erecting suitable buildings for trade and manufacture or agricultural enterprises.
Article 3. Japanese subjects shall be free to reside and travel in South Manchuria and to engage in business and manufacture of any kind whatsoever.
Article 3a. The Japanese subjects referred to in the preceding two articles, besides being required to register with the local authorities pass-ports which they must procure under the existing regulations, shall also observe police rules and regulations and pay taxes in the same manner as Chinese. Civil and criminal cases shall be tried and adjudicated by the authorities of the defendant nationality and an officer can be deputed to attend the proceedings. But all cases purely between Japanese subjects and mixed cases between Japanese or Chinese, relating to land or disputes arising from lease contracts, shall be tried and adjudicated by Chinese Authorities and the Japanese Consul may also depute an officer to attend the proceedings. When the judicial system in the said Province is completely reformed, all the civil and criminal cases concerning Japanese subjects shall be tried entirely by Chinese law courts.
RELATING TO EASTERN INNER MONGOLIA
1. The Chinese Government declare that China will not in future pledge the taxes, other than customs and salt revenue of that part of Eastern Inner Mongolia under the jurisdiction of South Manchuria and Jehol Intendency, as security for raising a foreign loan.
2. The Chinese Government declare that China will herself provide funds for building the railways in the part of Eastern Inner Mongolia under the jurisdiction of South Manchuria and the Jehol Intendency; if foreign capital is required, China will negotiate with Japanese capitalists first, provided this does not conflict with agreements already concluded with other Powers.
The Chinese Government agree, in the interest of trade and for the residence of foreigners, to open by China herself certain suitable places in that part of Eastern Inner Mongolia under the jurisdiction of South Manchurian and the Jehol Intendency, as Commercial Marts.
The regulations for the said Commercial Marts will be made in accordance with those of other Commercial Marts opened by China herself.
GROUP III
The relations between Japan and the Hanyehping Company being very intimate, if the said Company comes to an agreement with the Japanese capitalists for co-operation, the Chinese Government shall forthwith give their consent thereto. The Chinese Government further declare that China will not convert the company into a state enterprise, not confiscate it, nor cause it to borrow and use foreign capital other than Japanese.
Letter to be addressed by the Japanese Minister to the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Excellency: I have the honour to state that a report has reached me that the Chinese Government have given permission to foreign nations to construct, on the coast of Fukien Province, dock-yards, coaling stations for military use, naval bases and other establishments for military purposes; and further, that the Chinese Government are borrowing foreign capital for putting up the above-mentioned constructions or establishments. I shall be much obliged if the Chinese Government will inform me whether or not these reports are well founded in fact.
Reply to be addressed by the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Japanese Minister.
Excellency: I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Excellency's Note of ... In reply I beg to state that the Chinese Government have not given permission to foreign Powers to construct, on the coast of Fukien Province, dock-yards, coaling stations for military use, naval bases or other establishments for military purposes; nor do they contemplate to borrow foreign capital for putting up such constructions or establishments.
Within forty-eight hours of this passage-at-arms of the 1st May it was understood in Peking that Japan was meditating a serious step. That vague feeling of unrest which so speedily comes in capitals when national affairs reach a crisis was very evident, and the word "ultimatum" began to be whispered. It was felt that whilst China had held to her rights to the utmost and had received valuable indirect support from both England and the United States, the world-situation was such that it would be difficult to prevent Japan from proceeding to extremities. Accordingly there was little real surprise when on the 7th May Japan filed an ultimatum demanding a satisfactory reply within 48 hours to her Revised Demands--failing which those steps deemed necessary would be taken. A perusal of the text of the Ultimatum will show an interesting change in the language employed. Coaxing having failed, and Japan being 'now convinced that so long as she did not seek to annex the rights of other Foreign Powers in China open opposition could not be offered to her,' states her case very defiantly. One significant point, however, must be carefully noted--that she agrees "to detach Group V from the present negotiations and to discuss it separately in the future." It is this fact which remains the sword of Damocles hanging over China's head; and until this sword has been flung back into the waters of the Yellow Sea the Far Eastern situation will remain perilous.
JAPAN'S ULTIMATUM TO CHINA
Japan's Ultimatum delivered by the Japanese Minister to the Chinese Government, on May 7th, 1915.
The reason why the Imperial Government opened the present negotiations with the Chinese Government is first to endeavour to dispose of the complications arising out of the war between Japan and China, and secondly to attempt to solve those various questions which are detrimental to the intimate relations of China and Japan with a view to solidifying the foundation of cordial friendship subsisting between the two countries to the end that the peace of the Far East may be effectually and permanently preserved. With this object in view, definite proposals were presented to the Chinese Government in January of this year, and up to today as many as twenty-five conferences have been held with the Chinese Government in perfect sincerity and frankness.
In the course of the negotiation the Imperial Government have consistently explained the aims and objects of the proposals in a conciliatory spirit, while on the other hand the proposals of the Chinese Government, whether important or unimportant, have been attended to without any reserve.
It may be stated with confidence that no effort has been spared to arrive at a satisfactory and amicable settlement of those questions.
The discussion of the entire corpus of the proposals was practically at an end at the twenty-fourth conference; that is on the 17th of the last month. The Imperial Government, taking a broad view of the negotiation and in consideration of the points raised by the Chinese Government, modified the original proposals with considerable concessions and presented to the Chinese Government on the 26th of the same month the revised proposals for agreement, and at the same time it was offered that, on the acceptance of the revised proposals, the Imperial Government would, at a suitable opportunity, restore, with fair and proper conditions, to the Chinese Government the Kiaochow territory, in the acquisition of which the Imperial Government had made a great sacrifice.
On the 1st of May, the Chinese Government delivered the reply to the revised proposals of the Japanese Government, which is contrary to the expectations of the Imperial Government. The Chinese Government not only did not give a careful consideration to the revised proposals but even with regard to the offer of the Japanese Government to restore Kiaochow to the Chinese Government the latter did not manifest the least appreciation for Japan's good will and difficulties.
From the commercial and military point of view Kiaochow is an important place, in the acquisition of which the Japanese Empire sacrificed much blood and money, and, after the acquisition the Empire incurs no obligation to restore it to China. But with the object of increasing the future friendly relations of the two countries, they went to the extent of proposing its restoration, yet to her great regret, the Chinese Government did not take into consideration the good intention of Japan and manifest appreciation of her difficulties. Furthermore, the Chinese Government not only ignored the friendly feelings of the Imperial Government in offering the restoration of Kiaochow Bay, but also in replying to the revised proposals they even demanded its unconditional restoration; and again China demanded that Japan should bear the responsibility of paying indemnity for all the unavoidable losses and damages resulting from Japan's military operations at Kiaochow; and still further in connection with the territory of Kiaochow China advanced other demands and declared that she has the right of participation at the future peace conference to be held between Japan and Germany. Although China is fully aware that the unconditional restoration of Kiaochow and Japan's responsibility of indemnification for the unavoidable losses and damages can never be tolerated by Japan yet she purposely advanced these demands and declared that this reply was final and decisive.
Since Japan could not tolerate such demands the settlement of the other questions, however compromising it may be, would not be to her interest. The consequence is that the present reply of the Chinese Government is, on the whole, vague and meaningless.
Furthermore, in the reply of the Chinese Government to the other proposals in the revised list of the Imperial Government, such as South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia, where Japan particularly has geographical, commercial, industrial and strategic relations, as recognized by all the nations, and made more remarkable in consequence of the two wars in which Japan was engaged the Chinese Government overlooks these facts and does not respect Japan's position in that place. The Chinese Government even freely altered those articles which the Imperial Government, in a compromising spirit, have formulated in accordance with the statement of the Chinese Representatives thereby making the statements of the Representatives an empty talk; and on seeing them conceding with the one hand and withholding with the other it is very difficult to attribute faithfulness and sincerity to the Chinese authorities.
As regards the articles relating to the employment of advisers, the establishment of schools, and hospitals, the supply of arms and ammunition and the establishment of arsenals and railway concessions in South China in the revised proposals they were either proposed with the proviso that the consent of the Power concerned must be obtained, or they are merely to be recorded in the minutes in accordance with the statements of the Chinese delegates, and thus they are not in the least in conflict either with Chinese sovereignty or her treaties with the Foreign Powers, yet the Chinese Government in their reply to the proposals, alleging that these proposals are incompatible with their sovereign rights and treaties with Foreign Powers, defeat the expectations of the Imperial Government. However in spite of such attitude of the Chinese Government, the Imperial Government, though regretting to see that there is no room for further negotiations, yet warmly attached to the preservation of the peace of the Far East, is still hoping for a satisfactory settlement in order to avoid the disturbance of the relations.
So in spite of the circumstances which admitted no patience, they have reconsidered the feelings of the Government of their neighbouring country and, with the exception of the article relating to Fukien which is to be the subject of an exchange of notes as has already been agreed upon by the Representatives of both nations, will undertake to detach the Group V from the present negotiation and discuss it separately in the future. Therefore the Chinese Government should appreciate the friendly feelings of the Imperial Government by immediately accepting without any alteration all the articles of Group I, II, III, and IV and the exchange of notes in connection with Fukien province in Group V as contained in the revised proposals presented on the 26th of April.
The Imperial Government hereby again offer their advice and hope that the Chinese Government, upon this advice, will give a satisfactory reply by 6 o'clock P. M. on the 9th day of May. It is hereby declared that if no satisfactory reply is received before or at the specified time, the Imperial Government will take steps they may deem necessary.
EXPLANATORY NOTE
Accompanying Ultimatum delivered to the Minister of Foreign Affairs by the Japanese Minister, May 7th, 1915.
1. With the exception of the question of Fukien to be arranged by an exchange of notes, the five articles postponed for later negotiation refer to the employment of advisers, the establishment of schools and hospitals, the railway concessions in South China, the supply of arms and ammunition and the establishment of arsenals and right of Missionary propaganda.
2. The acceptance by the Chinese Government of the article relating to Fukien may be either in the form as proposed by the Japanese Minister on the 26th of April or in that contained in the Reply of the Chinese Government of May 1st. Although the Ultimatum calls for the immediate acceptance by China of the modified proposals presented on April 26th, without alteration but it should be noted that it merely states the principle and does not apply to this article and articles 4 and 5 of this note.
3. If the Chinese Government accept all the articles as demanded in the Ultimatum the offer of the Japanese Government to restore Kiaochow to China, made on the 26th of April, will still hold good.
4. Article 2 of Group II relating to the lease or purchase of land, the terms "lease" and "purchase" may be replaced by the terms "temporary lease" and "perpetual lease" or "lease on consultation," which means a long-term lease with its unconditional renewal.
Article 4 of Group II relating to the approval of police laws and Ordinances and local taxes by the Japanese Council may form the subject of a secret agreement.
5. The phrase "to consult with the Japanese Government" in connection with questions of pledging the local taxes for raising loans and the loans for the construction of railways, in Eastern Inner Mongolia, which is similar to the agreement in Manchuria relating to the matters of the same kind, may be replaced by the phrase "to consult with the Japanese capitalists."
The article relating to the opening of trade marts in Eastern Inner Mongolia in respect to location and regulations, may, following their precedent set in Shantung, be the subject of an exchange of notes.
6. From the phrase "those interested in the Company" in Group III of the revised list of demands, the words "those interested in" may be deleted.
7. The Japanese version of the Formal Agreement and its annexes shall be the official text or both the Chinese and Japanese shall be the official texts.
Whilst it would be an exaggeration to say that open panic followed the filing of this document, there was certainly very acute alarm,--so much so that it is today known in Peking that the Japanese Legation cabled urgently to Tokio that even better terms could be obtained if the matter was left to the discretion of the men on the spot. But the Japanese Government had by now passed through a sufficiently anxious time itself, being in possession of certain unmistakable warnings regarding what was likely to happen after a world-peace had come,--if matters were pressed too far. Consequently nothing more was done, and on the following day China signified her acceptance of the Ultimatum in the following terms.
Reply of the Chinese Government to the Ultimatum of the Japanese Government, delivered to the Japanese Minister by the Minister of Foreign Affairs on the 8th of May, 1915,
On the 7th of this month, at three o'clock P. M. the Chinese Government received an Ultimatum from the Japanese Government together with an Explanatory Note of seven articles. The Ultimatum concluded with the hope that the Chinese Government by six o'clock P. M. on the 9th of May will give a satisfactory reply, and it is hereby declared that if no satisfactory reply is received before or at the specified time, the Japanese Government will take steps she may deem necessary.
The Chinese Government with a view to preserving the peace of the Far East hereby accepts, with the exception of those five articles of Group V postponed for later negotiation, all the articles of Group I, II, III, and IV and the exchange of notes in connection with Fukien Province in Group V as contained in the revised proposals presented on the 26th of April, and in accordance with the Explanatory Note of seven articles accompanying the Ultimatum of the Japanese Government with the hope that thereby all the outstanding questions are settled, so that the cordial relationship between the two countries may be further consolidated. The Japanese Minister is hereby requested to appoint a day to call at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to make the literary improvement of the text and sign the Agreement as soon as possible.
Thus ended one of the most extraordinary diplomatic negotiations ever undertaken in Peking.

The Factor Of Japan

2008-08-25T23:15:00.010-07:00

The thunderclap of the European war shattered the uneasy calm in China, not because the Chinese knew anything of the mighty issues which were to be fought out with such desperation and valour, but because the presence of the German colony of Kiaochow on Chinese soil and the activity of German cruisers in the Yellow Sea brought the war to China's very doors. Vaguely conscious that this might spell disaster to his own ambitious plans, Yuan Shih-kai was actually in the midst of tentative negotiations with the German Legation regarding the retrocession of the Kiaochow territory when the news reached him that Japan, after some rapid negotiations with her British Ally, had filed an ultimatum on Germany, peremptorily demanding the handing-over of all those interests that had been forcibly acquired in Shantung province in the great leasing-year of 1898.
At once Yuan Shih-kai realized that the Nemesis which had dogged his footsteps all his life was again close behind him. In the Japanese attack on Kiaochow he foresaw a web of complications which even his unrivalled diplomacy might be unable to unravel; for he knew well from bitter experience that wherever the Japanese sets his foot there he remains. It is consequently round this single factor of Japan that the history of the two succeeding years revolves. From being indisputably the central figure on the Chinese canvas, Yuan Shih-kai suddenly becomes subordinate to the terror of Japanese intervention which hangs over him constantly like a black cloud, and governs every move he made from the 15th August, 1914, to the day of his dramatic death on the 6th June, 1916. We shall attempt to write down the true explanation of why this should have been so.
It is extremely hard to discuss the question of Japan for the benefit of an exclusively Western audience in a convincing way because Japanese policy has two distinct facets which seem utterly contradictory, and yet which are in a great measure understandable if the objects of that diplomacy are set down. Being endowed with an extraordinary capacity for taking detached views, the Statesmen of Tokio long ago discerned the necessity of having two independent policies--an Eastern policy for Eastern Asia and a Western policy for Western nations--because East and West are essentially antithetical, and cannot be treated in precisely the same manner. Whilst the Western policy is frank and manly, and is exclusively in the hands of brilliant and attractive men who have been largely educated in the schools of Europe and America and who are fully able to deal with all matters in accordance with the customary traditions of diplomacy, the Eastern policy is the work of obscurantists whose imaginations are held by the vast projects which the Military Party believes are capable of realization in China. There is thus a constant contradiction in the attitude of Japan which men have sought in vain to reconcile. It is for this reason that the outer world is divided into two schools of thought, one believing implicitly in Japan's bona fides, the other vulgarly covering her with abuse and declaring that she is the last of all nations in her conceptions of fair play and honourable treatment. Both views are far-fetched. It is as true of Japan as it is of every other Government in the world that her actions are dictated neither by altruism nor by perfidy, but are merely the result of the faulty working of a number of fallible brains and as regards the work of administration in Japan itself the position is equally extraordinary. Here, at the extreme end of the world, so far from being in any way threatened, the principle of Divine Right, which is being denounced and dismembered in Europe as a crude survival from almost heathen days, stands untouched and still exhibits itself in all its pristine glory. A highly aristocratic Court, possessing one of the most complicated and jealously protected hierarchies in the world, and presided over by a monarch claiming direct descent from the sacred Jimmu Tenno of twenty-five hundred years ago, decrees to-day precisely as before, the elaborate ritual governing every move, every decision and every agreement. There is something so engaging in this political curiosity, something so far removed from the vast world-movement now rolling fiercely to its conclusion, that we may be pardoned for interpolating certain capital considerations which closely affect the future of China and therefore cannot fail to be of public interest.
The Japanese, who owe their whole theocratic conception to the Chinese, just as they owe all their letters and their learning to them, still nominally look upon their ruler as the link between Heaven and Earth, and the central fact dominating their cosmogony. Although the vast number of well-educated men who to-day crowd the cities of Japan are fully conscious of the bizarre nature of this belief in an age which has turned its back on superstition, nothing has yet been done to modify it because--and this is the important point--the structure of Japanese society is such that without a violent upheaval which shall hurl the military clan system irremediably to the ground, it is absolutely impossible for human equality to be admitted and the man-god theory to be destroyed. So long as these two features exist; that is so long as a privileged military caste supports and attempts to make all- powerful the man-god theory, so long will Japan be an international danger-spot because there will lack those democratic restraints which this war has shown are absolutely essential to secure a peaceful understanding among the nations. It is for this reason that Japan will fail to attain the position the art-genius and industry of her people entitle her to and must limp behind the progress of the world unless a very radical revision of the constitution is achieved. The disabilities which arise from an archaic survival are so great that they will affect China as adversely as Japan, and therefore should be universally understood. Japanese history, if stripped of its superficial aspects, has a certain remarkable quality; it seems steeped in heroic blood. The doctrine of force, which expresses itself in its crudest forms in Europe, has always been in Japan a system of heroic-action so fascinating to humanity at large that until recent times its international significance has not been realized. The feudal organization of Japanese society which arose as a result of the armed conquest of the islands fifteen hundred years ago, precluded centralizating measures being taken because the Throne, relying on the virtues of Divine Ancestors rather than on any well-articulated political theory, was weak in all except certain quasi-sacerdotal qualities, and forced to rely on great chieftains for the execution of its mandates as well as for its defence. The military title of "barbarian-conquering general," which was first conferred on a great clan leader eight centuries ago, was a natural enough development when we remember that the autochthonous races were even then not yet pushed out of the main island, and were still battling with the advancing tide of Japanese civilization which was itself composed of several rival streams coming from the Asiatic mainland and from the Malayan archipelagoes. This armed settlement saturates Japanese history and is responsible for the unending local wars and the glorification of the warrior. The conception of triumphant generalship which Hideyoshi attempted unsuccessfully to carry into Korea in the Sixteenth Century, led directly at the beginning of the Seventeenth Century to the formal establishment of the Shogunate, that military dictatorship being the result of the backwash of the Korean adventure, and the greatest proof of the disturbance which it had brought in Japanese society. The persistence of this hereditary military dictatorship for more than two and a half centuries is a remarkable illustration of the fact that as in China so in Japan the theocratic conception was unworkable save in primitive times--civilization demanding organization rather than precepts and refusing to bow its head to speechless kings. Although the Restoration of 1868 nominally gave back to the Throne all it had been forced to leave in other hands since 1603, that transfer of power was imaginary rather than real, the new military organization which succeeded the Shogun's government being the vital portion of the Restoration. In other words, it was the leaders of Japan's conscript armies who inherited the real power, a fact made amply evident by the crushing of the Satsuma Rebellion by these new corps whose organization allowed them to overthrow the proudest and most valourous of the Samurai and incidentally to proclaim the triumph of modern fire-arms.
Now it is important to note that as early as 1874--that is six years after the Restoration of the Emperor Meiji--these facts were attracting the widest notice in Japanese society, the agitation for a Constitution and a popular assembly being very vigourously pushed. Led by the well-known and aristocratic Itagaki, Japanese Liberalism had joined battle with out-and-out Imperialism more than a quarter of a century ago; and although the question of recovering Tariff and Judicial autonomy and revising the Foreign Treaties was more urgent in those days, the foreign question was often pushed aside by the fierceness of the constitutional agitation.
It was not, however, until 1889 that a Constitution was finally granted to the Japanese--that instrument being a gift from the Crown, and nothing more than a conditional warrant to a limited number of men to become witnesses of the processes of government but in no sense its controllers. The very first Diet summoned in 1890 was sufficient proof of that. A collision at once occurred over questions of finance which resulted in the resignation of the Ministry. And ever since those days, that is for twenty-seven consecutive years, successive Diets in Japan have been fighting a forlorn fight for the power which can never be theirs save by revolution, it being only natural that Socialism should come to be looked upon by the governing class as Nihilism, whilst the mob- threat has been very acute ever since the Tokio peace riots of 1905.
Now it is characteristic of the ceremonial respect which all Japanese have for the Throne that all through this long contest the main issue should have been purposely obscured. The traditional feelings of veneration which a loyal and obedient people feel for a line of monarchs, whose origin is lost in the mists of antiquity, are such that they have turned what is in effect an evergrowing struggle against the archaic principle of divine right into a contest with clan-leaders whom they assert are acting "unconstitutionally" whenever they choose to assert the undeniable principles of the Constitution. Thus to-day we have this paradoxical situation: that although Japanese Liberalism must from its very essence be revolutionary, i.e., destructive before it can hope to be constructive, it feigns blindness, hoping that by suasion rather than by force the principle of parliamentary government will somehow be grafted on to the body politic and the emperors, being left outside the controversy, become content to accept a greatly modified rule.
This hope seems a vain one in the light of all history. Militarism and the clans are by no means in the last ditch in Japan, and they will no more surrender their power than would the Russian bureaucracy. The only argument which is convincing in such a case is the last one which is ever used; and the mere mention of it by so-called socialists is sufficient to cause summary arrest in Japan. Sheltering themselves behind the Throne, and nominally deriving their latter-day dictatorship from the Imperial mandate, the military chiefs remain adamant, nothing having yet occurred to incline them to surrender any of their privileges. By a process of adaptation to present-day conditions, a formula has now been discovered which it is hoped will serve many a long year. By securing by extra-legal means the return of a "majority" in the House of Representatives the fiction of national support of the autocracy has been re-invigourated, and the doctrine laid down that what is good for every other advanced people in the world is bad for the Japanese, who must be content with what is granted them and never question the superior intelligence of a privileged caste. In the opinion of the writer, it is every whit as important for the peace of the world that the people of Japan should govern themselves as it is for the people of Germany to do so. The persistence of the type of military government which we see to-day in Japan is harmful for all alike because it is as antiquated as Tsarism and a perpetual menace to a disarmed nation such as China. So long as that government remains, so long must Japan remain an international suspect and be denied equal rights in the council- chambers of the Liberal Powers.
If the situation which arose on the 15th August, 1914, is to be thoroughly understood, it is necessary to pick up threads of Chino-Japanese relations from a good many years back. First-hand familiarity with the actors and the scenes of at least three decades is essential to give the picture the completeness, the brilliancy of colouring, and withal the suggestiveness inseparable from all true works of art. For the Chino-Japanese question is primarily a work of art and not merely a piece of jejune diplomacy stretched across the years. As the shuttle of Fate has been cast swiftly backwards and forwards, the threads of these entwining relations have been woven into patterns involving the whole Far East, until to-day we have as it were a complete Gobelin tapestry, magnificent with meaning, replete with action, and full of scholastic interest.
Let us follow some of the tracery. It has long been the habit to affirm that the conflict between China and Japan had its origin in Korea, when Korea was a vassal state acknowledging the suzerainty of Peking; and that the conflict merited ending there, since of the two protagonists contending for empire Japan was left in undisputed mastery. This statement, being incomplete, is dangerously false. Dating from that vital period of thirty years ago, when Yuan Shih-kai first went to Seoul as a general officer in the train of the Chinese Imperial Resident three contestants, equally interested in the balance of land-power in Eastern Asia were constantly pitted against one another with Korea as their common battling-ground--Russia, China and Japan. The struggle, which ended in the eclipse of the first two, merely shifted the venue from the Korean zone to the Manchurian zone; and from thence gradually extended it further and further afield until at last not only was Inner Mongolia and the vast belt of country fronting the Great Wall embraced within its scope, but the entire aspect of China itself was changed. For these important facts have to be noted. Until the Russian war of 1904-05 had demonstrated the utter valuelessness of Tsarism as an international military factor, Japan had been almost willing to resign herself to a subordinate role in the Far East. Having eaten bitter bread as the result of her premature attempt in 1895 to become a continental power--an attempt which had resulted in the forced retrocession of the Liaotung Peninsula--she had been placed on her good behaviour, an attitude which was admirably reflected in 1900 when her Peking Expeditionary Force proved itself so well- behaved and so gallant as to arouse the world's admiration. But the war with Russia and the collapse of the Tsar's Manchurian adventure not only drew her back into territory that she never hoped to see again, but placed her in possession of a ready-made railway system which carried her almost up to the Sungari river and surrendered to her military control vast grasslands stretching to the Khingan mountains. This Westernly march so greatly enlarged the Japanese political horizon, and so entirely changed the Japanese viewpoint, that the statesmen of Tokio in their excitement threw off their ancient spectacles and found to their astonishment that their eyes were every whit as good as European eyes. Now seeing the world as others had long seen it, they understood that just as with the individuals so with nations the struggle for existence can most easily be conducted by adopting that war-principle of Clausewitz--the restless offensive, and not by writing meaningless dispatches. Prior to the Russian war they had written to Russia a magnificent series of documents in which they had pleaded with sincerity for an equitable settlement,-- only to find that all was in vain. Forced to battle, they had found in combat not only success but a new principle.
The discovery necessitated a new policy. During the eighties, and in a lesser degree in the nineties, Japan had apart from everything else been content to act in a modest and retiring way, because she wished at all costs to avoid testing too severely her immature strength. But owing to the successive collapses of her rivals, she now found herself not only forced to attack as the safest course of action, but driven to the view that the Power that exerts the maximum pressure constantly and unremittedly is inevitably the most successful. This conclusion had great importance. For just as the first article of faith for England in Asia has been the doctrine that no Power can be permitted to seize strategic harbours which menace her sea-communications, so did it now become equally true of Japan that her dominant policy became not an Eastern Monroe doctrine, as shallow men have supposed, but simply the Doctrine of Maximum Pressure. To press with all her strength on China was henceforth considered vital by every Japanese; and it's in this spirit that every diplomatic pattern has been woven since the die was cast in 1905. Until this signal fact has been grasped no useful analysis can be made of the evolution of present conditions. Standing behind this policy, and constantly reinforcing it, are the serried ranks of the new democracy which education and the great increase in material prosperity have been so rapidly creating. The soaring ambition which springs from the sea lends to the attacks developed by such a people the aspect of piracies; and it is but natural in such circumstances that for Chinese Japan should not only have the aspect of a sea-monster but that their country should appear as hapless Andromeda bound to a rock, always awaiting a Perseus who never comes. ...
The Revolution of 1911 had been entirely unexpected in Japan. Whilst large outbreaks had been certainly counted on since the Chinese Revolutionary party had for years used Japan as an asylum and a base of operations, never had it been anticipated that the fall of an ancient Dynasty could be so easily encompassed. Consequently, the abdication of the Manchus as the result of intrigues rather than of warfare was looked upon as little short of a catastrophe because it hopelessly complicated the outlook, broke the pattern which had been so carefully woven for so many years, and interjected harsh elements which could not be assigned an orderly place. Not only was a well-articulated State-system suddenly consigned to the flames, but the ruin threatened to be so general that the balance of power throughout the Far East would be twisted out of shape. Japanese statesmen had desired a weak China, a China which would ultimately turn to them for assistance because they were a kindred race, but not a China that looked to the French Revolution for its inspiration. To a people as slow to adjust themselves to violent surprises as are the Japanese, there was an air of desperation about the whole business which greatly alarmed them, and made them determined at the earliest possible moment to throw every ounce of their weight in the direction which would best serve them by bringing matters back to their original starting-point. For this reason they were not only prepared in theory in 1911 to lend armed assistance to the Manchus but would have speedily done so had not England strongly dissented from such a course of action when she was privately sounded about the matter. Even to-day, when a temporary adjustment of Japanese policy has been successfully arranged, it is of the highest importance for political students to remember that the dynastic influences in Tokio have never departed from the view that the legitimate sovereignty of China remains vested in the Manchu House and that everything that has taken place since 1911 is irregular and unconstitutional.
For the time being, however, two dissimilar circumstances demanded caution: first, the enthusiasm which the Japanese democracy, fed by a highly excited press, exhibited towards the Young China which had been so largely grounded in the Tokio schools and which had carried out the Revolution: secondly--and far more important--the deep, abiding and ineradicable animosity which Japanese of all classes felt for the man who had come out of the contest head and shoulders above everybody else--Yuan Shih-kai. These two remarkable features ended by completely thrusting into the background during the period 1911-1914 every other element in Japanese statesmanship; and of the two the second must be counted the decisive one. Dating back to Korea, when Yuan Shih-kai's extraordinary diplomatic talents constantly allowed him to worst his Japanese rivals and to make Chinese counsels supreme at the Korean Court up to the very moment when the first shots of the war of 1894 were fired, this ancient dislike, which amounted to a consuming hatred, had become a fixed idea. Restrained by the world's opinion during the period prior to the outbreak of the world-war as well as by the necessity of acting financially in concert with the other Powers, it was not until August, 1914, that the longed-for opportunity came and that Japan prepared to act in a most remarkable way.
The campaign against Kiaochow was unpopular from the outset among the Japanese public because it was felt that they were not legitimately called upon to interest themselves in such a remote question as the balance of power among European nations, which was what British warfare against Germany seemed to them to be. Though some ill-will was felt against Germany for the part played by her in the intervention of 1895, it must not be forgotten that just as the Japanese navy is the child of the British navy, so is the Japanese army the child of the German army--and that Japanese army chiefs largely control Japan. These men were averse from "spoiling their army" in a contest which did not interest them. There was also the feeling abroad that England by calling upon her Ally to carry out the essential provisions of her Alliance had shown that she had the better part of a bargain, and that she was exploiting an old advantage in a way which could not fail to react adversely on Japan's future world's relationships. Furthermore, it is necessary to underline the fact that official Japan was displeased by the tacit support an uninterested British Foreign Office had consistently given to the Yuan Shih-kai regime. That the Chinese experiment was looked upon in England more with amusement than with concern irritated the Japanese--more particularly as the British Foreign Office was issuing in the form of White Papers documents covering Yuan Shih-kai's public declarations as if they were contributions to contemporary history. Thus in the preceding year under the nomenclature of "affairs in China" the text of a dementi regarding the President of China's Imperial aspirations had been published,--a document which Japanese had classified as a studied lie, and as an act of presumption because its wording showed that its author intended to keep his back turned on Japan. The Dictator had declared:--
... "From my student days, I, Yuan Shih-kai, have admired the example of the Emperors Yao and Shun, who treated the empire as a public trust, and considered that the record of a dynasty in history for good or ill is inseparably bound up with the public spirit or self-seeking by which it has been animated. On attaining middle age I grew more familiar with foreign affairs, was struck by the admirable republican system in France and America, and felt that they were a true embodiment of the democratic precepts of the ancients. When last year the patriotic crusade started in Wuchang its echoes went forth into all the provinces, with the result that this ancient nation with its 2,000 years of despotism adopted with one bound the republican system of government.
It was my good fortune to see this glorious day at my life's late eve; I cherished the hope that I might dwell in the seclusion of my own home and participate in the blessings of an age of peace.
But once again my fellow-countrymen honoured me with the pressing request that I should again assume a heavy burden, and on the day on which the Republic was proclaimed I announced it the whole nation that never again should a monarchy be permitted in China. At my inauguration I again took this solemn oath in the sight of heaven above and earth beneath. Yet of late ignorant persons in the provinces have fabricated wild rumours to delude men's minds, and have adduced the career of the First Napoleon on which to base their erroneous speculations. It is best not to inquire as to their motives; in some cases misconception may be the cause, in others deliberate malice.
The Republic has now been proclaimed for six months; so far there is no prospect of recognition from the Powers, while order is far from being restored in the provinces. Our fate hangs upon a hair; the slightest negligence may forfeit all. I, who bear this arduous responsibility, feel it my bounden duty to stand at the helm in the hope of successfully breasting the wild waves.
But while those in office are striving with all their might to effect a satisfactory solution, spectators seem to find a difficulty in maintaining a generous forbearance. They forget that I, who have received this charge from my countrymen, cannot possibly look dispassionately on when the fate of the nation is in the balance. If I were aware that the task was impossible and played a part of easy acquiescence, so that the future of the Republic might become irreparable, others might not reproach me, but my own conscience would never leave me alone.
My thoughts are manifest in the sight of high heaven. But at this season of construction and dire crisis how shall these mutual suspicions find a place? Once more I issue this announcement; if you, my fellow countrymen, do indeed place the safety of China before all other considerations, it behooves you to be large- minded. Beware of lightly heeding the plausible voice of calumny, and of thus furnishing a medium for fostering anarchy. If evilly disposed persons, who are bent on destruction, seize the excuse for sowing dissension to the jeopardy of the situation, I, Yuan Shih-kai, shall follow the behest of my fellow-countrymen in placing such men beyond the pale of humanity.
A vital issue is involved. It is my duty to lay before you my inmost thought, so that suspicion may be dissipated. Those who know have the right to impose their censure. It is for public opinion to take due notice."
Moreover Yuan Shih-kai had also shown in his selection and use of foreign Advisers, that he was determined to proceed in such a manner as to advertise his suspicion and enmity of Japan. After the Coup d'etat of the 4th November, 1913, and the scattering of Parliament, it was an American Adviser who was set to work on the new "Constitution"; and although a Japanese, Dr. Ariga, who was in receipt of a princely salary, aided and abetted this work, his endorsement of the dictatorial rule was looked upon as traitorous by the bulk of his countrymen. Similarly, it was perfectly well- known that Yuan Shih-kai was spending large sums of money in Tokio in bribing certain organs of the Japanese Press and in attempting to win adherents among Japanese members of Parliament. Remarkable stories are current which compromise very highly-placed Japanese but which the writer hesitates to set down in black and white as documentary proof is not available. In any case, be this as it may, it was felt in Tokio that the time had arrived to give a proper definition to the relations between the two states,--the more so as Yuan Shih-kai, by publicly proclaiming a small war-zone in Shantung within the limits of which the Japanese were alone permitted to wage war against the Germans, had shown himself indifferent to the majesty of Japan. The Japanese having captured Kiaochow by assault before the end of 1914 decided to accept the view that a de facto Dictatorship existed in China. Therefore on the 18th of January, 1915, the Japanese Minister, Dr. Hioki, personally served on Yuan Shih-kai the now famous Twenty-one Demands, a list designed to satisfy every present and future need of Japanese policy and to reduce China to a state of vassalage.

The Dictator At Work

2008-08-25T23:15:00.009-07:00

With the Parliament of China effectively destroyed, and the turbulent Yangtsze Valley dragooned into sullen submission, Yuan Shih-kai's task had become so vastly simplified that he held the moment to have arrived when he could openly turn his hand to the problem of making himself absolutely supreme, de jure as well as de facto. But there was one remaining thing to be done. To drive the last nail into the coffin of the Republic it was necessary to discredit and virtually imprison the man who was Vice-President.
It is highly characteristic that although he had received from the hero of the Wuchang Rising the most loyal co-operation--a co- operation of a very arduous character since the Commander of the Middle Yangtsze had had to resist the most desperate attempts to force him over to the side of the rebellion in July, 1913, nevertheless, Yuan Shih-kai was determined to bring this man to Peking as a prisoner of state.
It was just the fact that General Li Yuan-hung was a national hero which impelled the Dictator to action. In the election which had been carried out in October, 1913, by the National Assembly sitting as a National Convention, in spite of every effort to destroy his influence, the personal popularity of the Vice- President had been such that he had received a large number of votes for the office of full President--which had necessitated not one but three ballots being taken, making most people declare that had there been no bribery or intimidation he would have probably been elected to the supreme office in the land, and ousted the ambitious usurper. In such circumstances his complete elimination was deemed an elementary necessity. To secure that end Yuan Shih- kai suddenly dispatched to Wuchang--where the Vice-President had resided without break since 1911--the Minister of War, General Tuan Chi-jui, with implicit instructions to deal with the problem in any way he deemed satisfactory, stopping short of nothing should his victim prove recalcitrant.
Fortunately General Tuan Chi-jui did not belong to the ugly breed of men Yuan Shih-kai loved to surround himself with; and although he was a loyal and efficient officer the politics of the assassin were unknown to him. He was therefore able to convince the Vice- President after a brief discussion that the easiest way out of the ring of intriguers and plotters in which Yuan Shih-kai was rapidly surrounding him in Wuchang was to go voluntarily to the capital. There at least he would be in daily touch with developments and able to fight his own battles without fear of being stabbed in the back; since under the eye of the foreign Legations even Yuan Shih- kai was exhibiting a certain timidity. Indeed after the outcry which General Chang Cheng-wu's judicial murder had aroused he had reserved his ugliest deeds for the provinces, only small men being done to death in Peking. Accordingly, General Li Yuan-hung packed a bag and accompanied only by an aide-de-camp left abruptly for the capital where he arrived on the 11th December, 1913.
A great sensation was caused throughout China by this sudden departure, consternation prevailing among the officers and men of the Hupeh army when the newspapers began to hint that their beloved chief had been virtually abducted. Although cordially received by Yuan Shih-kai and given as his personal residence the Island Palace where the unfortunate Emperor Kwang Hsu had been so long imprisoned by the Empress Dowager Tsu Hsi after her coup d'etat of 1898, it did not take long for General Li Yuan-hung to understand that his presence was a source of embarrassment to the man who would be king. Being, however, gifted with an astounding fund of patience, he prepared to sit down and allow the great game which he knew would now unroll to be played to its normal ending. What General Li Yuan-hung desired above all was to be forgotten completely and absolutely--springing to life when the hour of deliverance finally arrived. His policy was shown to be not only psychologically accurate, but masterly in a political sense. The greatest ally of honesty in China has always been time, the inherent decency of the race finally discrediting scoundrelism in every period of Chinese history.
The year 1914 dawned with so many obstacles removed that Yuan Shih-kai became more and more peremptory in his methods. In February the young Empress Lun Yi, widow of the Emperor Kwang Hsu, who two years previously in her character of guardian of the boy- Emperor Hsuan Tung, had been cajoled into sanctioning the Abdication Edicts, unexpectedly expired, her death creating profound emotion because it snapped the last link with the past. Yuan Shih-kai's position was considerably strengthened by this auspicious event which secretly greatly delighted him; and by his order for three days the defunct Empress lay in State in the Grand Hall of the Winter Palace and received the obeisance of countless multitudes who appeared strangely moved by this hitherto unknown procedure. There was now only a nine-year old boy between the Dictator and his highest ambitions. Two final problems still remained to be dealt with: to give a legal form to a purely autocratic rule, and to find money to govern the country. The second matter was vastly more important than the first to a man who did not hesitate to base his whole polity on the teachings of Machiavelli, legality being looked upon as only so much political window-dressing to placate foreign opinion and prevent intervention, whilst without money even the semblance of the rights of eminent domain could not be preserved. Everything indeed hinged on the question of finding money.
There was none in China, at least none for the government. Financial chaos still reigned supreme in spite of the great Reorganization Loan of 25,000,000 pounds, which had been carefully arranged more for the purpose of wiping-out international indebtedness and balancing the books of foreign bankers than to institute a modern government. All the available specie in the country had been very quietly remitted in these troubled times by the native merchant-guilds from every part of China to the vast emporium of Shanghai for safe custody, where a sum not far short of a hundred million ounces now choked the vaults of the foreign banks,--being safe from governmental expropriation. The collection of provincial revenues having been long disorganized, Yuan Shih- kai, in spite of his military dictatorship, found it impossible to secure the proper resumption of the provincial remittances. Fresh loans became more and more sought after; by means of forced domestic issues a certain amount of cash was obtained, but the country lived from hand to mouth and everybody was unhappy. Added to this by March the formidable insurrection of the "White Wolf" bandits in Central China--under the legendary leadership of a man who was said to be invulnerable--necessitated the mobilization of a fresh army which ran into scores of battalions and which was vainly engaged for nearly half a year in rounding-up this replica of the Mexican Villa. So demoralized had the army become from long license that this guerilla warfare was waged with all possible slackness until a chance shot mortally wounded the chief brigand and his immense following automatically dispersed. During six months these pests had ravaged three provinces and menaced one of the most strongly fortified cities in Asia--the old capital of China, Hsianfu, whither the Manchu Court had fled in 1900.
Meanwhile wholesale executions were carried out in the provinces with monotonous regularity and all attempts at rising ruthlessly suppressed. In Peking the infamous Chih Fa Chu or Military Court-- a sort of Chinese Star-Chamber--was continually engaged in summarily dispatching men suspected of conspiring against the Dictator. Even the printed word was looked upon as seditious, an unfortunate native editor being actually flogged to death in Hankow for telling the truth about conditions in the riverine districts. These cruelties made men more and more determined to pay off the score the very first moment that was possible. Although he was increasingly pressed for ready money, Yuan Shih- kai, by the end of April, 1914, had the situation sufficiently in hand to bring out his supreme surprise,--a brand-new Constitution promulgated under the euphonious title of "The Constitutional Compact."
This precious document, which had no more legality behind it as a governing instrument than a private letter, can be studied by the curious in the appendix where it is given in full: here it is sufficient to say that no such hocuspocus had ever been previously indulged in China. Drafted by an American legal adviser, Dr. Goodnow, who was later to earn unenviable international notoriety as the endorser of the monarchy scheme, it erected what it was pleased to call the Presidential System; that is, it placed all power directly in the hands of the President, giving him a single Secretary of State after the American model and reducing Cabinet Ministers to mere Department Chiefs who received their instructions from the State Department but had no real voice in the actual government. A new provincial system was likewise invented for the provinces, the Tutuhs or Governors of the Revolutionary period being turned into Chiang Chun or Military Officials on the Manchu model and provincial control absolutely centralized in their hands, whilst the Provincial Assemblies established under the former dynasty were summarily abolished. The worship at the Temple of Heaven was also re-established and so was the official worship of Confucius--both Imperialistic measures-- whilst a brand-new ceremony, the worship of the two titulary Military Gods, was ordered so as to inculcate military virtue! It was laid down that in the worship of Heaven the President would wear the robes of the Dukes of the Chow dynasty, B. C. 1112, a novel and interesting republican experiment. Excerpts from two Mandates which belong to these days throw a flood of light on the kind of reasoning which was held to justify these developments. The first declares:
... "In a Republic the Sovereign Power is vested in the people, and the main principle is that all things should be determined in accordance with the desires of the majority. These desires may be embraced by two words, namely, existence and happiness. I, the President, came from my farm because I was unable to bear the eternal sufferings of the innocent people. I assumed office and tried vainly to soothe the violent feelings. The greatest evil nowadays is the misunderstanding of true principles. The Republicans on the pretext of public interest try to attain selfish ends, some going so far as to consider the forsaking of parents as a sign of liberty and regarding the violation of the laws as a demonstration of equality. I will certainly do my best to change all this."
In the second Mandate Yuan Shih-kai justifies the re-establishment of the Confucian worship in a singular way, incidentally showing how utterly incomprehensible to him is the idea of representative government, since he would appear to have imagined that by dispatching circular telegrams to the provincial capitals and receiving affirmative replies from his creatures all that is necessary in the way of a national endorsement of high constitutional measures had been obtained.
... "China's devotion to Confucius began with the reign of the Emperor Hsiaowu, of the Han dynasty, who rejected the works of the hundred authors, making the six Confucian classics the leading books. Confucius, born in the time of the tyranny of the nobility, in his works declared that after war disturbances comes peace, and with peace real tranquillity and happiness. This, therefore, is the fountain of Republicanism. After studying the history of China and consulting the opinions of scholars, I find that Confucius must remain the teacher for thousands of generations. But in a Republic the people possess sovereign power. Therefore circular telegrams were dispatched to all the provinces to collect opinions, and many affirmative answers have already been received. Therefore, all colleges, schools, and public bodies are ordered to revive the sacrificial ceremony of Confucius, which shall be carefully and minutely ordained" ...
With the formal promulgation of the Constitutional Compact the situation had become bizarre in the extreme. Although even the child-mind might have known that powers for Constitution-making were vested solely in the National Assembly, and that the re- division of authority which was now made was wholly illegal, because Yuan Shih-kai as the bailiff of the Powers was able to do much as he pleased; and at a moment when Liberal Europe was on the eve of plunging into the most terrible war in history in defence of right against might, reaction and Prussianism of the most repulsive type were passed by unnoticed in China. In a few loosely drafted chapters not only was the governance of the country rearranged to suit a purely dictational rule, but the actual Parliament was permanently extinguished and replaced by a single Legislative Chamber which from its very composition could be nothing but a harmless debating Society with no greater significance than a dietine of one of the minor German States. Meanwhile, as there was no intention of allowing even this chamber to assemble until the last possible moment, a Senate was got together as the organ of public opinion, ten Senators being chosen to draft yet another Constitution which would be the final one. Remarkable steps were taken a little later in the year to secure that the succession to the dictatorship should be left in Yuan Shih-kai's own hands. An elaborate ritual was contrived and officially promulgated under the title of the Presidential Succession Law on the 29th December whereby the Chief Executive selected three names which were placed in a gold box in a Stone House in the grounds of the Palace,--the gold box only to be opened when death or incapacity deprived the nation of its self- appointed leader. For the term of the presidency was openly converted into one of ten years and made subject to indefinite renewal by this precious instrument which was the work of the puppet senate. In case of the necessity of an election suddenly arising, an Electoral College was to be formed by fifty members drawn from the Legislative Chamber and fifty from the Senate, the Presidential candidates consisting of the President and the three whose names were in the gold box in the Stone House in the Palace grounds. It is not definitely known to whom these provisions were due, but it is known that at least they were not the work of the American adviser.
His responsibility, however, was very great; for the keynote of all this scheme, according to Dr. Goodnow, was "centralization of power," a parrot-like phrase which has deluded better men than ever came to China and which--save as a method necessary during a state of war --should have no place in modern politics. But it was precisely this which appealed to Yuan Shih-kai. Although as President he was ex officio Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, he now turned this office into a direct and special organization installed within the precincts of the Imperial City. The flags of this new dictatorship constantly floated over his palace, whilst scores of officers were appointed to scores of departments which were directly concerned with centralizing the control of every armed man in the country in the master's hands. Meanwhile in order to placate provincial commanders, a "Palace of Generals," was created in Peking to which were brought all men it was held desirable to emasculate. Here, drawing ample salaries, they could sit in idleness the livelong day, discussing the battles they had never fought and intriguing against one another, two occupations in which the product of the older school of men in China excels. Provincial levies which had any military virtue, were gradually disbanded, though many of the rascals and rapscallions, who were open menaces to good government were left with arms in their hands so as to be an argument in favour of drastic police-rule. Thus it is significant of the underlying falseness and weakness of the dictator's character that he never dared to touch the troops of the reprobate General Chang Hsun, who had made trouble for years, and who had nearly embroiled China in war with Japan during the so-called Second Revolution by massacring some Japanese civilians in the streets of Nanking when the city was recaptured. So far from disbanding his men, Chang Hsun managed constantly to increase his army of 30,000 men on the plea that the post of Inspector-General of the Yangtsze Valley, which had been given to him as a reward for refusing to throw in his lot with the Southern rebels, demanded larger forces. Yuan Shih-kai, although half-afraid of him, found him at various periods useful as a counterweight to other generals in the provinces; in any case he was not the man to risk anything by attempting to crush him. As he was planted with his men astride of the strategically important Pukow railway, it was always possible to order him at a moment's notice into the Yangtsze Valley which was thus constantly under the menace of fire and sword.
Far and wide Yuan Shih-kai now stretched his nets. He even employed Americans throughout the United States in the capacity of press-agents in order to keep American public opinion favourable to him, hoping to invoke their assistance against his life-enemy-- Japan--should that be necessary. The precise details of this propaganda and the sums spent in its prosecution are known to the writer; if he refrains from publishing them it is solely for reasons of policy. England it was not necessary to deal with in this way. Chance had willed that the British Representative in Peking should be an old friend who had known the Dictator intimately since his Korean days; and who faithful to the extraordinary English love of hero-worship believed that such a surprising character could do little wrong. British policy which has always been a somewhat variable quantity in China, owing to the spasmodic attention devoted to such a distant problem, may be said to have been non-existent during all this period--a state of affairs not conducive to international happiness.
Slowly the problem developed in a shiftless, irresolute way. Unable to see that China had vastly changed, and that government by rascality had become a physical and moral impossibility, the Legations in Peking adopted an attitude of indifference leaving Yuan Shih-kai to wreak his will on the people. The horde of foreign advisers who had been appointed merely as a piece of political window-dressing, although they were allowed to do no work, were useful in running backwards and forwards between the Legations and the Presidential headquarters and in making each Power suppose that its influence was of increasing importance. It was made abundantly clear that in Yuan Shih-kai's estimation the Legations played in international politics much the same role that provincial capitals did in domestic politics: so long as you bound both to benevolent neutrality the main problem--the consolidation of dictatorial power--could be pushed on with as you wished. Money, however, remained utterly lacking and a new twenty-five million sterling loan was spoken of as inevitable--the accumulated deficit in 1914 being alone estimated at thirty-eight million pounds. But although this financial dearth was annoying, Chinese resources were sufficient to allow the account to be carried on from day to day. Some progress was made in railways, building concessions being liberally granted to foreign corporations, this policy having received a great impetus from the manner in which Dr. Sun Yat Sen had boomed the necessity for better communications during the short time he had ruled at a National Railway Bureau in Shanghai, an office from which he had been relieved in 1913 on it being discovered that he was secretly indenting for quick-firing guns. Certain questions proved annoying and insoluble, for instance the Tibetan question concerning which England was very resolute, as well as the perpetual risings in Inner Mongolia, a region so close to Peking that constant concentrations of troops were necessary. But on the whole as time went on there was increasing indifference both among the Foreign Powers and Chinese for the extraordinary state of affairs which had been allowed to grow up.
There was one notable exception, however, Japan. Never relaxing her grip on a complicated problem, watchful and active, where others were indifferent and slothful, Japan bided her time. Knowing that the hour had almost arrived when it would be possible to strike, Japan was vastly active behind the scenes in China long before the outbreak of the European war gave her the longed for opportunity; and largely because of her the pear, which seemed already almost ripe, finally withered on the tree.

The Dream Republic

2008-08-25T23:15:00.007-07:00

To describe briefly and intelligibly the series of transactions from the 1st January, 1912, when the Republic was proclaimed at Nanking by a handful of provincial delegates, and Dr. Sun Yat Sen elected Provisional President, to the coup d'etat of 4th November, 1913, when Yuan Shih-kai, elected full President a few weeks previously, after having acted as Chief Executive for twenty months, boldly broke up Parliament and made himself de facto Dictator of China, is a matter of extraordinary difficulty.
All through this important period of Chinese history one has the impression that one is in dreamland and that fleeting emotions take the place of more solid things. Plot and counter-plot follow one another so rapidly that an accurate record of them all would be as wearisome as the Book of Chronicles itself; whilst the amazing web of financial intrigue which binds the whole together is so complex--and at the same time so antithetical to the political struggle--that the two stories seem to run counter to one another, although they are as closely united as two assassins pledged to carry through in common a dread adventure. A huge agglomeration of people estimated to number four hundred millions, being left without qualified leaders and told that the system of government, which had been laid down by the Nanking Provisional Constitution and endorsed by the Abdication Edicts, was a system in which every man was as good as neighbour, swayed meaninglessly to and fro, vainly seeking to regain the equilibrium which had been so sensationally lost. A litigious spirit became so universal that all authority was openly derided, crimes of every description being so common as to force most respectable men to withdraw from public affairs and leave a bare rump of desperadoes in power.
Long embarrassed by the struggle to pay her foreign loans and indemnities, China was also virtually penniless. The impossibility of arranging large borrowings on foreign markets without the open support of foreign governments--a support which was hedged round with conditions--made necessary a system of petty expedients under which practically every provincial administration hypothecated every liquid asset it could lay hands upon in order to pay the inordinate number of undisciplined soldiery who littered the countryside. The issue of unguaranteed paper-money soon reached such an immense figure that the market was flooded with a worthless currency which it was unable to absorb. The Provincial leaders, being powerless to introduce improvement, exclaimed that it was the business of the Central Government as representative of the sovereign people to find solutions; and so long as they maintained themselves in office they went their respective ways with a sublime contempt for the chaos around them.
What was this Central Government? In order successfully to understand an unparalleled situation we must indicate its nature.
The manoeuvres to which Yuan Shih-kai had so astutely lent himself from the outbreak of the Revolution had left him at its official close supreme in name. Not only had he secured an Imperial Commission from the abdicating Dynasty to organize a popular Government in obedience to the national wish, but having brought to Peking the Delegates of the Nanking Revolutionary Body he had received from them the formal offer of the Presidency.
These arrangements had, of course, been secretly agreed to en bloc before the fighting had been stopped and the abdication proclaimed, and were part and parcel of the elaborate scenery which officialdom always employs in Asia even when it is dealing with matters within the purview of the masses. They had been made possible by the so-called "Article of Favourable Treatment" drawn- up by Yuan Shih-kai himself, after consultation with the rebellious South. In these Capitulations it had been clearly stipulated that the Manchu Imperial Family should receive in perpetuity a Civil List of $4,000,000 Mexican a year, retaining all their titles as a return for the surrender of their political power, the bitter pill being gilded in such fashion as to hide its real meaning, which alone was a grave political error.
In spite of this agreement, however, great mutual suspicion existed between North and South China. Yuan Shih-kai himself was unable to forget that the bold attempt to assassinate him in the Peking streets on the 17th January, when he was actually engaged in negotiating these very terms of the Abdication, had been apparently inspired from Nanking; whilst the Southern leaders were daily reminded by the vernacular press that the man who held the balance of power had always played the part of traitor in the past and would certainly do the same again in the near future.
When the Delegates came to Peking in February, by far the most important matter which was still in dispute was the question of the oath of office which Yuan Shih-kai was called upon to take to insure that he would be faithful to the Republic. The Delegates had been charged specifically to demand on behalf of the seceding provinces that Yuan Shih-kai should proceed with them to Nanking to take that oath, a course of action which would have been held tantamount by the nation to surrender on his part to those who had been unable to vanquish him in the field. It must also not be forgotten that from the very beginning a sharp and dangerous cleavage of opinion existed as to the manner in which the powers of the new government had been derived. South and Central China claimed, and claimed rightly, that the Nanking Provincial Constitution was the Instrument on which the Republic was based: Yuan Shih-kai declared that the Abdication Edicts, and not the Nanking Instrument had established the Republic, and that therefore it lay within his competence to organize the new government in the way which he considered most fit.
The discussion which raged was suddenly terminated on the night of the 29th February when without any warning there occurred the extraordinary revolt of the 3rd Division, a picked Northern corps who for forty-eight hours plundered and burnt portions of the capital without any attempts at interference, there being little doubt to-day that this manoeuvre was deliberately arranged as a means of intimidation by Yuan Shih-kai himself. Although the disorders assumed such dimensions that foreign intervention was narrowly escaped, the upshot was that the Nanking Delegates were completely cowed and willing to forget all about forcing the despot of Peking to proceed to the Southern capital. Yuan Shih-kai as the man of the hour was enabled on the 10th March, 1912, to take his oath in Peking as he had wished thus securing full freedom of action during the succeeding years.
It was on this astounding basis--by means of an organized revolt-- that the Central Government was re-organized; and every act that followed bears the mark of its tainted parentage. Accepting readily as his Ministers in the more unimportant government Departments the nominees of the Southern Confederacy , Yuan Shih-kai was careful to reserve for his own men everything that concerned the control of the army and the police, as well as the all-important ministry of finance. The framework having been thus erected, attention was almost immediately concentrated on the problem of finding money, an amazing matter which would weary the stoutest reader if given in all its detail but which being part and parcel of the general problem must be referred to.
Certain essential features can be very rapidly exposed. We have already made clear the purely economic nature of the forces which had sapped the foundations of Chinese society. Primarily it had been the disastrous nature of Chinese gold-indebtedness which had given the new ideas the force they required to work their will on the nation. And just because the question of this gold- indebtedness had become so serious and such a drain on the nation, some months before the outbreak of the Revolution an arrangement had been entered into with the bankers of four nations for a Currency Loan of 10,000,000 pounds with which to make an organized effort to re-establish internal credit. But this loan had never actually been floated, as a six months' safety clause had permitted a delay during which the Revolution had come. It was therefore necessary to begin the negotiations anew; and as the rich prizes to be won in the Chinese lottery had attracted general attention in the European financial world through the advertisement which the Revolution had given the country, a host of alternative loan proposals now lay at the disposal of Peking.
Consequently an extraordinary chapter of bargaining commenced. Warned that an International Debt Commission was the goal aimed at by official finance, Yuan Shih-kai and the various parties who made up the Government of the day, though disagreeing on almost every other question, were agreed that this danger must be fought as a common enemy. Though the Four-Power group alleged that they held the first option on all Chinese loans, money had already been advanced by a Franco-Belgian Syndicate to the amount of nearly two million pounds during the critical days of the Abdication. Furious at the prospect of losing their percentages, the Four Power group made the confusion worse confounded by blocking all competing proposals and closing every possible door. Russia and Japan, who had hitherto not been parties to the official consortium, perceiving that participation had become a political necessity, now demanded a place which was grudgingly accorded them; and it was in this way that the celebrated six-power Group arose.
It was round this group and the proposed issue of a 60,000,000 pounds loan to reorganize Chinese finance that the central battle raged. The Belgian Syndicate, having been driven out of business by the financial boycott which the official group was strong enough to organize on the European bourses, it remained for China to see whether she could not find some combination or some man who would be bold enough to ignore all governments.
Her search was not in vain. In September a London stockbroker, Mr. Birch Crisp, determined to risk a brilliant coup by negotiating by himself a Loan of 10,000,000 pounds; and the world woke up one morning to learn that one man was successfully opposing six governments. The recollection of the storm raised in financial circles by this bold attempt will be fresh in many minds. Every possible weapon was brought into play by international finance to secure that the impudence of financial independence should be properly checked; and so it happened that although 5,000,000 pounds was secured after an intense struggle, it was soon plain that the large requirements of a derelict government could not be satisfied in this Quixotic manner. Two important points had, however, been attained; first, China was kept financially afloat during the year 1912 by the independence of a single member of the London Stock Exchange; secondly, using this coup as a lever the Peking Government secured better terms than otherwise would have been possible from the official consortium.
Meanwhile the general internal situation remained deplorable. Nothing was done for the provinces whose paper currency was depreciating from month to month in an alarming manner; whilst the rivalries between the various leaders instead of diminishing seemed to be increasing. The Tutuhs, or Military Governors, acting precisely as they saw fit, derided the authority of Peking and sought to strengthen their old position by adding to their armed forces. In the capital the old Manchu court, safely entrenched in the vast Winter Palace from which it has not even to-day been ejected published daily the Imperial Gazette, bestowing honours and decorations on courtiers and clansmen and preserving all the old etiquette. In the North-western provinces, and in Manchuria and Mongolia, the socalled Tsung She Tang, or Imperial Clan Society, intrigued perpetually to create risings which would hasten the restoration of the fallen House; and although these intrigues never rose to the rank of a real menace to the country, the fact that they were surreptitiously supported by the Japanese secret service was a continual source of anxiety. The question of Outer Mongolia was also harassing the Central Government. The Hutuktu or Living Buddha of Urga--the chief city of Outer Mongolia--had utilized the revolution to throw off his allegiance to Peking; and the whole of this vast region had been thrown into complete disorder--which was still further accentuated when Russia on the 21st October recognized its independence. It was known that as a pendent to this Great Britain was about to insist on the autonomy of Tibet,--a development which greatly hurt Chinese pride.
On the 15th August, 1912, the deplorable situation was well- epitomised by an extraordinary act in Peking, when General Chang Cheng-wu, one of the "heroes" of the original Wuchang rising, who had been enticed to the capital, was suddenly seized after a banquet in his honour and shot without trial at midnight.
This event, trivial in itself during times when judicial murders were common, would have excited nothing more than passing interest had not the national sentiment been so aroused by the chaotic conditions. As it was it served to focus attention on the general maladministration over which Yuan Shih-kai ruled as provisional President. "What is my crime?" had shrieked the unhappy revolutionist as he had been shot and then bayonetted to death. That query was most easily answered. His crime was that he was not strong enough or big enough to compete against more sanguinary men, his disappearance being consequently in obedience to an universal law of nature. Yuan Shih-kai was determined to assert his mastery by any and every means; and as this man had flouted him he must die.
The uproar which this crime aroused was, however, not easily appeased; and the Advisory Council, which was sitting in Peking pending the assembling of the first Parliament, denounced the Provisional President so bitterly that to show that these reproaches were ill-deserved he invited Dr. Sun Yat-sen to the capital treating him with unparalleled honours and requesting him to act as intermediary between the rival factions. All such manoeuvres, however, were inspired with one object,--namely to prove how nobody but the master of Peking could regulate the affairs of the country.
Still no Parliament was assembled. Although the Nanking Provisional Constitution had stipulated that one was to meet within ten months i. e. before 1st November, 1912, the elections were purposely delayed, the attention of the Central Government being concentrated on the problem of destroying all rivals, and everything being subordinate to this war on persons. Rascals, getting daily more and more out of hand, worked their will on rich and poor alike, discrediting by their actions the name of republicanism and destroying public confidence--which was precisely what suited Yuan Shih-kai. Dramatic and extraordinary incidents continually inflamed the public mind, nothing being too singular for those remarkable days.
Very slowly the problem developed, with everyone exclaiming that foreign intervention was becoming inevitable. With the beginning of 1913, being unable to delay the matter any longer, Yuan Shih- kai allowed elections to be held in the provinces. He was so badly beaten at the polls that it seemed in spite of his military power that he would be outvoted and outmanoeuvred in the new National Assembly and his authority undermined. To prevent this a fresh assassination was decided upon. The ablest Southern leader, Sung Chiao-jen, just as he was entraining for Peking with a number of Parliamentarians at Shanghai, was coolly shot in a crowded railway station by a desperado who admitted under trial that he had been paid 200 pounds for the job by the highest authority in the land, the evidence produced in court including telegrams from Peking which left no doubt as to who had instigated the murder.
The storm raised by this evil measure made it appear as if no parliament could ever assemble in Peking. But the feeling had become general that the situation was so desperate that action had to be taken. Not only was their reputation at stake, but the Kuomingtang or Revolutionary Party now knew that the future of their country was involved just as much as the safety of their own lives; and so after a rapid consultation they determined that they would beard the lion in his den. Rather unexpectedly on the 7th April Parliament was opened in Peking with a huge Southern majority and the benediction of all Radicals. Hopes rose with mercurial rapidity as a solution at last seemed in sight. But hardly had the first formalities been completed and Speakers been elected to both Houses, than by a single dramatic stroke Yuan Shih-kai reduced to nought these labours by stabbing in the back the whole theory and practice of popular government.
The method he employed was simplicity itself, and it is peculiarly characteristic of the man that he should have been so bluntly cynical. Though the Provisional Nanking Constitution, which was the "law" of China so far as there was any law at all, had laid down specifically in article XIX that all measures affecting the National Treasury must receive the assent of Parliament, Yuan Shih-kai, pretending that the small Advisory Council which had assisted him during the previous year and which had only just been dissolved, had sanctioned a foreign loan, peremptorily ordered the signature of the great Reorganization Loan of 25,000,000 pounds which had been secretly under negotiation all Winter with the financial agents of six Powers, although the rupture which had come in the previous June as a forerunner to the Crisp loan had caused the general public to lose sight of the supreme importance of the financial factor. Parliament, seeing that apart from the possibility of a Foreign Debt Commission being created something after the Turkish and Egyptian models, a direct challenge to its existence had been offered, raged and stormed and did its utmost to delay the question; but the Chief Executive having made up his mind shut himself up in his Palace and absolutely refused to see any Parliamentary representatives. Although the Minister of Finance himself hesitated to complete the transaction in the face of the rising storm and actually fled the capital, he was brought back by special train and forced to complete the agreement. At four o'clock in the morning on the 25th April the last documents were signed in the building of a foreign bank and the Finance Minister, galloping his carriage suddenly out of the compound to avoid possible bombs, reported to his master that at last--in spite of the nominal foreign control which was to govern the disbursement-- a vast sum was at his disposal to further his own ends.
Safe in the knowledge that possession is nine points of the law, Yuan Shih-kai now treated with derision the resolutions which Parliament passed that the transaction was illegal and the loan agreement null and void. Being openly backed by the agents of the Foreign Powers, he immediately received large cash advances which enabled him to extend his power in so many directions that further argument with him seemed useless. It is necessary to record that the Parliamentary leaders had almost gone down on their knees to certain of the foreign Ministers in Peking in a vain attempt to persuade them to delay--as they could very well have done--the signature of this vital Agreement for forty-eight hours so that it could be formally passed by the National Assembly, and thus save the vital portion of the sovereignty of the country from passing under the heel of one man. But Peking diplomacy is a perverse and disagreeable thing; and the Foreign Ministers of those days, although accredited to a government which while it had not then been formally recognized as a Republic by any Power save the United States, was bound to be so very shortly, were determined to be reactionary and were at heart delighted to find things running back normally to absolutism.

High finance had at last got hold of everything it required from China and was in no mood to relax the monopoly of the salt administration which the Loan Agreement conferred. Nor must be the fact be lost sight of that of the nominal amount of 25,000,000 pounds which had been borrowed, fully half consisted of repayments to foreign Banks and never left Europe. According to the schedules attached to the Agreement, Annex A, comprising the Boxer arrears and bank advances, absorbed 4,317,778 pounds: Annex B, being so- called provincial loans, absorbed a further 2,870,000 pounds: Annex C, being liabilities shortly maturing, amounted to 3,592,263 pounds: Annex D, for disbandment of troops, amounted to 3,000,000 pounds: Annex C, to cover current administrative expenses totalled 5,500,000 pounds: whilst Annex E which covered the reorganization of the Salt Administration, absorbed the last 2,000,000 pounds. The bank profits on this loan alone amounted to 1 1/4 million pounds; whilst Yuan Shih-kai himself was placed in possession by a system of weekly disbursements of a sum roughly amounting to ten million sterling, which was amply sufficient to allow him to wreak his will on his fellow-countrymen. Exasperated to the pitch of despair by this new development, the Central and Southern provinces, after a couple of months' vain argument, began openly to arm. On the 10th July in Kiangse province on the river Yangtsze the Northern garrisons were fired upon from the Hukow forts by the provincial troops under General Li Lieh-chun and the so-called Second Revolution commenced.
The campaign was short and inglorious. The South, ill-furnished with munitions and practically penniless, and always confronted by the same well-trained Northern Divisions who had proved themselves invincible only eighteen months before, fought hard for a while, but never became a serious menace to the Central Government owing to the lack of co-operation between the various Rebel forces in the field. The Kiangse troops under General Li Lieh-chun, who numbered at most 20,000 men, fought stiffly, it is true, for a while but were unable to strike with any success and were gradually driven far back from the river into the mountains of Kiangse where their numbers rapidly melted away. The redoubtable revolutionary Huang Hsin, who had proved useful as a propagandist and a bomb-thrower in earlier days, but who was useless in serious warfare, although he assumed command of the Nanking garrison which had revolted to a man, and attempted a march up the Pukow railway in the direction of Tientsin, found his effort break down almost immediately from lack of organization and fled to Japan. The Nanking troops, although deserted by their leader, offered a strenuous resistance to the capture of the southern capital which was finally effected by the old reactionary General Chang Hsun operating in conjunction with General Feng Kuo-chang who had been dispatched from Peking with a picked force. The attack on the Shanghai arsenal which had been quietly occupied by a small Northern Garrison during the months succeeding the great loan transaction, although pushed with vigour by the South, likewise ultimately collapsed through lack of artillery and proper leadership. The navy, which was wholly Southern in its sympathies and which had been counted upon as a valuable weapon in cutting off the whole Yangtsze Valley, was at the last moment purchased to neutrality by a liberal use of money obtained from the foreign banks, under, it is said, the heading of administrative expenses! The turbulent city of Canton, although it also rose against the authority of Peking, had been well provided for by Yuan Shih-kai. A border General, named Lung Chi-Kwang, with 20,000 semi-savage Kwangsi troops had been moved near the city and at once attacked and overawed the garrison. Appointed Military Governor of the province in return for his services, this Lung Chi-kwang, who was an infamous brute, for three years ruled the South with heartless barbarity, until he was finally ejected by the great rising of 1916. Thoroughly disappointed in this and many other directions the Southern Party was now emasculated; for the moneyed classes had withheld their support to the end, and without money nothing is possible in China. The 1913 outbreak, after lasting a bare two months, ignominiously collapsed with the flight of every one of the leaders on whose heads prices were put. The road was now left open for the last step Yuan Shih-kai had in mind, the coup against Parliament itself, which although unassociated in any direct way with the rising, had undoubtedly maintained secret relations with the rebellious generals in the field.
Parliament had further sinned by appointing a Special Constitutional Drafting Committee which had held its sittings behind closed doors at the Temple of Heaven. During this drafting of the Permanent Constitution, admittance had been absolutely refused to Yuan Shih-kai's delegates who had been sent to urge a modification of the decentralization which had been such a characteristic of the Nanking Instrument. Such details as transpired showed that the principle of absolute money-control was not only to be the dominant note in the Permanent Constitution, but that a new and startling innovation was being included to secure that a de facto Dictatorship should be rendered impossible. Briefly, it was proposed that when Parliament was not actually in session there should be left in Peking a special Parliamentary Committee, charged with supervising and controlling the Executive, and checking any usurpation of power.
This was enough for Yuan Shih-kai: he felt that he was not only an object of general suspicion but that he was being treated with contempt. He determined to finish with it all. He was as yet, however, only provisional President and it was necessary to show cunning. Once more he set to work in a characteristic way. By a liberal use of money Parliament was induced to pass in advance of the main body of articles the Chapter of the Constitution dealing with the election and term of office of the President. When that had been done the two Chambers sitting as an Electoral College, after the model of the French Parliament, being partly bribed and partly terrorised by a military display, were induced to elect him full President.
On the 10th October he took his final oath of office as President for a term of five years before a great gathering of officials and the whole diplomatic body in the magnificent Throne Room of the Winter Palace. Safe now in his Constitutional position nothing remained for him but to strike. On the 4th November he issued an arbitrary Mandate, which received the counter-signature of the whole Cabinet, ordering the unseating of all the so-called Kuomingtang or Radical Senators and Representatives on the counts of conspiracy and secret complicity with the July rising and vaguely referring to the filling of the vacancies thus created by new elections. The Metropolitan Police rigorously carried out the order and although no brutality was shown, it was made clear that if any of the indicted men remained in Peking their lives would be at stake. Having made it impossible for Parliament to sit owing to the lack of quorums, Yuan Shih-kai was able to proceed with his work of reorganization in the way that best suited him; and the novel spectacle was offered of a truly Mexican situation created in the Far East by and with the assent of the Powers. It is significant that the day succeeding this coup d'etat of the 4th November the agreement conceding autonomy to Outer Mongolia was signed with Russia, China simply retaining the right to station a diplomatic representative at Urga.
In spite of his undisputed power, matters however did not improve. The police-control, judiciously mingled with assassinations, which was now put in full vigour was hardly the administration to make room for which the Manchus had been expelled; and the country secretly chafed and cursed. But the disillusionment of the people was complete. Revolt had been tried in vain; and as the support which the Powers were affording to this regime was well understood there was nothing to do but to wait, safe in the knowledge that such a situation possessed no elements of permanency.

The Enigma Of Yuan Shih-kai

2008-08-25T23:15:00.005-07:00

THE HISTORY OF THE MAN FROM THE OPENING OF HIS CAREER IN KOREA, IN 1882 TO THE END OF THE REVOLUTION, 12TH FEBRUARY, 1912
Yuan Shih-kai's career falls into two clear-cut parts, almost as if it had been specially arranged for the biographer; there is the probationary period in Korea, and the executive in North China. The first is important only because of the moulding-power which early influences exerted on the man's character; but it is interesting in another way since it affords glimpses of the sort of things which affected this leader's imagination throughout his life and finally brought him to irretrievable ruin. The second period is choke-full of action; and over every chapter one can see the ominous point of interrogation which was finally answered in his tragic political and physical collapse.
Yuan Shih-kai's origin, without being precisely obscure, is unimportant. He came of a Honanese family who were nothing more distinguished than farmers possessing a certain amount of land, but not too much of the world's possessions. The boy probably ran wild in the field at an age when the sons of high officials and literati were already pale and anaemic from overmuch study. To some such cause the man undoubtedly owed his powerful physique, his remarkable appetite, his general roughness. Native biographers state that as a youth he failed to pass his hsiu-tsai examinations--the lowest civil service degree--because he had spent too much time in riding and boxing and fencing. An uncle in official life early took charge of him; and when this relative died the young man displayed filial piety in accompanying the corpse back to the family graves and in otherwise manifesting grief. Through official connections a place was subsequently found for him in that public department under the Manchus which may be called the military intendancy, and it was through this branch of the civil service that he rose to power. Properly speaking Yuan Shih-kai was never an army-officer; he was a military official-- his highest rank later on being that of military judge, or better, Judicial Commissioner.
Yuan Shih-kai first emerges into public view in 1882 when, as a sequel to the opening of Korea through the action of foreign Powers in forcing the then Hermit kingdom to sign commercial treaties, China began dispatching troops to Seoul. Yuan Shih-kai, with two other officers, commanding in all some 3,000 men, arrived from Shantung, where he had been in the train of a certain General Wu Chang-ching, and now encamped in the Korean capital nominally to preserve order, but in reality, to enforce the claims of the suzerain power. For the Peking Government had never retreated from the position that Korea had been a vassal state ever since the Ming Dynasty had saved the country from the clutches of Hideyoshi and his Japanese invaders in the Sixteenth Century. Yuan Shih-kai had been personally recommended by this General Wu Chang-ching as a young man of ability and energy to the famous Li Hung Chang, who as Tientsin Viceroy and High Commissioner for the Northern Seas was responsible for the conduct of Korean affairs. The future dictator of China was then only twenty-five years old.
His very first contact with practical politics gave him a peculiar manner of viewing political problems. The arrival of Chinese troops in Seoul marked the beginning of that acute rivalry with Japan which finally culminated in the short and disastrous war of 1894-95. China, in order to preserve her influence in Korea against the growing influence of Japan, intrigued night and day in the Seoul Palaces, allying herself with the Conservative Court party which was led by the notorious Korean Queen who was afterwards assassinated. The Chinese agents aided and abetted the reactionary group, constantly inciting them to attack the Japanese and drive them out of the country.
Continual outrages were the consequence. The Japanese legation was attacked and destroyed by the Korean mob not once but on several occasions during a decade which furnishes one of the most amazing chapters in the history of Asia. Yuan Shih-kai, being then merely a junior general officer under the orders of the Chinese Imperial Resident, is of no particular importance; but it is significant of the man that he should suddenly come well under the limelight on the first possible occasion. On 6th December, 1884, leading 2,000 Chinese troops, and acting in concert with 3,000 Korean soldiers, he attacked the Tong Kwan Palace in which the Japanese Minister and his staff, protected by two companies of Japanese infantry, had taken refuge owing to the threatening state of affairs in the capital. Apparently there was no particular plan--it was the action of a mob of soldiery tumbling into a political brawl and assisted by their officers for reasons which appear to-day nonsensical. The sequel was, however, extraordinary. The Japanese held the Palace gates as long as possible, and then being desperate exploded a mine which killed numbers of Koreans and Chinese soldiery and threw the attack into confusion. They then fought their way out of the city escaping ultimately to the nearest sea-port, Chemulpo.
The explanation of this extraordinary episode has never been made public. The practical result was that after a period of extreme tension between China and Japan which was expected to lead to war, that political genius, the late Prince Ito, managed to calm things down and arrange workable modus vivendi. Yuan Shih-kai, who had gone to Tientsin to report in person to Li Hung Chang, returned to Seoul triumphantly in October, 1885, as Imperial Resident. He was then twenty-eight years old; he had come to the front, no matter by what means, in a quite remarkable manner.
The history of the next nine years furnishes plenty of minor incidents, but nothing of historic importance. As the faithful lieutenant of Li Hung Chang, Yuan Shih-kai's particular business was simply to combat Japanese influence and hold the threatened advance in check. He failed, of course, since he was playing a losing game; and yet he succeeded where he undoubtedly wished to succeed. By rendering faithful service he established the reputation he wished to win; and though he did nothing great he retained his post right up to the act which led to the declaration of war in 1894. Whether he actually precipitated that war is still a matter of opinion. On the sinking by the Japanese fleet of the British steamer Kowshing, which was carrying Chinese reinforcements from Taku anchorage to Asan Bay to his assistance, seeing that the game was up, he quietly left the Korean capital and made his way overland to North China. That swift, silent journey home ends the period of his novitiate.
It took him a certain period to weather the storm which the utter collapse of China in her armed encounter with Japan brought about --and particularly to obtain forgiveness for evacuating Seoul without orders. Technically his offence was punishable by death-- the old Chinese code being most stringent in such matters. But by 1896 he was back in favour again, and through the influence of his patron Li Hung Chang, he was at length appointed in command of the Hsiaochan camp near Tientsin, where he was promoted and given the task of reforming a division of old-style troops and making them as efficient as Japanese soldiery. He had already earned a wide reputation for severity, for willingness to accept responsibility, for nepotism, and for a rare ability to turn even disasters to his own advantage--all attributes which up to the last moment stood him in good stead.
In the Hsiaochan camp the most important chapter of his life opens; there is every indication that he fully realized it. Tientsin has always been the gateway to Peking: from there the road to high preferment is easily reached. Yuan Shih-kai marched steadily forward, taking the very first turning-point in a manner which stamped him for many of his compatriots in a way which can never be obliterated.
It is first necessary to say a word about the troops of his command, since this has a bearing on present-day politics. The bulk of the soldiery were so-called Huai Chun--i.e., nominally troops from the Huai districts, just south of Li Hung Chang's native province Anhui. These Kiangu men, mixed with Shantung recruits, had earned a historic place in the favour of the Manchus owing to the part they had played in the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion, in which great event General Gordon and Li Hung Chang had been so closely associated. They and the troops of Hunan province, led by the celebrated Marquis Tseng Kuo-fan, were "the loyal troops," resembling the Sikhs during the Indian Mutiny; they were supposed to be true to their salt to the last man. Certainly they gave proofs of uncustomary fidelity.
In those military days of twenty years ago Yuan Shih-kai and his henchmen were, however, concerned with simpler problems. It was then a question of drill and nothing but drill. In his camp near Tientsin the future President of the Chinese Republic succeeded in reorganizing his troops so well that in a very short time the Hsiaochan Division became known as a corps d'elite. The discipline was so stern that there were said to be only two ways of noticing subordinates, either by promoting or beheading them. Devoting himself to his task Yuan Shih-kai gave promise of being able to handle much bigger problems.
His zeal soon attracted the attention of the Manchu Court. The circumstances in Peking at that time were peculiar. The famous old Empress Dowager, Tzu-Hsi, after the Japanese war, had greatly relaxed her hold on the Emperor Kwanghsu, who though still in subjection to her, nominally governed the empire. A well- intentioned but weak man, he had surrounded himself with advanced scholars, led by the celebrated Kang Yu Wei, who daily studied with him and filled him with new doctrines, teaching him to believe that if he would only exert his power he might rescue the nation from international ignominy and make for himself an imperishable name.
The sequel was inevitable. In 1898 the oriental world was electrified by the so-called Reform Edicts, in which the Emperor undertook to modernize China, and in which he exhorted the nation to obey him. The greatest alarm was created in Court circles by this action; the whole vast body of Metropolitan officialdom, seeing its future threatened, flooded the Palace of the Empress Dowager with Secret Memorials praying her to resume power. Flattered, she gave her secret assent.
Things marched quickly after that. The Empress, nothing loth, began making certain dispositions. Troops were moved, men were shifted here and there in a way that presaged action; and the Emperor, now thoroughly alarmed and yielding to the entreaties of his followers, sent two members of the Reform Party to Yuan Shih- kai bearing an alleged autograph order for him to advance instantly on Peking with all his troops; to surround the Palace, to secure the person of the Emperor from all danger, and then to depose the Empress Dowager for ever from power. What happened is equally well-known. Yuan Shih-kai, after an exhaustive examination of the message and messengers, as well as other attempts to substantiate the genuineness of the appeal, communicated its nature to the then Viceroy of Chihli, the Imperial Clansman Jung Lu, whose intimacy with the Empress Dowager since the days of her youth has passed into history. Jung Lu lost no time in acting. He beheaded the two messengers and personally reported the whole plot to the Empress Dowager who was already fully warned. The result was the so-called coup d'etat of September, 1898, when all the Reformers who had not fled were summarily executed, and the Emperor Kwanghsu himself closely imprisoned in the Island Palace within that portion of the Forbidden City known as the Three Lakes, having , as sole companions his two favourites, the celebrated odalisques "Pearl" and "Lustre."
This is no place to enter into the controversial aspect of Yuan Shih-kai's action in 1898 which has been hotly debated by partisans for many years. For onlookers the verdict must always remain largely a matter of opinion; certainly this is one of those matters which cannot be passed upon by any one but a Chinese tribunal furnished with all the evidence. Those days which witnessed the imprisonment of Kwang Hsu were great because they opened wide the portals of the Romance of History: all who were in Peking can never forget the counter-stroke; the arrival of the hordes composed of Tung Fu-hsiang's Mahommedan cavalry--men who had ridden hard across a formidable piece of Asia at the behest of their Empress and who entered the capital in great clouds of dust. It was in that year of 1898 also that Legation Guards reappeared in Peking--a few files for each Legation as in 1860--and it was then that clear-sighted prophets saw the beginning of the end of the Manchu Dynasty.
Yuan Shih-kai's reward for his share in this counter-revolution was his appointment to the governorship of Shantung province. He moved thither with all his troops in December, 1899. Armed cap-a- pie he was ready for the next act--the Boxers, who burst on China in the Summer of 1900. These men were already at work in Shantung villages with their incantations and alleged witchcraft. There is evidence that their propaganda had been going on for months, if not for years, before any one had heard of it. Yuan Shih-kai had the priceless opportunity of studying them at close range and soon made up his mind about certain things. When the storm burst, pretending to see nothing but mad fanatics in those who, realizing the plight of their country, had adopted the war-cry "Blot out the Manchus and the foreigner," he struck at them fiercely, driving the whole savage horde headlong into the metropolitan province of Chihli. There, seduced by the Manchus, they suddenly changed the inscription on their flags. Their sole enemy became the foreigner and all his works, and forthwith they were officially protected. Far and wide they killed every white face they could find. They tore up railways, burnt churches and chapels and produced a general anarchy which could only have one end--European intervention. The man, sitting on the edge of Chinese history but not yet identifying himself with its main currents because he was not strong enough for that, had once again not judged wrongly. With his Korean experience to assist him, he had seen precisely what the end must inevitably be.
The crash in Peking, when the siege of the Legations had been raised by an international army, found him alert and sympathetic-- ready with advice, ready to shoulder new responsibilities, ready to explain away everything. The signature of the Peace Protocol of 1901 was signalized, by his obtaining the viceroyalty of Chihli, succeeding the great Li Hung Chang himself, who had been reappointed to his old post, but had found active duties too wearisome. This was a marvellous success for a man but little over forty. And when the fugitive Court at length returned from Hsianfu in 1902, honours were heaped upon him as a person particularly worthy of honour because he had kept up appearances and maintained the authority of the distressed Throne. As if in answer to this he flooded the Court with memorials praying that in order to restore the power of the Dynasty a complete army of modern troops be raised--as numerous as possible but above all efficient.
His advice was listened to. From 1902 until 1907 as Minister of the Army Reorganization Council--a special post he held simultaneously with that of metropolitan Viceroy--Yuan Shih-kai's great effort was concentrated on raising an efficient fighting force. In those five years, despite all financial embarrassments, North China raised and equipped six excellent Divisions of field- troops--75,000 men--all looking to Yuan Shih-kai as their sole master. So much energy did he display in pushing military reorganization throughout the provinces that the Court, warned by jealous rivals of his growing power, suddenly promoted him to a post where he would be powerless. One day he was brought to Peking as Grand Councillor and President of the Board of Foreign Affairs, and ordered to hand over all army matters to his noted rival, the Manchu Tieh Liang. The time had arrived to muzzle him. His last phase as a pawn had come.
Few foreign diplomats calling at China's Foreign Office to discuss matters during that short period which lasted barely a twelve- month, imagined that the square resolute-looking man who as President of the Board gave the same energy and attention to consular squabbles as to the reorganization of a national fighting force, was almost daily engaged in a fierce clandestine struggle to maintain even his modest position. Jealousy, which flourishes in Peking like the upas tree, was for ever blighting his schemes and blocking his plans. He had been brought to Peking to be tied up; he was constantly being denounced; and even his all powerful patroness, the old Empress Dowager, who owed so much to him, suffered from constant premonitions that the end was fast approaching, and that with her the Dynasty would die.
In the Autumn of 1908 she took sick. The gravest fears quickly spread. It was immediately reported that the Emperor Kwanghsu was also very ill--an ominous coincidence. Very suddenly both personages collapsed and died, the Empress Dowager slightly before the Emperor. There is little doubt that the Emperor himself was poisoned. The legend runs that as he expired not only did he give his Consort, who was to succeed him in the exercise of the nominal power of the Throne, a last secret Edict to behead Yuan Shih-kai, but that his faltering hand described circle after circle in the air until his followers understood the meaning. In the vernacular the name of the great viceroy and the word for circle have the same sound; the gesture signified that the dying monarch's last wish was revenge on the man who had failed him ten years before.
An ominous calm followed this great break with the past. It was understood that the Court was torn by two violent factions regarding the succession which the Empress Tzu-hsi had herself decided. The fact that another long Regency had become inevitable through the accession of the child Hsuan Tung aroused instant apprehensions among foreign observers, whilst it was confidently predicted that Yuan Shih-kai's last days had come.
The blow fell suddenly on the 2nd January, 1909. In the interval between the death of the old Empress and his disgrace, Yuan Shih- kai was actually promoted to the highest rank in the gift of the Throne, that is made "Senior Guardian of the Heir Apparent" and placed in charge of the Imperial funeral arrangements--a lucrative appointment. During that interval it is understood that the new Regent, brother of the Emperor Kwang-hsu, consulted all the most trusted magnates of the empire regarding the manner in which the secret decapitation Decree should be treated. All advised him to be warned in time, and not to venture on a course of action which would be condemned both by the nation and by the Powers. Another Edict was therefore prepared simply dismissing Yuan Shih-kai from office and ordering him to return to his native place.
Every one remembers that day in Peking when popular rumour declared that the man's last hour had come. Warned on every side to beware, Yuan Shih-kai left the Palace as soon as he had read the Edict of dismissal in the Grand Council and drove straight to the railway-station, whence he entrained for Tientsin, dressed as a simple citizen. Rooms had been taken for him at a European hotel, the British Consulate approached for protection, when another train brought down his eldest son bearing a message direct from the Grand Council Chamber, absolutely guaranteeing the safety of his life. Accordingly he duly returned to his native place in Honan province, and for two years--until the outbreak of the Revolution--devoted himself sedulously to the development of the large estate he had acquired with the fruits of office. Living like a patriarch of old, surrounded by his many wives and children, he announced constantly that he had entirely dropped out of the political life of China and only desired to be left in peace. There is reason to believe, however, that his henchmen continually reported to him the true state of affairs and bade him bide his time. Certain it is that the firing of the first shots on the Yangtsze found him alert and issuing private orders to his followers. It was inevitable that he should have been recalled to office--and actually within one hundred hours of the first news of the outbreak the Court sent for him urgently and ungraciously.
From the 14th October, 1911, when he was appointed by Imperial Edict Viceroy of Hupeh and Hunan and ordered to proceed at once to the front to quell the insurrection, until the 1st November, when he was given virtually Supreme Power as President of the Grand Council in place of Prince Ching, a whole volume is required to discuss adequately the maze of questions involved. For the purposes of this account, however, the matter can be dismissed very briefly in this way. Welcoming the opportunity which had at last come and determined once for all to settle matters decisively, so far as he was personally concerned, Yuan Shih-kai deliberately followed the policy of holding back and delaying everything until the very incapacity marking both sides--the Revolutionists quite as much as the Manchus--forced him, as man of action and man of diplomacy, to be acclaimed the sole mediator and saviour of the nation.
The detailed course of the Revolution, and the peculiar manner in which Yuan Shih-kai allowed events rather than men to assert their mastery has often been related and need not long detain us. It is generally conceded that in spite of the bravery of the raw revolutionary levies, their capacity was entirely unequal to the trump card Yuan Shih-kai held all the while in his hand--the six fully-equipped Divisions of Field Troops he himself had organized as Tientsin Viceroy. It was a portion of this field-force which captured and destroyed the chief revolutionary base in the triple city of Hankow, Hanyang and Wuchang in November, 1911, and which he held back just as it was about to give the coup de grace by crossing the river in force and sweeping the last remnants of the revolutionary army to perdition. Thus it is correct to declare that had he so wished Yuan Shih-kai could have crushed the revolution entirely before the end of 1911; but he was sufficiently astute to see that the problem he had to solve was not merely military but moral as well. The Chinese as a nation were suffering from a grave complaint. Their civilization had been made almost bankrupt owing to unresisted foreign aggression and to the native inability to cope with the mass of accumulated wrongs which a superimposed and exhausted feudalism--the Manchu system-- had brought about. Yuan Shih-kai knew that the Boxers had been theoretically correct in selecting as they first did the watchword which they had first placed on their banners--"blot out the Manchus and all foreign things." Both had sapped the old civilization to its foundations. But the program they had proposed was idealistic, not practical. One element could be cleared away-- the other had to be endured. Had the Boxers been sensible they would have modified their program to the extent of protecting the foreigners, whilst they assailed the Dynasty which had brought them so low. The Court Party, as we have said, seduced their leaders to acting in precisely the reverse sense.
Yuan Shih-kai was neither a Boxer, nor yet a believer in idealistic foolishness. He had realized that the essence of successful rule in the China of the Twentieth Century was to support the foreign point of view--nominally at least--because foreigners disposed of unlimited monetary resources, and had science on their side. He knew that so long as he did not openly flout foreign opinion by indulging in barefaced assassinations, he would be supported owing to the international reputation he had established in 1900. Arguing from these premises, his instinct also told him that an appearance of legality must always be sedulously preserved and the aspirations of the nation nominally satisfied. For this reason he arranged matters in such a manner as to appear always as the instrument of fate. For this reason, although he destroyed the revolutionists on the mid-Yangtsze, to equalize matters, on the lower Yangtsze he secretly ordered the evacuation of Nanking by the Imperialist forces so that he might have a tangible argument with which to convince the Manchus regarding the root and branch reform which he knew was necessary. That reform had been accepted in principle by the Throne when it agreed to the so-called Nineteen Fundamental Articles, a corpus of demands which all the Northern Generals had endorsed and had indeed insisted should be the basis of government before they would fight the rebellious South in 1911. There is reason to believe that provided he had been made de facto Regent, Yuan Shih- kai would have supported to the end a Manchu Monarchy. But the surprising swiftness of the Revolutionary Party's action in proclaiming the Republic at Nanking on the 1st January, 1912, and the support which foreign opinion gave that venture confused him. He had already consented to peace negotiations with the revolutionary South in the middle of December, 1911, and once he was drawn into those negotiations his policy wavered, the armistice in the field being constantly extended because he saw that the Foreign Powers, and particularly England, were averse from further civil war. Having dispatched a former lieutenant, Tong Shao-yi, to Shanghai as his Plenipotentiary, he soon found himself committed to a course of action different from what he had originally contemplated. South China and Central China insisted so vehemently that the only solution that was acceptable to them was the permanent and absolute elimination of the Manchu Dynasty, that he himself was half-convinced, the last argument necessary being the secret promise that he should become the first President of the united Republic. In the circumstances, had he been really loyal, it was his duty either to resume his warfare or resign his appointment as Prime Minister and go into retirement. He did neither. In a thoroughly characteristic manner he sought a middle course, after having vaguely advocated a national convention to settle the matter. By specious misrepresentation the widow of the Emperor Kwang Hsu--the Dowager Empress Lung Yu who had succeeded the Prince Regent Ch'un in her care of the interests of the child Emperor Hsuan Tung--was induced to believe that ceremonial retirement was the only course open to the Dynasty if the country was to be saved from disruption and partition. There is reason to believe that the Memorial of all the Northern Generals which was telegraphed to Peking on the 28th January, 1912, and which advised abdication, was inspired by him. In any case it was certainly Yuan Shih-kai, who drew up the so-called Articles of Favourable Treatment for the Manchu House and caused them to be telegraphed to the South, whence they were telegraphed back to him as the maximum the Revolutionary Party was prepared to concede: and by a curious chance the attempt made to assassinate him outside the Palace Gates actually occurred on the very day he had submitted an outline of these terms on his bended knees to the Empress Dowager and secured their qualified acceptance. The pathetic attempt to confer on him as late as the 26th January the title of Marquess, the highest rank of nobility which could be given a Chinese, an attempt which was four times renewed, was the last despairing gesture of a moribund power. Within very few days the Throne reluctantly decreed its own abdication in three extremely curious Edicts which are worthy of study in the appendix. They prove conclusively that the Imperial Family believed that it was only abdicating its political power, whilst retaining all ancient ceremonial rights and titles. Plainly the conception of a Republic, or a People's Government, as it was termed in the native ideographs, was unintelligible to Peking.
Yuan Shih-kai had now won everything he wished for. By securing that the Imperial Commission to organize the Republic and re-unite the warring sections was placed solely in his hands, he prepared to give a type of Government about which he knew nothing a trial. It is interesting to note that he held to the very end of his life that he derived his powers solely from the Last Edicts, and in nowise from his compact with the Nanking Republic which had instituted the so-called Provisional Constitution. He was careful, however, not to lay this down categorically until many months later when his dictatorship seemed undisputed. But from the day of the Manchu Abdication almost, he was constantly engaged in calculating whether he dared risk everything on one throw of the dice and ascend the Throne himself; and it is precisely this which imparts such dramatic interest to the astounding story which follows.

General Introduction

2008-08-25T23:15:00.003-07:00

The revolution which broke out in China on the 10th October, 1911, and which was completed with the abdication of the Manchu Dynasty on the 12th February, 1912, though acclaimed as highly successful, was in its practical aspects something very different. With the proclamation of the Republic, the fiction of autocratic rule had truly enough vanished; yet the tradition survived and with it sufficient of the essential machinery of Imperialism to defeat the nominal victors until the death of Yuan Shih-kai.
The movement to expel the Manchus, who had seized the Dragon Throne in 1644 from the expiring Ming Dynasty, was an old one. Historians are silent on the subject of the various secret plots which were always being hatched to achieve that end, their silence being due to a lack of proper records and to the difficulty of establishing the simple truth in a country where rumour reigns supreme. But there is little doubt that the famous Ko-lao-hui, a Secret Society with its headquarters in the remote province of Szechuan, owed its origin to the last of the Ming adherents, who after waging a desperate guerilla warfare from the date of their expulsion from Peking, finally fell to the low level of inciting assassinations and general unrest in the vain hope that they might some day regain their heritage. At least, we know one thing definitely: that the attempt on the life of the Emperor Chia Ching in the Peking streets at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century was a Secret Society plot, and brought to an abrupt end the pleasant habit of travelling among their subjects which the great Manchu Emperors K'anghsi and Ch'ien Lung had inaugurated and always pursued and which had so largely encouraged the growth of personal loyalty to a foreign House.
From that day onwards for over a century no Emperor ventured out from behind the frowning Walls of the Forbidden City save for brief annual ceremonies such as the Worship of Heaven on the occasion of the Winter Solstice, and during the two "flights"-- first, in 1860 when Peking was occupied by an Anglo-French expedition and the Court incontinently sought sanctuary in the mountain Palaces of Jehol; and, again, in 1900, when with the pricking of the Boxer bubble and the arrival of the International relief armies, the Imperial Household was forced along the stony road to faroff Hsianfu.
The effect of this immurement was soon visible; the Manchu rule, which was emphatically a rule of the sword, was rapidly so weakened that the emperors became no more than rois faineants at the mercy of their ministers.

The history of the Nineteenth Century is thus logically enough the history of successive collapses. Not only did overseas foreigners openly thunder at the gateways of the empire and force an ingress, but native rebellions were constant and common. Leaving minor disturbances out of account, there were during this period two huge Mahommedan rebellions, besides the cataclysmic Taiping rising which lasted ten years and is supposed to have destroyed the unbelievable total of one hundred million persons. The empire, torn by internecine warfare, surrendered many of its essential prerogatives to foreigners, and by accepting the principle of extraterritoriality prepared the road to ultimate collapse.
How in such circumstances was it possible to keep alive absolutism? The answer is so curious that we must be explicit and exhaustive.
The simple truth is that save during the period of vigour immediately following each foreign conquest not only has there never been any absolutism properly so-called in China, but that apart from the most meagre and inefficient tax-collecting and some rough-and-ready policing in and around the cities there has never been any true governing at all save what the people did for themselves or what they demanded of the officials as a protection against one another. Any one who doubts these statements has no inkling of those facts which are the crown as well as the foundation of the Chinese group-system, and which must be patiently studied in the village-life of the country to be fitly appreciated. To be quite frank, absolutism is a myth coming down from the days of Kublai Khan when he so proudly built his Khan-baligh and filled it with his troops who so soon vanished like the snows of winter. An elaborate pretence, a deliberate policy of make-believe, ever since those days invested Imperial Edicts with a majesty which they have never really possessed, the effacement of the sovereign during the Nineteenth Century contributing to the legend that there existed in the capital a Grand and Fearful Panjandrum for whom no miracle was too great and to whom people and officials owed trembling obedience.
In reality, the office of emperor was never more than a politico- religious concept, translated for the benefit of the masses into socio-economic ordinances. These pronouncements, cast in the form of periodic homilies called Edicts, were the ritual of government; their purpose was instructional rather than mandatory; they were designed to teach and keep alive the State-theory that the Emperor was the High Priest of the Nation and that obedience to the morality of the Golden Age, which had been inculcated by all the philosophers since Confucius and Mencius flourished twenty-five centuries ago, would not only secure universal happiness but contribute to national greatness.
The office of Emperor was thus heavenly rather than terrestrial, and suasion, not arms, was the most potent argument used in everyday life. The amazing reply made by the great Emperor K'ang-hsi in the tremendous Eighteenth Century controversy between the Jesuit and the Dominican missionaries, which ruined the prospects of China's ever becoming Roman Catholic and which the Pope refused to accept--that the custom of ancestor-worship was political and not religious--was absolutely correct, POLITICS IN CHINA UNDER THE EMPIRE BEING ONLY A SYSTEM OF NATIONAL CONTROL EXERCISED BY INCULCATING OBEDIENCE TO FOREBEARS. The great efforts which the Manchus made from the end of the Sixteenth Century to receive from the Dalai Lama, as well as from the lesser Pontiffs of Tibet and Mongolia, high-sounding religious titles, prove conclusively that dignities other than mere possession of the Throne were held necessary to give solidity to a reign which began in militarism and which would collapse as the Mongol rule had collapsed by a mere Palace revolution unless an effective MORAL title were somehow won.
Nor was the Manchu military Conquest, even after they had entered Peking, so complete as has been represented by historians. The Manchus were too small a handful, even with their Mongol and Chinese auxiliaries, to do more than defeat the Ming armies and obtain the submission of the chief cities of China. It is well- known to students of their administrative methods, that whilst they reigned over China they RULED only in company with the Chinese, the system in force being a dual control which, beginning on the Grand Council and in the various great Boards and Departments in the capital, proceeded as far as the provincial chief cities, but stopped short there so completely and absolutely that the huge chains of villages and burgs had their historic autonomy virtually untouched and lived on as they had always lived. The elaborate system of examinations, with the splendid official honours reserved for successful students which was adopted by the Dynasty, not only conciliated Chinese society but provided a vast body of men whose interest lay in maintaining the new conquest; and thus Literature, which had always been the door to preferment, became not only one of the instruments of government, but actually the advocate of an alien rule. With their persons and properties safe, and their women-folk protected by an elaborate set of capitulations from being requisitioned for the harems of the invaders, small wonder if the mass of Chinese welcomed a firm administration after the frightful disorders which had torn the country during the last days of the Mings.
It was the foreigner, arriving in force in China after the capture of Peking and the ratification of the Tientsin Treaties in 1860, who so greatly contributed to making the false idea of Manchu absolutism current throughout the world; and in this work it was the foreign diplomat, coming to the capital saturated with the tradition of European absolutism, who played a not unimportant part. Investing the Emperors with an authority with which they were never really clothed save for ceremonial purposes a conception of High Mightiness was spread abroad reminiscent of the awe in which Eighteenth Century nabobs spoke of the Great Mogul of India. Chinese officials, quickly discovering that their easiest means of defence against an irresistible pressure was to take refuge behind the august name of the sovereign, played their role so successfully that until 1900 it was generally believed by Europeans that no other form of government than a despotism sans phrase could be dreamed of. Finding that on the surface an Imperial Decree enjoyed the majesty of an Ukaze of the Czar, Europeans were ready enough to interpret as best suited their enterprises something which they entirely failed to construe in terms expressive of the negative nature of Chinese civilization; and so it happened that though the government of China had become no government at all from the moment that extraterritoriality destroyed the theory of Imperial inviolability and infallibility, the miracle of turning state negativism into an active governing element continued to work after a fashion because of the disguise which the immense distances afforded.
Adequately to explain the philosophy of distance in China, and what it has meant historically, would require a whole volume to itself; but it is sufficient for our purpose to indicate here certain prime essentials. The old Chinese were so entrenched in their vastnesses that without the play of forces which were supernatural to them, i.e., the steam-engine, the telegraph, the armoured war-vessel, etc., their daily lives could not be affected. Left to themselves, and assisted by their own methods, they knew that blows struck across the immense roadless spaces were so diminished in strength, by the time they reached the spot aimed at, that they became a mere mockery of force; and, just because they were so valueless, paved the way to effective compromises. Being adepts in the art which modern surgeons have adopted, of leaving wounds as far as possible to heal themselves, they trusted to time and to nature to solve political differences which western countries boldly attacked on very different principles. Nor were they wrong in their view. From the capital to the Yangtsze Valley , is 800 miles, that is far more than the mileage between Paris and Berlin. From Peking to Canton is 1,400 miles along a hard and difficult route; the journey to Yunnan by the Yangtsze river is upwards of 2,000 miles, a distance greater than the greatest march ever undertaken by Napoleon. And when one speaks of the Outer Dominions--Mongolia, Tibet, Turkestan--for these hundreds of miles it is necessary to substitute thousands, and add there to difficulties of terrain which would have disheartened even Roman Generals.
Now the old Chinese, accepting distance as the supreme thing, had made it the starting-point as well as the end of their government. In the perfected viceregal system which grew up under the Ming Dynasty, and which was taken over by the Manchus as a sound and admirable governing principle, though they superimposed their own military system of Tartar Generals, we have the plan that nullified the great obstacle. Authority of every kind was delegated by the Throne to various distant governing centuries in a most complete and sweeping manner, each group of provinces, united under a viceroy, being in everything but name so many independent linked commonwealths, called upon for matricular contributions in money and grain but otherwise left severely alone. The chain which bound provincial China to the metropolitan government was therefore in the last analysis finance and nothing but finance; and if the system broke down in 1911 it was because financial reform--to discount the new forces of which the steam engine was the symbol--had been attempted, like military reform, both too late and in the wrong way, and instead of strengthening, had vastly weakened the authority of the Throne.
In pursuance of the reform-plan which became popular after the Boxer Settlement had allowed the court to return to Peking from Hsianfu, the viceroys found their most essential prerogative, which was the control of the provincial purse, largely taken from them and handed over to Financial Commissioners who were directly responsible to the Peking Ministry of Finance, a Department which was attempting to replace the loose system of matricular contributions by the European system of a directly controlled taxation every penny of which would be shown in an annual Budget. No doubt had time been vouchsafed, and had European help been enlisted on a large scale, this change could ultimately have been made successful. But it was precisely time which was lacking; and the Manchus consequently paid the penalty which is always paid by those who delay until it is too late. The old theories having been openly abandoned, it needed only the promise of a Parliament completely to destroy the dignity of the Son of Heaven, and to leave the viceroys as mere hostages in the hands of rebels. A few short weeks of rebellion was sufficient in 1911 to cause the provinces to revert to their condition of the earlier centuries when they had been vast unfettered agricultural communities. And once they had tasted the joys of this new independence, it was impossible to conceive of their becoming "obedient" again.
Here another word of explanation is necessary to show clearly the precise meaning of regionalism in China.
What had originally created each province was the chief city in each region, such cities necessarily being the walled repositories of all increment. Greedy of territory to enhance their wealth, and jealous of their power, these provincial capitals throughout the ages had left no stone unturned to extend their influence in every possible direction and bring under their economic control as much land as possible, a fact which is abundantly proved by the highly diversified system of weights and measures throughout the land deliberately drawn-up to serve as economic barriers. River- courses, mountain-ranges, climate and soil, no doubt assisted in governing this expansion, but commercial and financial greed was the principal force. Of this we have an exceedingly interesting and conclusive illustration in the struggle still proceeding between the three Manchurian provinces, Fengtien, Kirin and Heilungchiang, to seize the lion's share of the virgin land of Eastern Inner Mongolia which has an "open frontier" of rolling prairies. Having the strongest provincial capital--Moukden--it has been Fengtien province which has encroached on the Mongolian grasslands to such an extent that its jurisdiction to-day envelops the entire western flank of Kirin province in the form of a salamander, effectively preventing the latter province from controlling territory that geographically belongs to it. In the same way in the land- settlement which is still going on the Mongolian plateau immediately above Peking, much of what should be Shansi territory has been added to the metropolitan province of Chihli. Though adjustments of provincial boundaries have been summarily made in times past, in the main the considerations we have indicated have been the dominant factors in determining the area of each unit.
Now in many provinces where settlement is age-old, the regionalism which results from great distances and bad communications has been greatly increased by race-admixture. Canton province, which was largely settled by Chinese adventurers sailing down the coast from the Yangtsze and intermarrying with Annamese and the older autochthonous races, has a population-mass possessing very distinct characteristics, which sharply conflict with Northern traits. Fuhkien province is not only as diversified but speaks a dialect which is virtually a foreign language. And so on North and West of the Yangtsze it is the same story, temperamental differences of the highest political importance being everywhere in evidence and leading to perpetual bickerings and jealousies. For although Chinese civilization resembles in one great particular the Mahommedan religion, in that it accepts without question all adherents irrespective of racial origin, POLITICALLY the effect of this regionalism has been such that up to very recent times the Central Government has been almost as much a foreign government in the eyes of many provinces as the government of Japan. Money alone formed the bond of union; so long as questions of taxation were not involved, Peking was as far removed from daily life as the planet Mars.
As we are now able to see very clearly, fifty years ago--that is at the time of the Taiping Rebellion--the old power and spell of the National Capital as a military centre had really vanished. Though in ancient days horsemen armed with bows and lances could sweep like a tornado over the land, levelling everything save the walled cities, in the Nineteenth Century such methods had become impossible. Mongolia and Manchuria had also ceased to be inexhaustible reservoirs of warlike men; the more adjacent portions had become commercialized; whilst the outer regions had sunk to depopulated graziers' lands. The Government, after the collapse of the Rebellion, being greatly impoverished, had openly fallen to balancing province against province and personality against personality, hoping that by some means it would be able to regain its prestige and a portion of its former wealth. Taking down the ledgers containing the lists of provincial contributions, the mandarins of Peking completely revised every schedule, redistributed every weight, and saw to it that the matricular levies should fall in such a way as to be crushing. The new taxation, likin, which, like the income-tax in England, is in origin purely a war-tax, by gripping inter-provincial commerce by the throat and rudely controlling it by the barrier-system, was suddenly disclosed as a new and excellent way of making felt the menaced sovereignty of the Manchus; and though the system was plainly a two-edged weapon, the first edge to cut was the Imperial edge; that is largely why for several decades after the Taipings China was relatively quiet.
Time was also giving birth to another important development-- important in the sense that it was to prove finally decisive. It would have been impossible for Peking, unless men of outstanding genius had been living, to have foreseen that not only had the real bases of government now become entirely economic control, but that the very moment that control faltered the central government of China would openly and absolutely cease to be any government at all. Modern commercialism, already invading China at many points through the medium of the treaty-ports, was a force which in the long run could not be denied. Every year that passed tended to emphasize the fact that modern conditions were cutting Peking more and more adrift from the real centres of power--the economic centres which, with the single exception of Tientsin, lie from 800 to 1,500 miles away. It was these centres that were developing revolutionary ideas--i. e., ideas at variance with the Socio- economic principles on which the old Chinese commonwealth had been slowly built up, and which foreign dynasties such as the Mongol and the Manchu had never touched. The Government of the post- Taiping period still imagined that by making their hands lie more heavily than ever on the people and by tightening the taxation control--not by true creative work--they could rehabilitate themselves.
It would take too long, and would weary the indulgence of the reader to establish in a conclusive manner this thesis which had long been a subject of inquiry on the part of political students. Chinese society, being essentially a society organized on a credit-co-operative system, so nicely adjusted that money, either coined or fiduciary, was not wanted save for the petty daily purchases of the people, any system which boldly clutched at the financial establishments undertaking the movement of sycee from province to province for the settlement of trade- balances, was bound to be effective so long as those financial establishments remained unshaken.
The best known establishments, united in the great group known as the Shansi Bankers, being the government bankers, undertook not only all the remittances of surpluses to Peking, but controlled by an intricate pass-book system the perquisites of almost every office-holder in the empire. No sooner did an official, under the system which had grown up, receive a provincial appointment than there hastened to him a confidential clerk of one of these accommodating houses, who in the name of his employers advanced all the sums necessary for the payment of the official's post, and then proceeded with him to his province so that moiety by moiety, as taxation flowed in, advances could be paid off and the equilibrium re-established. A very intimate and far-reaching connection thus existed between provincial money-interests and the official classes. The practical work of governing China was the balancing of tax-books and native bankers' accounts. Even the "melting-houses," where sycee was "standardized" for provincial use, were the joint enterprises of officials and merchants; bargaining governing every transaction; and only when a violent break occurred in the machinery, owing to famine or rebellion, did any other force than money intervene.
There was nothing exceptional in these practices, in the use of which the old Chinese empire was merely following the precedent of the Roman Empire. The vast polity that was formed before the time of Christ by the military and commercial expansion of Rome in the Mediterranean Basin, and among the wild tribes of Northern Europe, depended very largely on the genius of Italian financiers and tax- collectors to whom the revenues were either directly "farmed," or who "assisted" precisely after the Chinese method in financing officials and local administrations, and in replenishing a central treasury which no wealth could satisfy. The Chinese phenomenon was therefore in no sense new; the dearth of coined money and the variety of local standards made the methods used economic necessities. The system was not in itself a bad system: its fatal quality lay in its woodenness, its lack of adaptability, and in its growing weakness in the face of foreign competition which it could never understand. Foreign competition--that was the enemy destined to achieve an overwhelming triumph and dash to ruins a hoary survival.
War with Japan sounded the first trumpet-blast which should have been heeded. In the year 1894, being faced with the necessity of finding immediately a large sum of specie for purpose of war, the native bankers proclaimed their total inability to do so, and the first great foreign loan contract was signed.

Little attention was attracted to what is a turning-point in Chinese history. There cannot be the slightest doubt that in 1894 the Manchus wrote the first sentences of an abdication which was only formally pronounced in 1912: they had inaugurated the financial thraldom under which China still languishes. Within a period of forty months, in order to settle the disastrous Japanese war, foreign loans amounting to nearly fifty-five million pounds were completed. This indebtedness, amounting to nearly three times the "visible" annual revenues of the country--that is, the revenues actually accounted for to Peking--was unparalleled in Chinese history. It was a gold indebtedness subject to all sorts of manipulations which no Chinese properly understood. It had special political meaning and special political consequences because the loans were virtually guaranteed by the Powers. It was a long-drawn coup d'etat of a nature that all foreigners understood because it forged external chains.
The internal significance was even greater than the external. The loans were secured on the most important "direct" revenues reaching Peking--the Customs receipts, which were concerned with the most vital function in the new economic life springing up, the steam-borne coasting and river-trade as well as the purely foreign trade. That most vital function tended consequently to become more and more hall-marked as foreign; it no longer depended in any direct sense on Peking for protection. The hypothecation of these revenues to foreigners for periods running into decades-- coupled with their administration by foreigners--was such a distinct restriction of the rights of eminent domain as to amount to a partial abrogation of sovereignty.
That this was vaguely understood by the masses is now quite certain. The Boxer movement of 1900, like the great proletarian risings which occurred in Italy in the pre-Christian era as a result of the impoverishment and moral disorder brought about by Roman misgovernment, was simply a socio-economic catastrophe exhibiting itself in an unexpected form. The dying Manchu dynasty, at last in open despair, turned the revolt, insanely enough, against the foreigner--that is against those who already held the really vital portion of their sovereignty. So far from saving itself by this act, the dynasty wrote another sentence in its death-warrant. Economically the Manchus had been for years almost lost; the Boxer indemnities were the last straw. By more than doubling the burden of foreign commitments, and by placing the operation of the indemnities directly in the hands of foreign bankers by the method of monthly quotas, payable in Shanghai, THE PEKING GOVERNMENT AS FAR BACK AS FIFTEEN YEARS AGO WAS REDUCED TO BEING A GOVERNMENT AT THIRTY DAYS' SIGHT, AT THE MERCY OF ANY SHOCK OF EVENTS WHICH COULD BE PROTRACTED OVER A FEW MONTHLY SETTLEMENTS. There is no denying this signal fact, which is probably the most remarkable illustration of the restrictive power of money which has ever been afforded in the history of Asia.
The phenomenon, however, was complex and we must be careful to understand its workings. A mercantile curiosity, to find the parallel for which we must go back to the Middle Ages in Europe, when "free cities" such as those of the Hanseatic League plentifully dotted river and coast line, served to increase the general difficulties of a situation which no one formula could adequately cover. Extraterritoriality, by creating the "treaty port" in China, had been the most powerful weapon in undermining native economics; yet at the same time it had been the agent for creating powerful new counter-balancing interests. Though the increasingly large groups of foreigners, residing under their own laws, and building up, under their own specially protected system of international exchange, a new and imposing edifice, had made the hovel-like nature of Chinese economics glaringly evident, the mercantile classes of the New China, being always quick to avail themselves of money-making devices, had not only taken shelter under this new and imposing edifice, but were rapidly extending it of their own accord. In brief, the trading Chinese were identifying themselves and their major interests with the treaty- ports; they were transferring thither their specie and their credits; making huge investments in land and properties, under the aegis of foreign flags in which they absolutely trusted. The money-interests of the country knew instinctively that the native system was doomed and that with this doom there would come many changes; these interests, in the way common to money all the world over, were insuring themselves against the inevitable.
The force of this--politically--became finally evident in 1911; and what we have said in our opening sentences should now be clear. The Chinese Revolution was an emotional rising against the Peking System because it was a bad and inefficient and retrograde system, just as much as against the Manchus, who after all had adopted purely Chinese methods and who were no more foreigners than Scotchmen or Irishmen are foreigners to-day in England. The Revolution of 1911 derived its meaning and its value--as well as its mandate--not from what it proclaimed, but for what it stood for. Historically, 1911 was the lineal descendant of 1900, which again was the offspring of the economic collapse advertised by the great foreign loans of the Japanese war, loans made necessary because the Taipings had disclosed the complete disappearance of the only raison d'etre of Peking sovereignty, i.e. the old-time military power. The story is, therefore, clear and well-connected and so logical in its results that it has about it a finality suggesting the unrolling of the inevitable.
During the Revolution the one decisive factor was shown to be almost at once--money, nothing but money. The pinch was felt at the end of the first thirty days. Provincial remittances ceased; the Boxer quotas remained unpaid; a foreign embargo was laid upon the Customs funds. The Northern troops, raised and trained by Yuan Shih-kai, when he was Viceroy of the Metropolitan province, were, it is true, proving themselves the masters of the Yangtsze and South China troops; yet that circumstance was meaningless. Those troops were fighting for what had already proved itself a lost cause--the Peking System as well as the Manchu dynasty. The fight turned more and more into a money-fight. It was foreign money which brought about the first truce and the transfer of the so- called republican government from Nanking to Peking. In the strictest sense of the words every phase of the settlement then arrived at was a settlement in terms of cash.
Had means existed for rapidly replenishing the Chinese Treasury without having recourse to European stockmarkets the Republic might have fared better. But placed almost at once through foreign dictation under a species of police-control, which while nominally derived from Western conceptions, was primarily designed to rehabilitate the semblance of the authority which had been so sensationally extinguished, the Republic remained only a dream; and the world, taught to believe that there could be no real stability until the scheme of government approximated to the conception long formed of Peking absolutism, waited patiently for the rude awakening which came with the Yuan Shih-kai coup d'etat of 4th November, 1913. Thus we had this double paradox; on the one hand the Chinese people awkwardly trying to be western in a Chinese way and failing: on the other, foreign officials and foreign governments trying to be Chinese and making the confusion worse confounded. It was inevitable in such circumstances that the history of the past six years should have been the history of a slow tragedy, and that almost every page should be written over with the name of the man who was the selected bailiff of the Powers--Yuan Shih-kai.

The Final Problem:--remodelling The Politico-economic Relationship Between China And The World

2008-08-25T23:15:00.001-07:00

The careful narrative we have made--supported as it is by documents--of the history of China since the inception of the Republic six years ago should not fail to awaken profound astonishment among those who are interested in the spread of good government throughout the world. Even casual readers will have no difficulty in realizing how many lives have been lost and how greatly the country has been crippled both owing to the blind foreign support given to Yuan Shih-kai during four long and weary years and to the stupid adhesion to exploded ideas, when a little intelligence and a little generosity and sympathy would have guided the nation along very different paths. To have to go back, as China was forced to do in 1916, and begin over again the work which should have been performed in 1912 is a handicap which only persistent resolution can overcome; for the nation has been so greatly impoverished that years must elapse before a complete recovery from the disorders which have upset the internal balance can be chronicled; and when we add that the events of the period May-July, 1917, are likely still further to increase the burden the nation carries, the complicated nature of the outlook will be readily understood.
Happily foreign opinion has lately taken turn for the better. Whilst the substitution of a new kind of rule in place of the Yuan Shih-kai regime, with its thinly disguised Manchuism and its secret worship of fallen gods, was at first looked upon as a political collapse tinged with tragedy--most foreigners refusing to believe in an Asiatic Republic--the masculine decision of the 9th February, 1917, which diplomatically ranged China definitely on the side of the Liberal Powers, has caused something of a volte face. Until this decision had been made it was the fashion to declare that China was not only not fit to be a Republic but that her final dissolution was only a matter of time. Though the empire disappeared because it had become an impossible rule in the modern world--being womanish, corrupt, and mediaeval--to the foreign mind the empire remained the acme of Chinese civilization; and to kill it meant to lop off the head of the Chinese giant and to leave lying on the ground nothing but a corpse. It was in vain to insist that this simile was wrong and that it was precisely because Chinese civilization had exhausted itself that a new conception of government had to be called in to renew the vitality of the people. Men, and particularly diplomats, refused to understand that this embodied the heart and soul of the controversy, and that the sole mandate for the Republic, as well as the supreme reason why it had to be upheld if the country was not to dissolve, has always lain in the fact that it postulates something which is the very antithesis of the system it has replaced and which should be wholly successful in a single generation, if courage is shown and the whip unflinchingly used.
The chief trouble, in the opinion of the writer, has been the simplicity of the problem and not its complexity. By eliminating the glamour which surrounded the Throne, and by kicking away all the pomp and circumstance which formed the age-old ritual of government, the glaring simplicity and barrenness of Chinese life --when contrasted with the complex West--has been made evident. Bathed in the hard light of modern realities, the poetic China which Haroun-al-Raschid painted in his Aladdin, and which still lives in the beautiful art of the country, has vanished forever and its place has been taken by a China of prose. To those who have always pictured Asia in terms of poetry this has no doubt been a very terrible thing--a thing synonymous with political death. And yet in point of fact the elementary things remain much as they have always been before, and if they appear to have acquired new meaning it is simply because they have been moved into the foreground and are no longer masked by a gaudy superstructure.
For if you eliminate questions of money and suppose for a moment that the national balance-sheet is entirely in order, China is the old China although she is stirred by new ideas. Here you have by far the greatest agricultural community in the world, living just as it has always lived in the simplest possible manner, and remitting to the cities the increment which the harvests yield. These cities have made much municipal progress and developed an independence which is confessedly new. Printing presses have spread a noisy assertiveness, as well as a very critical and litigious spirit, which tends to resent and oppose authority.

Trade, although constantly proclaimed to be in a bad way, is steadily growing as new wants are created and fashions change. An immense amount of new building has been done, particularly in those regions which the Revolution of 1911 most devastated. The archaic fiscal system, having been tumbled into open ruin, has been partially replaced by European conceptions which are still only half-understood, but which are not really opposed. The country, although boasting a population which is only some fifty millions less than the population of the nineteen countries of Europe, has an army and a police-force so small as to allow one to say that China is virtually disarmed since there are only 900,000 men with weapons in their hands. Casting about to discover what really tinges the outlook, that must simply be held to be the long delay the world has made in extending the same treatment to China as is now granted to the meanest community of Latin America. It has been almost entirely this, coupled with the ever-present threat of Japanese chauvinism, which has given China the appearance of a land that is hopelessly water-logged, although the National Debt is relatively the smallest in the world and the people the most industrious and law-abiding who have ever lived. In such circumstances that ideas of collapse should have spread so far is simply due to a faulty estimate of basic considerations.
For we have to remember that in a country in which the thoroughly English doctrine of laissez faire has been so long practised that it has become second nature, and in which the philosophic spirit is so undisputed that the pillars of society are just as much the beggars who beg as the rich men who support them, influences of a peculiar character play an immense role and can be only very slowly overcome. Passivity has been so long enthroned that of the Chinese it may be truly said that they are not so much too proud to fight as too indifferent,--which is not a fruitful state of affairs. Looking on the world with callous detachment the masses go their own way, only pausing in their work on their ancient Festival days which they still celebrate just as they have always celebrated them since the beginning of their history. The petty daily activities of a vast legion of people grouped together in this extraordinary way, and actuated by impulses which seem sharply to conflict with the impulses of the other great races of the world, appear incredible to Westerners who know what the outer perils really are, and who believe that China is not only at bay but encircled--caught in a network of political agreements and commitments which have permanently destroyed her power of initiative and reduced her to inanition. To find her lumbering on undisturbed, ploughing the fields, marrying and giving in marriage, buying, selling, cursing and laughing, carrying out rebellions and little plots as though the centuries that stretch ahead were still her willing slaves, has in the end become to onlookers a veritable nightmare. Puzzled by a phenomenon which is so disconcerting as to be incapable of any clear definition, they have ended by declaring that an empty Treasury is an empty rule, adding that as it is solely from this monetary viewpoint that the New China ought to be judged, their opinion is the one which will finally be accepted as authoritative. The situation is admittedly dangerous; and it is imperative that a speedy remedy be sought; for the heirs and assigns of an estate which has been mismanaged to the brink of bankruptcy must secure at all costs that no public receivership is made.
What is the remedy? That must consist simply enough in attacking the grand simplicities directly; in recognizing, as we have clearly shown that the bases of Chinese life having collapsed through Euro-Japanese pressure, the politico-economic relationship between the Republic and the world must be remodelled at the earliest possible opportunity, every agreement which has been made since the Treaties of 1860 being carefully and completely revised.
To say this is to give utterance to nothing very new or brilliant: it is the thought which has been present in every one's mind for a number of years. So far back as 1902, when Great Britain negotiated with China the inoperative Mackay Commercial Treaty, provision was not only made for a complete reform of the Tariff-- import duties to be made two and a half times as large in return for a complete abolition of likin or inter-provincial trade- taxation--but for the abolition of extraterritoriality when China should have erected a modern and efficient judicial system. And although matters equally important, such as the funding of all Chinese indemnities and loans into one Consolidated Debt, as well as the withdrawal of the right of foreign banks to make banknote issues in China, were not touched upon, the same principles would undoubtedly have been applied in these instances, as being conductive to the re-establishment of Chinese autonomy, had Chinese negotiators been clever enough to urge them as being of equal importance to the older issues. For it is primarily debt, and the manipulation of debt, which is the great enemy.
Three groups of indebtedness and three groups of restrictions, corresponding with the three vital periods in Chinese history, lie to-day like three great weights on the body of the Chinese giant. First, there is the imbroglio of the Japanese war of 1894-5; second, the settlement following the Boxer explosion of 1900; and third, the cost of the revolution of 1911-1912. We have already discussed so exhaustively the Boxer Settlement and the finance of the Revolutionary period that it is necessary to deal with the first period only.
In that first period China, having been rudely handled by Japan, recovered herself only by indulging in the sort of diplomacy which had become traditional under the Manchus. Thankful for any help in her distress, she invited and welcomed the intervention of Russia, which gave her back the Liaotung Peninsula and preserved for her the shadow of her power when the substance had already been so sensationally lost. Men are apt to forget to-day that the financial accommodation which allowed China to liquidate the Japanese war-debt was a remarkable transaction in which Russia formed the controlling element. In 1895 the Tsar's Government had intervened for precisely the same motives that animate every State at critical times in history, that is, for reasons of self- interest. The rapid victory which Japan had won had revived in an acute form the whole question of the future of the vast block of territory which lies south of the Amur regions and is bathed by the Yellow Sea. Russian statesmen suddenly became conscious that the policy of which Muravieff-Amurski in the middle of the nineteenth century had been the most brilliant exponent--the policy of reaching "warm water"--was in danger of being crucified, and the work of many years thrown away. Action on Russia's part was imperative; she was great enough to see that; and so that it should not be said that she was merely depriving a gallant nation of the fruits of victory and thereby issuing to her a direct challenge, she invited the chief Powers in Treaty relations with China to co-operate with her in readjusting what she described as the threatened balance. France and Germany responded to that invitation; England demurred. France did so because she was already the devoted Ally of a nation that was a guarantee for the security of her European frontiers: Germany because she was anxious to see that Russia should be pushed into Asiatic commitments and drawn away from the problems of the Near East. England on her part very prudently declined to be associated with a transaction which, while not opposed to her interests, was filled with many dubious elements.
It was in Petrograd that this account was liquidated. The extraordinary chapter which only closed with the disastrous Peace of Portsmouth opened for Russia in a very brilliant way. The presence in Moscow of the veteran statesman Li Hung-chang on the occasion of the Tsar's Coronation afforded an opportunity for exhaustively discussing the whole problem of the Far East. China required money: Russia required the acceptance of plans which ultimately proved so disastrous to her. Under Article IV of the Treaty of Shimonoseki China had agreed to pay Japan as a war-indemnity 200 million Treasury taels in eight instalments: that is 50 million taels within six months, a further 50 millions within twelve months, and the remaining 100 millions in six equal instalments spread over seven years, as well as an additional sum of 50 millions for the retrocession of the Liaotung Peninsula.
China, therefore, needed at once 80 million taels. Russia undertook to lend her at the phenomenally low rate of 4 per cent the sum of 16,000,000 pounds sterling--the interest and capital of which the Tsar's Government guaranteed to the French bankers undertaking the flotation. In return for this accommodation, the well-known Russo-Chinese Declaration of the 24th June 1895 was made in which the vital article IX states that--"In consideration of this Loan the Chinese Government declares that it will not grant to any foreign Power any right or privilege of no matter what description touching the control or administration of the revenues of the Chinese Empire. Should, however, the Chinese Government grant to any foreign Power rights of this nature, it is understood that the mere fact of having done so will extend those rights to the Russian Government."
This clause has a monumental significance: it started the scramble in China: and all the history of the past 22 years is piled like a pyramid on top of it. Now that the Romanoff's have been hurled from the throne, Russia must prove eager to reverse the policy which brought Japan to her Siberian frontiers and which pinned a brother democracy to the ground.
For China, instead of being nearly bankrupt as so many have asserted, has, thanks to the new scale of indebtedness which the war has established, become one of the most debt-free countries in the world, her entire national debt amounting to less than 150 millions sterling, or seven shillings per head of population, which is certainly not very terrible. No student who has given due attention to the question can deny that it is primarily on the proper handling of this nexus of financial interests, and not by establishing any artificial balance of power between foreign nations, that the peace of the Far East really hinges. The method of securing national redemption is ready-made; Western nations should use the Parliament of China as an instrument of reform, and by limiting themselves to this one method secure that civil authority is reinforced to such a point that its behests have behind them all the wealth of the West. In questions of currency, taxation, railways and every other vexatious problem, it is solely by using this instrument that satisfactory results can be attained.

For once Chinese realize that parliamentary government is not merely an experimental thing but the last chance the country is to be given to govern itself, they will rally to the call and prove that much of the trouble and turmoil of past years has been due to the misunderstanding of the internal problem by Western minds, which has incited the population to intrigue against one another and remain disunited. And if we insist that there is urgent need for a settlement of these matters in the terms we have indicated, it is because we know very prcisely what Japanese thought on this subject really is.
What is that thought--whither does it lead?
It may be broadly said that Japanese activities throughout the Far East are based on a thorough and adequate appreciation of the fact that apart from the winning of the hegemony of China, there is the far more difficult and knotty problem of overshadowing and ultimately dislodging the huge network of foreign interests-- particularly British interests--which seventy-five years of Treaty intercourse have entwined about the country. These interests, growing out of the seed planted in the early Canton Factory days, had their origin in the termination by the act of the British Government of the trading monopoly enjoyed until the thirties of last century by the East India Company. Left without proper definition until the Treaty of Nanking in 1842 had formally won the principle of trading-rights at five open ports, and thus established a first basis of agreement between England and China , these interests expanded in a half-hearted way until 1860, when in order to terminate friction, the principle of extraterritoriality was boldly borrowed from the Turkish Capitulations, and made the rock on which the entire fabric of international dealings in China was based. These treaties, with their always-recurring "most-favoured nation" clause, and their implication of equal treatment for all Powers alike, constitute the Public Law of the Far East, just as much as the Treaties between the Nations constitute the Public Law of Europe; and any attempt to destroy, cripple, or limit their scope and function has been very generally deemed an assault on all the High Contracting Parties alike. By a thoroughly Machiavellian piece of reasoning, those who have been responsible for the framing of recent Japanese policy, have held it essential to their plan to keep the world chained to the principle of extraterritoriality and Chinese Tariff and economic subjection because these things, imposing as they necessarily do restrictions and limitations in many fields, leave it free to the Japanese to place themselves outside and beyond these restrictions and limitations; and, by means of special zones and secret encroachments, to extend their influence so widely that ultimately foreign treaty-ports and foreign interests may be left isolated and at the mercy of the "Higher machinery" which their hegemony is installing. The Chinese themselves, it is hoped, will be gradually cajoled into acquiescing in this very extraordinary state of affairs, because being unorganized and split into suspicious groups, they can be manipulated in such a way as to offer no effective mass resistance to the Japanese advance, and in the end may be induced to accept it as inevitable.
If the reader keeps these great facts carefully in mind, a new light will dawn on him and the urgency of the Chinese question will be disclosed. The Japanese Demands of 1915, instead of being fantastic and far-fetched, as many have supposed, are shown to be very intelligently drawn-up, the entire Treaty position in China having been most exhaustively studied, and every loophole into the vast region left untouched by the exterritorialized Powers marked down for invasion. For Western nations, in spite of exorbitant demands at certain periods in Chinese history, having mainly limited themselves to acquiring coastal and communication privileges, which were desired more for genuine purposes of trade than for encompassing the destruction of Chinese autonomy, are to- day in a disadvantageous position which the Japanese have shown they thoroughly understand by not only tightening their hold on Manchuria and Shantung, but by going straight to the root of the matter and declaring on every possible occasion that they alone are responsible for the peace and safety of the Far East,--and this in spite of the fact that their plan of 1915 was exposed and partially frustrated. But the chief force behind the Japanese Foreign Office, it should be noted, is militarist; and it is a point of honour for the Military Party to return to the charge in China again and again until there is definite success or definite failure.
Now in view of the facts which have been so voluminously set forth in preceding chapters, it is imperative for men to realize that the struggle in the Far East is like the Balkan Question a thing rooted in geography and peoples, and cannot be brushed aside or settled by compromises. The whole future of Chinese civilization is intimately bound up with the questions involved, and the problem instead of becoming easier to handle must become essentially more difficult from day to day. Japan's real objective being the termination of the implied trusteeship which Europe and America still exercise in the Far East, the course of the European war must intimately effect the ultimate outcome. If that end is satisfactory for democracies, China may reasonably claim to share in the resulting benefits; if on the other hand, the Liberal Powers do not win an overwhelming victory which shall secure the sanctity of Treaties for all time, it will go hard for China. Outwardly, the immediate goal which Japan seeks to attain is merely to become the accredited spokesman of Eastern Asia, the official representative; and, using this attorneyship as a cloak for the advancement of objects which other Powers would pursue on different principles, so impregnably to entrench herself where she was no business to be that no one will dare to attempt to turn her out. For this reason we see revived in Manchuria on a modified scale the Eighteenth Century device, once so essential a feature of Dutch policy in the struggle against Louis XIV, namely the creation of "barrier-cities" for closing and securing a frontier by giving them a special constitution which withdraws them from ordinary jurisdiction and places foreign garrisons in them. This is precisely what is going on from the Yalu to Eastern Mongolia, and this procedure no doubt will be extended in time to other regions as opportunities arise. Already in Shantung the same policy is being pursued and there are indications that it is being thought of in Fuhkien; whilst the infantry garrison which was quietly installed at Hankow--600 miles up the Yangtsze river--at the time of the Revolution of 1911 is apparently to be made permanent. Allowing her policy to be swayed by men who know far too little of the sea, Japan stands in imminent danger of forgetting the great lesson which Mahan taught, that for island- peoples sea-power is everything and that land conquests which diminish the efficacy of that power are merely a delusion and snare. Plunging farther and farther into the vast regions of Manchuria and Mongolia which have been the graves of a dozen dynasties, Japan is displaying increasing indifference for the one great lesson which the war has yielded--the overwhelming importance of the sea. Necessarily guardian of the principles on which intercourse in Asia is based, because she framed those principles and fought for them and has built up great edifices under their sanction, British sea-power--now allied forever, let us hope, with American power--nevertheless remains and will continue to remain, in spite of what may be half- surreptitiously done to-day, the dominant factor in the Far East as it is in the Far West. Withdrawn from view for the time being, because of the exigencies of the hour, and because the Anglo- Japanese Alliance is still counted a binding agreement, Western sea-power nevertheless stands there, a heavy cloud in the offing, full of questionings regarding what is going on in the Orient, and fully determined, let us pray, one day to receive frank answers. For the right of every race, no matter how small or weak, to enjoy the inestimable benefits of self-government and independence may be held to have been so absolutely established that it is a mere question of time for the doctrine not only to be universally accepted but to be universally applied. In many cases, it is true, the claims of certain races are as yet incapable of being expressed in practical state-forms; but where nationalities have long been well-defined, there can be no question whatsoever that a properly articulated autonomy must be secured in such a way as to preclude the possibility of annexations.
Now although in their consideration of Asia it is notorious that Western statesmen have not cared to keep in mind political concepts which have become enthroned in Europe, owing to the fact that an active element of opposition to such concepts was to be found in their own policies, a vast change has undoubtedly been recently worked, making it certain that the claims of nationalism are soon to be given the same force and value in the East as in the West. But before there can be any question of Asia for the Asiatics being adopted as a root principle by the whole world, it will have to be established in some unmistakable form that the surrender of the policy of conquest which Europe has pursued for four centuries East of the Suez Canal will not lead to its adoption by an Asiatic Power under specious forms which hide the glittering sword. If that can be secured, then the present conflict will have truly been a War of Liberation for the East as well as for the West. For although Japan has been engaged for some years in declaring to all Asiatics under her breath that she holds out the hand of a brother to them, and dreams of the days when the age of European conquests will be nothing but a distant memory, her actions have consistently belied her words and shown that she has not progressed in political thought much beyond the crude conceptions of the Eighteenth Century. Thus Korea, which fell under her sway because the nominal independence of the country had long made it the centre of disastrous international intrigues, is governed to-day as a conquered province by a military viceroy without a trace of autonomy remaining and without any promise that such a regime is only temporary. Although nothing in the undertakings made with the Powers has ever admitted that a nation which boasts of an ancient line of kings, and which gave Japan much of her own civilization, should be stamped under foot in such manner, the course which politics have taken in Korea has been disastrous in the extreme ever since Lord Lansdowne in 1905, as British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, pointed out in a careful dispatch to the Russian Government that Korea was a region which fell naturally under the sway of Japan. Not only has a tragic fate overcome the sixteen million inhabitants of that country, but there has been a covert extension of the principles applied to them to the people of China. Now if as we say European concepts are to have universal meaning, and if Japan desires European treatment, it is time that it is realized that the policy followed in Korea, combined with the attempt to extend that treatment to soil where China rightly claims undisputed sovereignty, forms an insuperable barrier to Japan being admitted to the inner council of the nations. No one wishes to deny to Japan her proper place in the world, in view of her marvellous industrial progress, but that place must be one which fits in with modern conceptions and is not one thing to the West and another to the East. Even the saying which was made so much of during the Russian war of 1904, that Korea in foreign hands was a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan--has been shown to be inherently false by the lessons of the present struggle, the Korean dagger- point being 120 sea miles from the Japanese coast. Such arguments clearly show that if the truce which was hastily patched up in 1905 is to give way to a permanent peace, that can be evolved only by locking on to the Far East the principles which are in process of being vindicated in Europe. In other words, precisely as Poland is to be given autonomy, so must Korea enjoy the same privileges, the whole Japanese theory of suzerainty on the Eastern Asiatic Continent being abandoned. To re-establish a proper balance of power in the Far East, the Korean nation, which has had a known historical existence of 1,500 years, must be reinstated in something resembling its old position; for Korea has always been the keystone of the Far Eastern arch, and it is the destruction of that arch more than anything else which has brought the collapse of China so perilously near.
Once the legitimate aspirations of the Korean people have been satisfied, the whole Manchurian-Mongolian question will assume a different aspect, and a true peace between China and Japan will be made possible. It is to no one's interest to have a Polish question in the Far East with all the bitterness and the crimes which such a question must inevitably lead to; and the time to obviate the creation of such a question is at the very beginning before it has become an obsession and a great international issue. Although the Japanese annexation may be held to have settled the question once and for all, we have but to point to Poland to show that a race can pass through every possible humiliation and endure every possible species of truncation without dying or abating by one whit its determination to enjoy what happier races have won.
The issue is a vital one. China by her recent acts has given a categorical and unmistakable reply to all the insidious attempts to place her outside and beyond the operation of international law and all those sanctions which make life worth living; and because of the formal birth of a Foreign Policy it can be definitely expected that this nation, despite its internal troubles and struggles, will never rest content until she has created a new nexus of world-relationships which shall affirm and apply every one of the principles experience elsewhere has proved are the absolute essentials to peace and happiness. China is already many decades ahead of Japan in her theory of government, no matter what the practice may be, the marvellous revolution of 1911 having given back to this ancient race its old position of leader in ideas on the shores of the Yellow Sea. The whole dream Japan has cherished, and has sought to give form to during the war, is in the last analysis antiquated and forlorn and must ultimately dissolve into thin air; for it is monstrous to suppose, in an age when European men have sacrificed everything to free themselves from the last vestiges of feudalism, that in the Far East the cult of Sparta should remain a hallowed and respected doctrine. Japan's policy in the Far East during the period of the war has been uniformly mischievous and is largely responsible for the fierce hatreds which burst out in 1917 over the war issue; and China will be forced to raise at the earliest possible moment the whole question of the validity of the undertakings extorted from her in 1915 under the threat of an ultimatum. Although the precise nature of Anglo-Japanese diplomacy during the vital eleven days from the 4th to the 15th August, 1914, remains a sealed book, China suspects that Japan from the very beginning of the present war world-struggle has taken advantage of England's vast commitments and acted ultra vires. China hopes and believes that Britain will never again renew the Japanese alliance, which expires in 1921, in its present form, particularly now that an Anglo-American agreement has been made possible. China knows that in spite of all coquetting with both the extreme radical and military parties which is going on daily in Peking and the provinces, the secret object of Japanese diplomacy is either the restoration of the Manchu dynasty, or the enthronement of some pliant usurper, a puppet-Emperor being what is needed to repeat in China the history of Korea. Japan would be willing to go to any lengths to secure the attainment of this reactionary object. Faithful to her "divine mission," she is ceaselessly stirring up trouble and hoping that time may still be left her to consolidate her position on the Asiatic mainland, one of her latest methods being to busy herself at distant points in the Pacific so that Western men for the sake of peace may be ultimately willing to abandon the shores of the Yellow Seas to her unchallenged mastery.
The problem thus outlined becomes a great dramatic thing. The lines which trace the problem are immense, stretching from China to every shore bathed by the Pacific and then from there to the distant west. Whenever there is a dull calm, that calm must be treated solely as an intermission, an interval between the acts, a preparation for something more sensational than the last episode, but not as a permanent settlement which can only come by the methods we have indicated. For the Chinese question is no longer a local problem, but a great world-issue which statesmen must regulate by conferences in which universal principles will be vindicated if they wish permanently to eliminate what is almost the last remaining international powder-magazine. A China that is henceforth not only admitted to the family of nations on terms of equality but welcomed as a representative of Liberalism and a subscriber to all those sanctions on which the civilization of peace rests, will directly tend to adjust every other Asiatic problem and to prevent a recrudescence of those evil phenomena which are the enemies of progress and happiness. Is it too much to dream of such a consummation? We think not. It is to America and to England that China looks to rehabilitate herself and to make her Republic a reality. If they lend her their help, if they are consistent, there is still no reason why this democracy on the shores of the Yellow Sea should not be reinstated in the proud position it occupied twenty centuries ago, when it furnished the very silks which clothed the daughters of the Caesars.

China And The War

2008-08-25T23:14:00.002-07:00

The question of Chinese sentiments on the subject of the war, as well as the precise relations between the Chinese Government and the two groups of belligerents, are matters which have been totally misunderstood. To those who have grasped the significance of the exhaustive preceding account of the Republic in travail, this statement should not cause surprise; for China has been in no condition to play anything but an insignificant and unsatisfactory role in world-politics.
When the world-war broke out China was still in the throes of her domestic troubles and without any money at all in her Central Treasury; and although Yuan Shih-kai, on being suddenly confronted with an unparalleled international situation, did initiate certain negotiations with the German Legation with a view to securing a cancellation of the Kiaochow lease, the ultimatum which Japan dispatched to Germany on the 15th August, 1914, completely nullified his tentative proposals. Yuan Shih-kai had, indeed, not been in the slightest degree prepared for such a sensational development as war between Japan and Germany over the question of a cruiser-base established on territory leased from China; and although he considered the possibility of sending a Chinese force to co-operate in the attack on the German stronghold, that project was never matured, whilst his subsequent contrivances, notably the establishment of a so-called war-zone in Shantung, were without international value, and attracted no attention save in Japan.
Chinese, however, did not remain blind to the trend of events. After the fall of Tsingtao and the subsequent complications with Japan, which so greatly served to increase the complexities of a nebulous situation, certain lines of thought insensibly developed. That the influential classes in China should have desired that Germany should by some means rehabilitate herself in Europe and so be placed in a position to chastise a nation that for twenty years had brought nothing but sorrow to them was perhaps only natural; and it is primarily to this one cause that so-called sympathy with Germany during the first part of the war has been due. But it must also be noticed that the immense German propaganda in China during the first two years of the war, coupled with the successes won in Russia and elsewhere, powerfully impressed the population--not so much because they were attracted by the feats of a Power that had enthroned militarism, but because they wrongly supposed that sooner or later the effects of this military display would be not only to secure the relaxation of the Japanese grip on the country but would compel the Powers to re-cast their pre-war policies in China and abandon their attempts at placing the country under financial supervision. Thus, by the irony of Fate, Germany in Eastern Asia for the best part of 1914, 1915 and 1916, stood for the aspirations of the oppressed--a moral which we may very reasonably hope will not escape the attention of the Foreign Offices of the world. Nor must it be forgotten that the modern Chinese army, being like the Japanese, largely Germany-trained and Germany-armed, had a natural predilection for Teutonism; and since the army, as we have shown, plays a powerful role in the politics of the Republic, public opinion was greatly swayed by what it proclaimed through its accredited organs.
Be this as it may, it was humanly impossible for such a vast country with such vast resources in men and raw materials to remain permanently quiescent during an universal conflagration when there was so much to be salvaged. Slowly the idea became general in China that something had to be done; that is that a state of technical neutrality would lead nowhere save possibly to Avernus.
As early as November, 1915, Yuan Shih-kai and his immediate henchmen had indeed realized the internal advantages to be derived from a formal war-partnership with the signatories of the Pact of London, the impulse to the movement being given by certain important shipments of arms and ammunition from China which were then made. A half-surreptitious attempt to discuss terms in Peking caused no little excitement, the matter being, however, only debated in very general terms. The principal item proposed by the Peking government was characteristically the stipulation that an immediate loan of two million pounds should be made to China, in return for her technical belligerency. But when the proposal was taken to Tokio, Japan rightly saw that its main purpose was simply to secure an indirect foreign endorsement of Yuan Shih-kai's candidature as Emperor; and for that reason she threw cold-water on the whole project. To subscribe to a formula, which besides enthroning Yuan Shih-kai would have been a grievous blow to her Continental ambitions, was an unthinkable thing; and therefore the manoeuvre was foredoomed to failure.
The death of Yuan Shih-kai in the Summer of 1916 radically altered the situation. Powerful influences were again set to work to stamp out the German cult and to incline the minority of educated men who control the destinies of the country to see that their real interests could only lie with the Allies, who were beginning to export Chinese man-power as an auxiliary war-aid and who were very anxious to place the whole matter on a sounder footing. Little real progress was, however, made in the face of the renewed German efforts to swamp the country with their propaganda. By means of war-maps, printed in English and Chinese, and also by means of an exhaustive daily telegraphic service which hammered home every possible fact illustrative of German invincibility, the German position in China, so far from being weakened, was actually strengthened during the period when Rumania was being overrun. By a singular destiny, any one advocating an alliance with the Allies was bitterly attacked not only by the Germans but by the Japanese as well--this somewhat naive identification of Japan's political interest with those of an enemy country being an unique feature of the situation worthy of permanent record.
It was not until President Wilson sent out his Peace offering of the 19th December, 1916, that a distant change came. On this document being formally communicated to the Chinese Government great interest was aroused, and the old hopes were revived that it would be somehow possible for China to gain entry at the definitive Peace Congress which would settle beyond repeal the question of the disposal of Kiaochow and the whole of German interests in Shantung Provinces,--a subject of burning interest to the country not only because of the harsh treatment which had been experienced at the hands of Japan, but because the precedent established in 1905 at the Portsmouth Treaty was one which it was felt must be utterly shattered if China was not to abandon her claim of being considered a sovereign international State. On that occasion Japan had simply negotiated direct with Russia concerning all matters affecting Manchuria, dispatching a Plenipotentiary to Peking, after the Treaty of Peace had been signed, to secure China's adhesion to all clauses EN BLOC without discussion. True enough, by filing the Twenty-one Demands on China in 1915--when the war was hardly half-a-year old--and by forcing China's assent to all Shantung questions under the threat of an Ultimatum, Japan had reversed the Portsmouth Treaty procedure and apparently settled the issues at stake for all time; nevertheless the Chinese hoped when the facts were properly known to the world that this species of diplomacy would not be endorsed, and that indeed the Shantung question could be reopened.
Consequently great pains were taken at the Chinese Foreign Office to draft a reply to the Wilson Note which would tell its own story. The authorized translation of the document handed to the American Legation on the 8th January has therefore a peculiar political interest. It runs as follows:--
"I have examined with the care which the gravity of the question demands the note concerning peace which President Wilson has addressed to the Governments of the Allies and the Central Powers now at war and the text of which Your Excellency has been good enough to transmit to me under instructions of your Government.
"China, a nation traditionally pacific, has recently again manifested her sentiments in concluding treaties concerning the pacific settlement of international disputes, responding thus to the voeux of the Peace Conference held at the Hague.
"On the other hand, the present war, by its prolongation, has seriously affected the interests of China, more so perhaps than those of other Powers which have remained neutral. She is at present at a time of reorganization which demands economically and industrially the co-operation of foreign countries, a co-operation which a large number of them are unable to accord on account of the war in which they are engaged.
"In manifesting her sympathy for the spirit of the President's Note, having in view the ending as soon as possible of the hostilities, China is but acting in conformity not only with her interests but also with her profound sentiments.
"On account of the extent which modern wars are apt to assume and the repercussions which they bring about, their effects are no longer limited to belligerent States. All countries are interested in seeing wars becoming as rare as possible. Consequently China cannot but show satisfaction with the views of the Government and people of the United States of America who declare themselves ready, and even eager, to co-operate when the war is over, by all proper means to assure the respect of the principle of the equality of nations, whatever their power may be, and to relieve them of the peril of wrong and violence. China is ready to join her efforts with theirs for the attainment of such results which can only be obtained through the help of all."
Already, then, before there had been any question of Germany's ruthless submarine war necessitating a decisive move, China had commenced to show that she could not remain passive during a world-conflict which was indirectly endangering her interests. America, by placing herself in direct communication with the Peking Government on the subject of a possible peace, had given a direct hint that she was solicitous of China's future and determined to help her as far as possible. All this was in strict accordance with the traditional policy of the United States in China, a policy which although too idealistic to have had much practical value--being too little supported by battleships and bayonets to be respected--has nevertheless for sixty years tempered the wind to the shorn lamb. The ground had consequently been well prepared for the remarkable denouement which came on the 9th February, 1917, and which surprised all the world.
On the fourth of that month the United States formally communicated with China on the subject of the threatened German submarine war against neutral shipping and invited her to associate herself with America in breaking-off diplomatic relations with Germany. China had meanwhile received a telegraphic communication from the Chinese Minister in Berlin transmitting a Note from the German Government making known the measures endangering all merchant vessels navigating the prescribed zones. The effect of these two communications on the mind of the Chinese Government was at first admittedly stunning and very varied expressions of opinion were heard in Peking. For the first time in the history of the country the government had been invited to take a step which meant the inauguration of a definite Foreign policy from which there could be no retreat. For four days a discussion raged which created the greatest uneasiness; but by the 8th February, President Li Yuan-hung had made up his mind--the final problem being simply the "conversion" of the Military Party to the idea that a decisive step, which would forever separate them from Germany, must at last be taken. It is known that the brilliant Scholar Liang Ch'i-chao, who was hastily summoned to Peking, proved a decisive influence and performed the seemingly impossible in a few hours' discussion. Realizing at once the advantages which would accrue from a single masculine decision he advised instant action in such a convincing way that the military leaders surrendered. Accordingly on the 9th February the presence of the German Minister was requested at the Chinese Foreign Office when the following Note was read to him and subsequently transmitted telegraphically to Berlin.
Your Excellency:
A telegraphic communication has been received from the Chinese Minister at Berlin transmitting a note from the German Government dated February 1st, 1917, which makes known that the measures of blockade newly adopted by the Government of Germany will, from that day, endanger neutral merchant vessels navigating in certain prescribed zones.
The new measures of submarine warfare, inaugurated by Germany, imperilling the lives and property of Chinese citizens to even a greater extent than the measures previously taken which have already cost so many human lives to China, constitute a violation of the principles of public international law at present in force; the tolerance of their application would have as a result the introduction into international law of arbitrary principles incompatible with even legitimate commercial intercourse between neutral states and between neutral states and belligerent powers.
The Chinese Government, therefore, protests energetically to the Imperial German Government against the measures proclaimed on February 1st, and sincerely hopes that with a view to respecting the rights of neutral states and to maintaining the friendly relations between these two countries, the said measures will not be carried out.
In case, contrary to its expectations, its protest be ineffectual the Government of the Chinese Republic will be constrained, to its profound regret, to sever the diplomatic relations at present existing between the two countries. It is unnecessary to add that the attitude of the Chinese Government has been dictated purely by the desire to further the cause of the world's peace and by the maintenance of the sanctity of international law.
I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to Your Excellency the assurance of my highest consideration.
At the same time the following reply was handed to the American Minister in Peking thus definitely clinching the matter:
Your Excellency:
I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of Your Excellency's Note of the 4th February, 1917, informing me that the Government of the United States of America, in view of the adoption by the German Government of its new policy of submarine warfare on the 1st of February, has decided to take certain action which it judges necessary as regards Germany.
The Chinese Government, like the President of the United Slates of America, is reluctant to believe that the German Government will actually carry into execution those measures which imperil the lives and property of citizens of neutral states and jeopardize the commerce, even legitimate, between neutrals as well as between neutrals and belligerents and which tend, if allowed to be enforced without opposition, to introduce a new principle into public international law.
The Chinese Government being in accord with the principles set forth in Your Excellency's note and firmly associating itself with the Government of the United States, has taken similar action by protesting energetically to the German Government against the new measures of blockade. The Chinese government also proposes to take such action in the future as will be deemed necessary for the maintenance of the principles of international law.
I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to Your Excellency the assurance of my highest consideration.
His Excellency Paul S. Reinsch, Envoy Extraordinary & Minister Plenipotentiary of The United States of America.
When these facts became generally known an extraordinary ferment was noticeable. What efforts had to be made to overcome the not inconsiderable opposition of the Military Party who were opposed to any departure from a policy of passive neutrality need not now be set down; but it is sufficient to state that the decision arrived at was in every sense a victory of the younger intellectual forces over the older mandarinate, whose traditions of laissez faire and spineless diplomacy had hitherto cost the country so dear. A definite and far-reaching Foreign Policy had at last been inaugurated. By responding rapidly and firmly to the invitation of the United States to associate herself with the stand taken against Germany's piratical submarine warfare, China has undoubtedly won for herself a new place in the world's esteem. Both in Europe and America the news of this development awakened well-understandable enthusiasm, and convinced men that the Republic at last stood for something vital and real. Until the 9th February, 1917, what China had been doing was not really to maintain her neutrality, since she had been unable to defend her territory from being made a common battleground in 1914: she had been engaged in guarding and perpetuating her traditional impotency. For whilst it may be accurate to declare--a fact which few Westerners have realized--that to the mass of the Chinese nation the various members of the European Family are undistinguishable from one another, there being little to choose in China between a Russian or a German, an Englishman or an Austrian, a Frenchman or a Greek, the trade-contact of a century had certainly taught to a great many that there was profit in certain directions and none in certain others. It was perfectly well-known, for instance, that England stood for a sea-empire; that the sea was an universal road; that British ships, both mercantile and military, were the most numerous; and that other things being equal it must primarily be Britain more than any other European country which would influence Chinese destinies. But the British Alliance with Japan had greatly weakened the trust which originally existed; and this added to the fact that Germany, although completely isolated and imprisoned by the sea, still maintained herself intact by reason of her marvellous war-machine, which had ploughed forward with such horrible results in a number of directions, had made inaction seem the best policy. And yet, although the Chinese may be pardoned for not forming clear concepts regarding the rights and wrongs of the present conflict, they had undoubtedly realized that it was absolutely essential for them not to remain outside the circle of international friendships when a direct opportunity was offered them to step within.
It was a sudden inkling of these things which now dawned on the public mind and slowly awakened enthusiasm. For the first time since Treaty relations with the Powers had been established Chinese diplomatic action had swept beyond the walls of Peking and embraced world-politics within its scope. The Confucianist conception of the State, as being simply a regional creation, a thing complete in itself and all sufficient because it was locked to the past and indifferent to the future, had hitherto been supreme, foreign affairs being the result of unwilling contact at sea-ports or in the wastes of High Asia where rival empires meet. To find Chinese--five years after the inauguration of their Republic--ready to accept literally and loyally in the western way all the duties and obligations which their rights of eminent domain confer was a great and fine discovery. It has been supposed by some that a powerful role was played in this business by the temptation to benefit materially by an astute move: that is that China was greatly influenced in her decision by the knowledge that the denouncing of the German treaties would instantly suspend the German Boxer indemnity and pour into the depleted Central Treasury a monthly surplus of nearly two million Mexican dollars. Paradoxical as it may sound in a country notoriously hard-pressed for cash, monetary considerations played no part whatever in convincing the Peking Government that the hour for action had arrived; nor again was there any question of real hostility to a nation which is so far removed from the East as to be meaningless to the masses. The deep, underlying, decisive influence was simply expediency--the most subtle of all political reasons and the hardest to define. But just as Britain declared war because the invasion of Belgium brought to a head all the vague grounds for opposition to German policy; and just as America broke off relations because the scrapping of undertaking after undertaking regarding the sea-war made it imperative for her to act, so did China choose the right moment to enunciate the doctrine of her independence by voicing her determination to hold to the whole corpus of international sanctions on which her independence finally rests. In the last analysis, then, the Chinese note of the 9th February to the German Government was a categorical and unmistakable reply to all the insidious attempts which had been made since the beginning of the war to place her outside and beyond the operation of the Public Law of Europe; and it is solely and entirely in that light that her future actions must be judged. The leaders who direct the destinies of China became fully prepared for a state of belligerency from the moment they decided to speak; but they could not but be supremely anxious concerning the expression of that belligerency, since their international position had for years been such that a single false move might cripple them.
Let us make this clear. Whilst China has been from the first fully prepared to co-operate with friendly Powers in the taking of war- measures which would ultimately improve her world-position, she has not been prepared to surrender the initiative in these matters into foreign hands. The argument that the mobilization of her resources could only be effectively dealt with by specially designated foreigners, for instance, has always been repellent to her because she knows from bitter experience that although Japan has played little or no part in the war, and indeed classifies herself as a semi-belligerent, the Tokio Government would not hesitate to use any opportunity which presented itself in China for selfish ends; and by insisting that as she is on the spot she is the most competent to insure the effectiveness of Chinese co- operation, attempt to tighten her hold on the country. It is a fact which is self-evident to observers on the spot that ever since the coup of the Twenty-one Demands, many Japanese believe that their country has succeeded in almost completely infeodating China and has became the sovereign arbitrator of all quarrels, as well as the pacificator of the Eastern World. Statements which were incautiously allowed to appear in the Japanese Press a few days prior to the Chinese Note of the 9th February disclose what Japan really thought on the subject of China identifying herself with the Allies. For instance, the following, which bears the hall-mark of official inspiration, reads very curiously in the light of after-events:
... "Dispatches from Peking say that England and France have already started a flanking movement to induce China to join the anti-German coalition. The intention of the Chinese Government has not yet been learned. But it is possible that China will agree, if conditions are favourable, thus gaining the right to voice her views at the coming peace conference. Should the Entente Powers give China a firm guarantee, it is feared here that China would not hesitate to act.
"The policy of the Japanese Government toward this question cannot yet be learned. It appears, however, that the Japanese Government is not opposed to applying the resolutions of the Paris Economic Conference, in so far as they concern purely economic questions, since Japan desires that German influence in the commerce and finance of the Orient should be altogether uprooted. But should the Entente Powers of Europe try to induce China to join them, Japan may object on the ground that it will create more disturbances in China and lead to a general disturbance of peace in the Orient."
Now there is not the slightest doubt in the writer's mind--and he can claim to speak as a student of twenty years' standing--that this definition of Japanese aims and objects is a very true one; and that the subsequent invitation to China to join the Allies which came from Tokio after a meeting between the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Allied Ambassadors was simply made when a new orientation of policy had been forced by stress of circumstances. Japan has certainly always wished German influence in the Far East to be uprooted if she can take the place of Germany; but if she cannot take that place absolutely and entirely she would vastly prefer the influence to remain, since it is in the nature of counterweight to that of other European Powers and of America--foreign influence in China, as Mr. Hioki blandly told the late President Yuan Shih-kai in his famous interview of the 18th January, 1915, being a source of constant irritation to the Japanese people, and the greatest stumbling-block to a permanent understanding in the Far East.
Chinese suspicion of any invitation coming by way of Tokyo has been, therefore, in every way justified, if it is a reasonable and legitimate thing for a nation of four hundred millions of people to be acutely concerned about their independence; for events have already proved up to the hilt that so far from the expulsion of Germany from Shantung having resulted in the handing-back of interests which were forcibly acquired from China in 1898, that expulsion has merely resulted in Japan succeeding to such interests and thereby obliterating all trace of her original promise to the world in 1914 that she would restore to China what was originally taken from her. Here it is necessary to remark that not only did Japan in her negotiations over the Twenty-one Demands force China to hand over the twelve million pounds of German improvements in Shantung province, but that Baron Hayashi, the present Japanese Minister to China, "has recently declared that Japan would demand from China a vast settlement or concession at Tsingtao, thus making even the alleged handing-back of the leased territory--which Japan is pledged to force from Germany at the Peace Conference--wholly illusory, the formula of a Settlement being adopted because twelve years' experience of Port Arthur has shown that territorial "leases," with their military garrisons and administrative offices, are expensive and antiquated things, and that it is easier to push infiltration by means of a multitude of Settlements in which police-boxes and policemen form an important element, than to cut off slices of territory under a nomenclature which is a clamant advertisement of disruptive aims.
Now although these matters appear to be taking us far from the particular theme we are discussing, it is not really so. Like a dark thunder-cloud on the horizon the menace of Japanese action has rendered frank Chinese co-operation, even in such a simple matter as war-measures against Germany, a thing of supreme difficulty. The mere rumour that China might dispatch an Expeditionary Force to Mesopotamia was sufficient to send the host of unofficial Japanese agents in Peking scurrying in every direction and insisting that if the Chinese did anything at all they should limit themselves to sending troops to Russia where they would be "lost"--a suggestion made because that was what Japan herself offered to do when she declined in 1915 the Allies' proposal to dispatch troops to Europe. Nor must the fact be lost sight of that as in other countries so in China, foreign affairs provide an excellent opportunity for influencing the march of internal events. Thus, as we have clearly shown, the Military Party, although originally averse to any action at all, saw that a strong foreign policy would greatly enhance its reputation and allow it to influence the important elections for the Parliament of 1918 which, sitting as a National Convention, will elect the next President. Thus, in the extraordinary way which happens throughout the world, the whole of February was consumed in the rival political parties manoeuvring for position, the Vice- President, General Feng Kuo-chang, himself coming hastily to Peking from Nanking to take part in this elaborate game in which many were now participating merely for what they could get out of it.
On the 4th March matters were brought to a climax by an open breach between President Li Yuan-hung and the Premier, General Tuan Chi-jui, at a Cabinet meeting regarding the procedure to be observed in breaking off diplomatic relations with Germany. Although nearly a month had elapsed, no reply had been received from Berlin; and of the many plans of action proposed nothing had been formally decided. Owing to the pressure Japan was exerting from Tokio to get China to come to a definite arrangement, popular anxiety was growing. Over the question of certain telegrams to be communicated to the Japanese Government, of which he had been kept in ignorance, President Li Yuan-hung took a firm stand; with the result that the Premier, deeply offended, abruptly left the Council Chamber, handed in his resignation and left the capital--a course of action which threatened to provoke a national crisis.
Fortunately in President Li Yuan-hung China had a cool and dispassionate statesman. At the first grave crisis in his administration he wished at all costs to secure that the assent of Parliament should be given to all steps taken, and that nothing so speculative as a policy which had not been publicly debated should be put into force. He held to this point doggedly; and after some negotiations, the Premier was induced to return to the capital and resume office, on the understanding that nothing final was to be done until a popular endorsement had been secured.
On the 10th March the question was sent to Parliament for decision. After a stormy debate of several hours in the Lower House the policy of the Government was upheld by 330 votes to 87: on the following day the Senate endorsed this decision by 158 votes to 37. By a coincidence which was too extraordinary not to have been artificially contrived, the long-awaited Germany reply arrived on the morning of this 10th March, copies of the document being circulated wholesale by German agents among the Members of Parliament in a last effort to influence their decision. The actual text of the German reply was as follows, and it will be seen how transparently worded it is:
To the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China:
YOUR EXCELLENCY: By the instructions of my home Government--which reached me on the 10th inst.--I beg to forward you the following reply to China's protest to the latest blockade policy of Germany:--
"The Imperial German Government expresses its great surprise at the action threatened by the Government of the Republic of China in its Note of protest. Many other countries have also protested, but China, which has been in friendly relations with Germany, is the only State which has added a threat to its protest. The surprise is doubly great, because of the fact that, as China has no shipping interests in the seas of the barred zones, she will not suffer thereby.
"The Government of the Republic of China mentions that loss of life of Chinese citizens has occurred as the results of the present method of war. The Imperial German Government wishes to point out that the Government of the Republic of China has never communicated with the Imperial Government regarding a single case of this kind nor has it protested in this connexion before. According to reports received by the Imperial Government, such losses as have been actually sustained by Chinese subjects have occurred in the firing line while they were engaged in digging trenches and in other war services. While thus engaged, they were exposed to the dangers inevitable to all forces engaged in war. The fact that Germany has on several occasions protested against the employment of Chinese citizens for warlike purpose is evident that the Imperial Government has given excellent proof of its friendly feelings toward China. In consideration of these friendly relations the Imperial Government is willing to treat the matter as if the threat had never been uttered. It is reasonable for the Imperial Government to expect that the Government of the Republic of China will revise its views respecting the question.
"Germany's enemies were the first to declare a blockade on Germany and the same is being persistently carried out. It is therefore difficult for Germany to cancel her blockade policy. The Imperial Government is nevertheless willing to comply with the wishes of the Government of the Republic of China by opening negotiations to arrive at a plan for the protection of Chinese life and property, with the view that the end may be achieved and thereby the utmost regard be given to the shipping rights of China. The reason which has prompted the Imperial Government to adopt this conciliatory policy is the knowledge that, once diplomatic relations are severed with Germany, China will not only lose a truly good friend but will also be entangled in unthinkable difficulties."
In forwarding to Your Excellency the above instructions from my home Government, I beg also to state that--if the Government of China be willing--I am empowered to open negotiations for the protection of the shipping rights of China.
I have the honour to be. ... March 10, 1917.
With a Parliamentary endorsement behind them there remained nothing for the Peking Government but to take the vital step of severing diplomatic relations. Certain details remained to be settled but these were expeditiously handled. Consequently, without any further discussion, at noon on the 14th March the German Minister was handed his passports, with the following covering dispatch from the Chinese Foreign Office. It is worthy of record that in the interval between the Chinese Note of the 9th February and the German reply of the 10th March the French mail- steamer Athos had been torpedoed in the Mediterranean and five hundred Chinese labourers proceeding to France on board her drowned.
Your Excellency:--
With reference to the new submarine policy of Germany, the Government of the Republic of China, dictated by the desire to further the cause of world's peace and to maintain the sanctity of International Law, addressed a protest to Your Excellency on February 9th and declared that in case, contrary to its expectations its protest be ineffectual, it would be constrained to sever the diplomatic relations at present existing between the two countries.
During the lapse of a month no heed has been paid to the protest of the Government of the Republic in the activities of the German Submarines, activities which have caused the loss of many Chinese lives. On March 10, a reply was received from Your Excellency. Although it states that the Imperial German Government is willing to open negotiations to arrive at a plan for the protection of Chinese life and property, yet it declares that it is difficult for Germany to cancel her blockade policy. It is therefore not in accord with the object of the protest and the Government of the Chinese Republic, to its deep regret, considers its protest to be ineffectual. The Government of the Republic is constrained to sever the diplomatic relations at present existing with the Imperial German Government. I have the honour to send herewith to Your Excellency, the passport for Your Excellency, the members of the German Legation and their families and retinue for protection while leaving Chinese territory. With regard to the Consular Officers of Germany in China, this Ministry has instructed the different Commissioners of Foreign Affairs to issue to them similarly passports for leaving the country.
I avail myself of this opportunity to renew to Your Excellency the assurance of my highest consideration.
March 14th, 1917.
It was not until eleven days later--on the 25th March--that the German Minister and his suite reluctantly left Peking for Germany via America. Meanwhile the Chinese Government remained undecided regarding the taking of the final step as a number of important matters had still to be settled. Not only had arrangements to be made with the Allies but there was the question of adjusting Chinese policy with American action. A special commission on Diplomatic affairs daily debated the procedure to be observed, but owing to the conflict of opinion in the provinces further action was greatly delayed. As it is necessary to show the nature of this conflict we give two typical opinions submitted to the Government on the question of a formal declaration of war against Germany . The first Memorandum was written for the Diplomatic Commission by the scholar Liang Ch'i-chao and is singularly lucid:--
THE NECESSITY FOR WAR
"Those who question the necessity for war can only quote the attitude of America as example. The position of China is, however, different from that of America in two points. First, actual warfare will follow immediately after America's declaration of war, so it is necessary for her to make the necessary preparations before taking the step. For this purpose, America has voted several hundred million dollars for an increase of her naval appropriations. America therefore cannot declare war until she has completed every preparation. With China it is different. Even after the declaration of war, there will be no actual warfare. It is therefore unnecessary for us to wait.
"Secondly, America has no such things as foreign settlements, consular jurisdiction or other un-equal treaties with Germany. Under the existing conditions America has no difficulties in safeguarding herself against the Germans residing in America after the severance of diplomatic relations even though war has not yet been actually declared, and as to future welfare, America will have nothing to suffer even though her old treaties with Germany should continue to be operative. It is impossible for China to take the necessary steps to safeguard the country against the Germans residing in China unless the old treaties be cancelled. For unless war is declared it is impossible to cancel the consular jurisdiction of the Germans, and so long as German consular jurisdiction remains in China we will meet with difficulties everywhere whenever we wish to deal with the Germans. If our future is to be considered, unless war is declared, the old treaties will again come into force upon the resumption of diplomatic relations, in which case we shall be held responsible for all the steps which we have taken in contravention of treaties during the rupture. It will be advantageous to China if the old treaties be cancelled by a declaration of war and new treaties be negotiated after the conclusion of peace.
"In short by severing diplomatic relations with Germany China has already incurred the ill-feelings of that country. We shall not be able to lessen the hostile feelings of the Germans even if we refrain from declaring war on them. It is therefore our obligation to choose the course that will be advantageous to us. This is not reluctantly yielding to the request of the Entente Allies. It is the course we must take in our present situation.
THE REASON FOR DECLARING WAR
"The presumptuous manner in which Germany has replied to our demand is an open affront to our national integrity. Recently Germany has deliberately shown hostility to our advice by reiterating her determination to carry out the ruthless submarine policy with increased vigour. All these are reasons for diplomatic rupture as well as for declaration of war. Furthermore, the peace of the Far East was broken by the occupation of Kiachow by Germany. This event marked the first step of the German disregard for international law. In the interests of humanity and for the sake of what China has passed through, she should rise and punish such a country, that dared to disregard international law. Such a reason for war is certainly beyond criticism.
THE TIME TO DECLARE WAR
"War should be declared as soon as possible. The reason for the diplomatic rupture is sufficient reason for declaring war. This has already been explained. It would be impossible for us to find an excuse for declaring war if war be declared now. According to usual procedure war is declared when the forces of the two countries come into actual conflict. Now such a possibility does not exist between China and Germany. Since it is futile to expect Germany to declare war on us first, we should ask ourselves if war is necessary. If not, then let us go on as we are, otherwise we must not hesitate any more.
"Some say that China should not declare war on Germany until we have come to a definite understanding with the Entente Allies respecting certain terms. This is indeed a wrong conception of things. We declare war because we want to fight for humanity, international law and against a national enemy. It is not because we are partial towards the Entente or against Germany or Austria. International relations are not commercial connexions. Why then should we talk about exchange of privileges and rights? As to the revision of Customs tariff, it has been our aspiration for more than ten years and a foremost diplomatic question, for which we have been looking for a suitable opportunity to negotiate with the foreign Powers. It is our view that the opportunity has come because foreign Powers are now on very friendly terms with China. It is distinctly a separate thing from the declaration of war. Let no one try to confuse the two.
THE QUESTION OF AUSTRIA
"If China decides to declare war on Germany the same attitude should be taken towards Austria. We have severed diplomatic relations with Germany but retain the status quo with Austria. This is fraught with danger. German intrigue is to be dreaded. What they have done in America and Mexico is enough to shock us. The danger can easily be imagined when we remember that they have in China the Austrian Legation, Austrian Consulates and Austrian concessions as their bases of operation for intrigue and plotting. Some say we should follow America, which has not yet severed diplomatic relations with Austria. This is a great mistake. America can afford to ignore Austria because there are no Austrian concessions and Austrian consular jurisdiction in America.
"The question is then what steps should be taken to sever diplomatic relations with and declare war on Austria. The solution is that since Austria has also communicated to our Minister regarding her submarine policy we can serve her with an ultimatum demanding that the submarine policy be cancelled within twenty- four hours. If Austria refuses, China may sever diplomatic relations and declare war at the same time immediately upon the expiry of the twenty-four hour limit.
"In conclusion I wish to say that whenever a policy is adopted we should carry out the complete scheme. If we should hesitate in the middle and become afraid to go ahead we will soon find ourselves in an embarrassing position. The Government and Parliament should therefore stir up courage and boldly make the decision and take the step.
Unanswerable as seem these arguments to the Western mind, they were by no means so to the mass of Chinese who are always fearful lest some sudden reshuffling in the relationships existing between foreign Powers exposes them to new and greater calamities. This Chinese viewpoint, with its ignorance of basic considerations, is well-illustrated by the Second Memorandum, which follows. Written by the famous reformer of 1898 Kang Yu-wei, it demonstrates how greatly the revolutionists of 1911 are in advance of a school which was the vogue less than twenty years ago and which is completely out of touch with the thought which the war has made world-wide. Nevertheless the line of argument which characterizes this utterance is still a political factor in China and must be understood.
MEMORANDUM
... "The breach between the United States and Germany is no concern of ours. But the Government suddenly severed diplomatic relations with Germany and is now contemplating entry into the war. This is to advance beyond the action of the United States which continues to observe neutrality. And if we analyse the public opinion of the country, we find that all peoples--high and low, well-informed and ignorant--betray great alarm when informed of the rupture and the proposal to declare war on Germany, fearing that such a development may cause grave peril to the country. This war-policy is being urged by a handful of politicians, including a few members of Parliament and several party men with the view of creating a diplomatic situation to serve their political ends and to reap great profits.
"Their arguments are that China--by siding with the Entente--may obtain large loans, the revision of the Customs Tariff and the suspension of the Boxer indemnity to Germany, as well as the recovery of the German concessions, mining and railroad rights and the seizure of German commerce. Pray, how large is Germany's share of the Boxer indemnity? Seeing that German commerce is protected by international law, will China be able to seize it; and does she not know that the Kaiser may in the future exact restitution?
PERILS OF WAR
"News from Holland tells of a rumoured secret understanding between Germany, Japan and Russia. The Japanese Government is pursuing a policy of friendship toward Germany. This is very disquieting news to us. As to foreign loans and the revision of the Customs Tariff, we can raise these matters at any time. Why then should we traffic for these things at the risk of grave dangers to the nation? My view is that what we are to obtain from the transaction is far less than what we are to give. If it be argued that the policy aims at securing for China her right to live as an unfettered nation, then we ought to ask for the cancellation of the entire Boxer Indemnities, the abolition of exterritoriality, the retrocession of the foreign concessions and the repeal or amendment of all unjust treaties after the war. But none of these have we demanded. If we ourselves cannot improve our internal administration in order to become a strong country, it is absurd to expect our admission to the ranks of the first-class Powers simply by being allowed a seat at the Peace Conference and by taking a side with the Entente!
"Which side will win the war? I shall not attempt to predict here. But it is undoubted that all the arms of Europe--and the industrial and financial strength of the United States and Japan-- have proved unavailing against Germany. On the other hand France has lost her Northern provinces and Belgium, Serbia and Rumania are blotted off the map. Should Germany be victorious, the whole of Europe--not to speak of a weak country like China--would be in great peril of extinction. Should she be defeated, Germany still can--after the conclusion of peace--send a fleet to war against us. And as the Powers will be afraid of a second world-war, who will come to our aid? Have we not seen the example of Korea? There is no such thing as an army of righteousness which will come to the assistance of weak nations. I cannot bear to think of hearing the angry voice of German guns along our coasts!
"If we allow the Entente to recruit labour in our country without restriction, thousands upon thousands of our fellow countrymen will die for no worthy cause; and if we allow free exportation of foodstuff, in a short time the price of daily necessaries will mount ten to a hundredfold. This is calculated to cause internal troubles. Yea, all gains from this policy will go to the politicians but the people will suffer the evil consequences through no fault of theirs.
DIPLOMACY OF CONFUCIUS
"In the matter of diplomacy, we do not need to go to the West for the apt learning on the point at issue. Confucius had said: 'Be truthful and cultivate friendship--this is the foundation of human happiness.' Our country being weak and undeveloped, if we strive to be truthful and cultivate friendship, we can still be a civilized nation, albeit hoary with age. But we are now advised to take advantage of the difficulties of Germany and abandon honesty in order that we may profit thereby. Discarding treaties is to be unfaithful, grasping for gains is not the way of a gentleman, taking advantage of another's difficulties is to be mean and joining the larger in numbers is cowardice. How can we be a nation, if we throw away all these fundamental qualities.
"Even in the press of England and the United States, there is opposition to America entering the war. If we observe neutrality, we are not bound to any side; and when the time comes for peace-- as a friend to both sides--we may be able to bring about the ends of the war. Is this not a service to humanity and the true spirit of civilization?
"Now it is proposed to take the existence of this great nation of five thousand years and four hundred million people in order to serve the interests of politicians in their party struggles. We are now to be bound to foreign nations, without freedom to act for ourselves and running great risks of national destruction. Can you gentlemen bear to see this come to pass? China has severed relations with Germany but the decision for war has not yet been reached. The whole country is telegraphing opposition to the Government's policy and wants to know whether Germany will not in the future take revenge on account of our rupture with her; and if we are not secured against this eventuality, what are the preparations to meet with a contingency? The Government must not stake the fate of the nation as if it be a child's toy, and the people must not be cast into the whirlpool of slaughter. The people are the backbone of a country, and if the people are all opposed to war on Germany, the Government--in spite of the support of Parliament--must call a great citizens' convention to decide the question. We must persist in our neutrality. You gentlemen are patriotic sons of this country and must know that the existence of China as a nation depends upon what she does now in this matter. In tears, I appeal to you. KANG YU-WEI."
March and April were consumed in this fruitless discussion in which everybody participated. The Premier, General Tuan Chi-jui, in view of the alleged provincial opposition, now summoned to Peking a Conference of Provincial Military Governors to endorse his policy, but this action although crowned with success so far as the army chiefs were concerned--the conference voting solidly for war--was responsible for greatly alarming Parliament which saw in this procedure a new attempt to undermine its power and control the country by extra-legal means. Furthermore, publication in the Metropolitan press of what the Japanese were doing behind the scenes created a fear that extraordinary intrigues were being indulged in with the object of securing by means of secret diplomacy certain guarantees of a personal nature. Apart from being associated with the semi-official negotiations of the Entente Powers in Peking, Japan was carrying on a second set of negotiations partly by means of a confidential agent named Kameio Nishihara dispatched from Tokio specially for that purpose by Count Terauchi, the Japanese Premier, a procedure which led to the circulation of highly sensational stories regarding China's future commitments. When the Premier, General Tuan Chi-jui, had made his statement to Parliament on the 10th March, regarding the necessity of an immediate rupture with Germany, he had implied that China had already received assurances from the Allies that there would be a postponement of the Boxer Indemnities for a term of years, an immediate increase in the Customs Tariff, and a modification of the Peace Protocol of 1901 regarding the presence of Chinese troops near Tientsin. Suddenly all these points were declared to be in doubt. Round the question of the length of time the Indemnities might be postponed, and the actual amount of the increase in the Customs Tariff, there appeared to be an inexplicable muddle largely owing to the intervention of so many agents and to the fact that the exchange of views had been almost entirely verbal, unofficial, and secret. It would be wearisome to analyse a dispute which belongs to the peculiar atmosphere of Peking diplomacy; but the vast difficulties of making even a simple decision in China were glaringly illustrated by this matter. With a large section of the Metropolitan press daily insisting that the future of democracy in China would be again imperilled should the Military Party have its own way, small wonder if the question of a formal declaration of war on Germany now assumed an entirely different complexion.
On the 1st May, in spite of all these trials and tribulations, being pressed by the Premier to do so, the Cabinet unanimously decided that a declaration of war was imperative; and on the 7th May, after an agreement with the President had been reached, Parliament received the following dispatch--this method of communication being the usual one between the executive and legislative branches of the Government:
The President has the honour to communicate to the House of Representatives the following proposal. Since the severance of diplomatic relations with Germany, Germany has continued to violate the rights of the neutral nations and to damage and cause losses in life and property to our people as well as to trample on international law and disregard principles of humanity. For the purpose of hastening peace, upholding international law and protecting the life and property of our people, the President is of the view that it is necessary to declare war on the German Government. In accordance with Article 35 of the Provisional Constitution, he now asks for the approval of the House, and demands--in accordance with Article 21 of the Provisional Constitution--that the meeting in the House be held in secret.
On 8th May, after hearing a statement made in person by the Premier, the House of Representatives in secret session referred the question for examination to the House sitting as a Committee in order to gain time to make up its mind. On the same day the Senate sat on the same question. A very heated and bitter discussion followed in the upper House, not because of any real disagreement regarding the matter at issue, but because a large section of Senators were extremely anxious regarding the internal consequences. This is well-explained by the following written interpellation which was addressed to the government by a large number of parliamentarians:
We, the undersigned, hereby address this interpellation to the Government. As a declaration of war on Germany has become an object of the foreign policy of the Government, the latter has held informal meetings to ascertain the views of parliament on the question; and efforts are being made by the Government to secure the unanimous support of both Houses for its war policy. In pursuing this course, the Government appears to believe that its call for support will be readily complied with by the Houses. But in our view there are quite a number of members in both Houses who fail thoroughly to understand the war decision of the Government. The reason for this is that, according to recent reports, both foreign and vernacular, the Government has entered into secret treaties with a "neighbouring country." It is also reported that secret agents on both sides are active and are travelling between the two countries. The matter seems to be very grave; and it has already attracted the attention of Parliament, which in the near future will discuss the war-issue.
Being in doubt as to the truth of such a report, we hereby request the Government for the necessary information in the matter. We also beg to suggest that, if there is any secret diplomatic agreement, we consider it expedient for the Government to submit the matter to Parliament for the latter's consideration. This will enable the members in Parliament to study the question with care and have a clear understanding of the matter. When this is done, Parliament will be able to support the Government in the prosecution of its war policy according to the dictates of conscience. In this event both Parliament and Government will be able to co-operate with each other in the solution of the present diplomatic problem. Troubled not a little with the present diplomatic situation of the country, we hereby address this interpellation to the Government in accordance with law. It is hoped that an answer from the Government will be dispatched to us within three days from date.
On the 10th May Parliament met in secret session and it was plain that a crisis had come. Members of the House of Representatives experienced great difficulties in forcing their way through a mob of several thousand roughs who surrounded the approaches to Parliament, many members being hustled if not struck. The mob was so plainly in control of a secret organization that the House of Representatives refused to sit. Urgent messages were sent to the Police and Gendarmerie headquarters for reinforcements of armed men as a protection, whilst the presence of the Premier was also demanded. Masses of police were soon on the ground, but whilst they prevented the mob from entering Parliament and carrying out their threat of burning the buildings, and murdering the members, they could not--or would not--disperse the crowds, it transpiring subsequently that half-a-battalion of infantry in plain clothes under their officers formed the backbone of the demonstrators.
It was not until nearly dark, after six or seven hours of these disorderly scenes, that the Premier finally arrived. Cavalry had meanwhile also been massed on the main street; but it was only when the report spread that a Japanese reporter had been killed that the order was finally given to charge the mob and disperse it by force. This was very rapidly done, as apart from the soldiers in plain clothes the mass of people belonged to the lowest class, and had no stomach for a fight, having only been paid to shout. It was nearly midnight, after twelve hours of isolation and a foodless day, that the Representatives were able to disperse without having debated the war-question. The upshot was that with the exception of the Minister of Education, the Premier found that his entire Cabinet had resigned, the Ministers being unwilling to be associated with what had been an attempted coercion of Parliament carried out by the Military.
The Premier, General Tuan Chi-jui, however, remained determined to carry his point, and within a week a second dispatch was sent to the House of Representatives demanding, in spite of what had happened, that the declaration of war be immediately brought up for debate. Meanwhile publication in a leading Peking newspaper of further details covering Japan's subterranean activities greatly inflamed the public, and made the Liberal political elements more determined than ever to stand firm. It was alleged that Count Terauchi was reviving in a more subtle form Group V of the Twenty- one Demands of 1915, the latest Japanese proposal taking the form of a secret Treaty of twenty articles of which the main stipulations were to be a loan of twenty million yen to China to reorganize the three main Chinese arsenals under Japanese guidance, and a further loan of eighty million yen to be expended on the Japanization of the Chinese army. As a result of this publication, which rightly or wrongly was declared to be without foundation, the editor of The Peking Gazette was seized in the middle of the night and thrown into goal; but Parliament so far from being intimidated passed the very next day a resolution refusing to consider in any form the declaration of war against Germany until the Cabinet had been reorganized--which meant the resignation of General Tuan Chi-jui. A last effort was made by the reactionary element to jockey the President into submission by presenting to the Chief Executive a petition from the Military Governors assembled in Peking demanding the immediate dissolution of Parliament. On this proposal being absolutely rejected by the President as wholly unconstitutional, and the Military Governors soundly rated for their interference, an ominous calm followed.
Parliament, however, remained unmoved and continued its work. Although the draft of the Permanent Constitution had been practically completed, important additions to the text were now proposed, such additions being designed to increase parliamentary control and provide every possible precaution against arbitrary acts in the future. Thus the new provision that a simple vote of want of confidence in the Cabinet must be followed by the President either dismissing the Cabinet or dissolving the House of Representatives--but that the dissolution of the Lower House could not be ordered without the approval of the Senate--was generally recognized as necessary to destroy the last vestiges of the Yuan Shih-kai regime. Furthermore a new article, conferring on the President the right to dismiss the Premier summarily by Presidential Mandate without the counter-signature of the other Cabinet Ministers, completed the disarray of the conservatives who saw in this provision the dashing of their last hopes.
By the 21st May, the last remaining Cabinet Minister--the Minister of Education--had resigned and the Premier was left completely isolated. On the 23rd May the President, relying on the general support of the nation, summarily dismissed General Tuan Chi-jui from the Premiership and appointed the veteran diplomat Dr. Wu Ting-fang to act during the interim period in his stead, at the same time placing the metropolitan districts under four trustworthy Generals who were vested with provost-marshals' powers under a system which gave them command of all the so-called "precautionary troops" holding the approaches to the capital. The Military Governors, who a few hours before these events had left Peking precipitately in a body on the proclaimed mission of allying themselves with the redoubtable General Chang Hsun at Hsuchowfu, and threatening the safety of the Republic were, however, coolly received in the provinces in spite of all their most bitter attempts to stir up trouble. This, however, as will be shown, had no influence on their subsequent conduct. The quiet disappearance of the ex-Premier in the midst of this upheaval caused the report to spread that all the members of the corrupt camarilla which had surrounded him were to be arrested, but the President soon publicly disclaimed any intention of doing so,-- which appears to have been a fatal mistake. It is disheartening to have to state that nearly all the Allied Legations in Peking had been in intimate relations with this gang--always excepting the American Legation whose attitude is uniformly correct--the French Minister going so far as to entertain the Military Governors and declare, according to reports in the native press, that Parliament was of no importance at all, the only important thing being for China promptly to declare war. That some sort of public investigation into Peking diplomacy is necessary before there can be any hope of decent relations between China and the Powers seems indisputable.
Before the end of May the militarists being now desperate, attempted the old game of inciting the provincial capitals "to declare their independence," although the mass of the nation was plainly against them. Some measure of success attended this move, since the soldiery of the northern provinces obediently followed their leaders and there was a sudden wild demand for a march on Peking. A large amount of rolling-stock on the main railways was seized with this object, the confusion being made worse confounded by the fierce denunciations which now came from the southernmost provinces, coupled with their threats to attack the Northern troops all along the line as soon as they could mobilize.
The month of June opened with the situation more threatening than it had been for years. Emissaries of the recalcitrant Military Governors, together with all sorts of "politicals" and disgruntled generals, gathered in Tientsin--which is 80 miles from Peking--and openly established a Military Headquarters which they declared would be converted into a Provisional Government which would seek the recognition of the Powers. Troops were moved and concentrated against Peking; fresh demands were made that the President should dissolve Parliament; whilst the Metropolitan press was suddenly filled with seditious articles. The President, seeing that the situation was becoming cataclysmic, was induced, through what influences is not known, to issue a mandate summoning General Chang Hsun to Peking to act as a mediator, which was another fatal move. He arrived in Tientsin with many troops on the 7th June where he halted and was speedily brought under subversive influences, sending at once up to Peking a sort of ultimatum which was simply the old demand for the dissolution of Parliament.
Meanwhile on the 5th June, the United States, which had been alarmed by these occurrences, had handed China the following Note hoping thereby to steady the situation:
The Government of the United States learns with the most profound regret of the dissension in China and desires to express the most sincere desire that tranquillity and political co-ordination may be forthwith re-established.
The entry of China into war with Germany--or the continuance of the status quo of her relations with that Government--are matters of secondary consideration.
The principal necessity for China is to resume and continue her political entity, to proceed along the road of national development on which she has made such marked progress.
With the form of Government in China or the personnel which administers that Government, the United States has an interest only in so far as its friendship impels it to be of service to China. But in the maintenance by China of one Central United and alone responsible Government, the United States is deeply interested, and now expresses the very sincere hope that China, in her own interest and in that of the world, will immediately set aside her factional political disputes, and that all parties and persons will work for the re-establishment of a co-ordinate Government and the assumption of that place among the Powers of the World to which China is so justly entitled, but the full attainment of which is impossible in the midst of internal discord.
The situation had, however, developed so far and so rapidly that this expression of opinion had little weight. The Vice-President of the Republic, General Feng Kuo-chang, unwilling or unable to do anything, had already tendered his resignation from Nanking, declaring that he would maintain the "neutrality" of the important area of the lower Yangtsze during this extraordinary struggle; and his action, strange as it may seem, typified the vast misgivings which filled every one's mind regarding the mad course of action which the rebellious camarilla had decided upon.
Until Saturday the 9th June, the President had seemed adamant. On that day he personally saw foreign press correspondents and assured them that, in spite of every threat, he would in no conceivable circumstances attempt the unconstitutional step of dissolving Parliament,--unconstitutional because the Nanking Provisional Constitution under which the country was still governed pending the formal passage of the Permanent Constitution through Parliament, only provided for the creation of Parliament as a grand constitutional Drafting Committee but gave no power to the Chief Executive to dissolve it during its "life" which was three years. As we have already shown, the period between the coup d'etat of 4th November, 1913, and the re-convocation of Parliament on 1st August, 1916, had been treated as a mere interregnum: therefore until 1918, if the law were properly construed, no power in the land could interrupt the Parliamentary sessions except Parliament itself. Parliament, in view of these threatening developments, had already expressed its willingness to re- consider certain provisions of the draft constitution in such a conciliatory manner as to insure the passage of the whole instrument through both houses within two weeks to alter the Election Law in such fashion as to conciliate the more conservative elements in the country to prorogue the second session immediately these things were done and after a very short recess to open the third session and close it within three months allowing new elections to be held in the early months of 1918,--the new Parliament to be summoned in April, 1918, to form itself into a National Convention and elect the President for the quinquennial period 1918-1923.
All these reasonable plans were knocked on the head on Sunday, the 10th June, by the sudden report that the President having been peremptorily told that the dissolution of Parliament was the sole means of saving the Republic and preventing the sack of Peking, as well as an open armed attempt to restore the boy-emperor Hsuan Tung, had at last made up his mind to surrender to the inevitable. He had sealed a Mandate decreeing the dissolution of Parliament which would be promulgated as soon as it had received the counter- signature of the acting Premier, Dr. Wu Ting-fang, such counter- signature being obligatory under Article 45 of the Provisional Constitution.
At once it became clear again, as happens a thousand times during every year in the East, that what is not nipped in the bud grows with such malignant swiftness as finally to blight all honest intentions. Had steps been taken on or about the 23rd May to detain forcibly in Peking the ringleader of the recalcitrant Military Governors, one General Ni Shih-chung of Anhui, history would have been very different and China spared much national and international humiliation. Six years of stormy happenings had certainly bred in the nation a desire for constitutionalism and a detestation of military domination. But this desire and detestation required firm leadership. Without that leadership it was inchoate and powerless, and indeed made furtive by the constant fear of savage reprisals. A great opportunity had come and a great opportunity had been lost. President Li Yuan-hung's personal argument, communicated to the writer, was that in sealing the Mandate dissolving Parliament he had chosen the lesser of two evils, for although South China and the Chinese Navy declared they would defend Parliament to the last, they were far away whilst large armies were echeloned along the railways leading into Peking and daily threatening action. The events of the next year or so must prove conclusively, in spite of what has happened in this month of June, 1917, that the corrupt power of the sword can no longer even nominally rule China.
Meanwhile the veteran Dr. Wu Ting-fang, true to his faith, declared that no power on earth would cause him to sign a Mandate possessing no legality behind it; and he indeed obstinately resisted every attempt to seduce him. Although his resignation was refused he stood his ground manfully, and it became clear that some other expedient would have to be resorted to. In the small hours of the 13th June what this was was made clear: by a rapid reshuffling of the cards Dr. Wu Ting-fang's resignation was accepted and the general officer commanding the Peking Gendarmerie, a genial soul named General Chiang Chao-tsung, who had survived unscathed the vicissitudes of six years of revolution, was appointed to act in his stead and duly counter- signed the fateful Mandate which was at once printed and promulgated at four o'clock in the morning. It has been stated to the writer that had it not been so issued four battalions of Chang Hsun's savage pigtailed soldiery, who had been bivouacked for some days in the grounds of the Temple of Heaven, would have been let loose on the capital. The actual text of the Mandate proves conclusively that the President had no hand in its drafting--one argument being sufficient to prove that, namely the deliberate ignoring of the fact that Parliament had been called into being by virture of article 53 of the Nanking Provisional Constitution and that under article 54 its specific duty was to act as a grand constitutional conference to draft and adopt the Permanent Constitution, article 55 furthermore giving Parliament the right summarily to amend the Provisional Constitution before the Promulgation of the permanent instrument, should that be necessary. Provisions of this sort would naturally carry no weight with generals of the type of Chang Hsun, of whom it is said that until recent years he possessed only the most elementary education; but it is a dismal thing to have to record that the Conservative Party in China should have adopted a platform of brute force in the year of grace, 1917.
MANDATE DISSOLVING PARLIAMENT
In the 6th month of last year I promulgated a Mandate stating that in order to make a Constitution it was imperative that Parliament should be convened. The Republic was inaugurated five years ago and yet there was no Constitution, which should be the fundamental law of a nation, therefore it was ordered that Parliament be re- convened to make the Constitution, etc., at once.
Therefore the main object for the re-convocation of Parliament was to make a formal constitution for the country. Recently a petition was received from Meng En-yuen, Tu-chun of Kirin, and others, to the effect that "in the articles passed by the Constitution Conference there were several points as follows: 'when the House of Representatives passes a vote of want of confidence against the Cabinet Ministers, the President may dismiss the Cabinet Ministers, or dissolve the said House, but the dissolution of the House shall have the approval of the Senate.' Again, 'When the President dismisses his Prime Minister, it is unnecessary for him to secure the counter-signature of the Cabinet Ministers.' Again 'when a bill is passed by the Two Houses it shall have the force of the law.' We were surprised to read the above provisions.
"According to the precedents of other nations the Constitution has never been made by Parliament. If we should desire a good and workable Constitution, we should seek a fundamental solution. Indeed Parliament is more important than any other organ in the country; but when the national welfare is imperilled, we must take action. As the present Parliament does not care about the national welfare, it is requested that in view of the critical condition of the country, drastic measures be taken and both the House of Representatives and the Senate be dissolved so that they may be reorganized and the Constitution may be made without any further delay. Thus the form of the Republican Government be preserved, etc."
Of late petitions and telegrams have been received from the military and civil officials, merchants, scholars, etc., containing similar demands. The Senate and the House of Representatives have held the Constitution Conference for about one year, and the Constitution has not yet been completed. Moreover at this critical time most of the M.P's. of both Houses have tendered their resignation. Hence it is impossible to secure quorums to discuss business. There is therefore no chance to revise the articles already passed. Unless means be devised to hasten the making of the Constitution, the heart of the people will never be satisfied.
I, the President, who desire to comply with the will of the populace and to consolidate the foundation of the nation, grant the request of the Tuchuns and the people. It is hereby ordered that the Senate and the House of Representatives be dissolved, and that another election be held immediately. Thus a Constitutional Government can be maintained. It must be pointed out that the object for the reorganization of Parliament is to hasten the making of the Constitution, and not to abolish the Legislative Organ of the Republic. I hope all the citizens of the Republic will understand my motives.
A great agitation and much public uneasiness followed the publication of this document; and the parliamentarians, who had already been leaving Peking in small numbers, now evacuated the capital en masse for the South. The reasonable and wholly logical attitude of the Constitutionalists is well-exhibited in the last Memorandum they submitted to the President some days prior to his decision to issue the Mandate above-quoted; and a perusal of this document will show what may be expected in the future. It will be noted that the revolting Military Governors are boldly termed rebels and that the constitutional view of everything they may contrive as from the 13th June, 1917, is that it will be bereft of all legality and simply mark a fresh interregnum. Furthermore, it is important to note that the situation is brought back by the Mandate of the 13th June to where it was on the 6th June, 1916, with the death of Yuan Shih-kai, and that a period of civil commotion seems inevitable.
MEMORANDUM
To the President: Our previous memorandum to Your Excellency must have received your attention. We now beg further to inform you that the rebels are now practically in an embarrassing predicament on account of internal differences, the warning of the friendly Powers, and the protest of the Southwestern provinces. Their position is becoming daily more and more untenable. If Your Excellency strongly holds out for another ten days or so, their movement will collapse.
Some one, however, has the impudence to suggest that with the entry of Chang Hsun's troops into the Capital, and delay in the settlement of the question will mean woe and disaster. But to us, there need be no such fear. As the troops in the Capital have no mind to oppose the rebels, Tsao Kun and his troops alone will be adequate for their purposes in the Capital. But now the rebels troops have been halting in the neighbourhood of the Capital for the last ten days. This shows that they dare not open hostilities against the Government, which step will certainly bring about foreign intervention and incur the strong opposition of the Southwestern provinces. Having refused to participate in the rebellion at the invitation of Ni Shih-chung and Chang Tso-lin, Chang Hsun will certainly not do what Tsao Kun has not dared to do. But the rebels have secret agents in the Capital to circulate rumours to frighten the public and we hope that the President will remain calm and unperturbed, lest it will give an opportunity for the rebel agents to practise their evil tricks.
Respecting Parliament, its re-assembly was one of the two most important conditions by means of which the political differences between the North and the South last year were healed. The dissolution of Parliament would mean the violation of the terms of settlement entered into between the North and the South last year and an open challenge to the South. Would the South remain silent respecting this outrageous measure? If the South rises in arms against this measure, what explanation can the Central Government give? It will only serve to hasten the split between the North and the South. From a legal point of view, the Power of Government is vested in the Provisional Constitution. When the Government exercises power which is not provided for by the Constitution, it simply means high treason.
Some one has suggested that it would not be an illegal act for the Government to dissolve Parliament, since it is not provided in the Provisional Constitution as to how Parliament should be dissolved, nor does that instrument specifically prohibit the Government from dissolving Parliament. But this is a misinterpretation. For instance, the Provisional Constitution has not provided that the President shall not proclaim himself Emperor, nor does it prohibit him from so doing. According to such interpretation, it would not be illegal, if the President were to proclaim himself Emperor of the country.
In short, the action taken by Ni Shih-chung and others is nothing short of open rebellion. From the legal point of view, any suggestion of compromise would be absurd. It has already been a fatal mistake for the President to have allowed them to do what they like, and if he again yields to their pressure by dissolving Parliament, he will be held responsible, when the righteous troops rise and punish the rebels. If the President, deceived by ignoble persons, take upon himself to dissolve the assembly, his name will go down in history as one committing high treason against the Government, and the author of the break between the North and the South. The President has been known as the man by whose hands the Republic was built. We have special regard for his benevolent character and kind disposition. We are reluctant to see him intimidated and misled by evil counsels to take a step which will undo all his meritorious services to the country and shatter the unique reputation he has enjoyed.
The unrolling of these dramatic events was the signal for the greatest subterranean activity on the part of the Japanese, who were now everywhere seen rubbing their hands and congratulating themselves on the course history was taking. General Tanaka, Vice- Chief of the Japanese General Staff, who had been on an extensive tour of inspection in China, SO PLANNED AS TO INCLUDE EVERY ARSENAL NORTH OF THE YANGTSZE had arrived at the psychological moment in Peking and was now deeply engaged through Japanese field-officers in the employ of the Chinese Government, in pulling every string and in trying to commit the leaders of this unedifying plot in such a way as to make them puppets of Japan. The Japanese press, seizing on the American Note of the 5th June as an excuse, had been belabouring the United States for some days for its "interference" in Chinese affairs, and also for having ignored Japan's "special position" in China, which according to these publicists demanded that no Power take any action in the Far East, or give any advice, without first consulting Japan. That a stern correction will have to be offered to this presumption as soon as the development of the war permits it is certain. But not only Japanese military officers and journalists were endlessly busy: so-called Japanese advisers to the Chinese Government had done their utmost to assist the confusion. Thus Dr. Ariga, the Constitutional expert, when called in at the last moment for advice by President Li Yuan-hung had flatly contradicted Dr. Morrison, who with an Englishman's love of justice and constitutionalism had insisted that there was only one thing for the President to do--to be bound by legality to the last no matter what it might cost him. Dr. Ariga had falsely stated that the issue was a question of expediency, thus deliberately assisting the forces of disruption. This is perhaps only what was to be expected of a man who had advised Yuan Shih-kai to make himself Emperor--knowing full well that he could never succeed and that indeed the whole enterprise from the point of view of Japan was an elaborate trap.
The provincial response to the action taken on the 13th June became what every one had expected: the Southwestern group of provinces, with their military headquarters at Canton, began openly concerting measures to resist not the authority of the President, who was recognized as a just man surrounded by evil- minded persons who never hesitated to betray him, but to destroy the usurping generals and the corrupt camarilla behind them; whilst the Yangtsze provinces, with their headquarters at Nanking, which had hitherto been pledged to "neutrality," began secretly exchanging views with the genuinely Republican South. The group of Tientsin generals and "politicals," confused by these developments, remained inactive; and this was no doubt responsible for the mad coup attempted by the semi-illiterate General Chang Hsun. In the small hours of July 1st General Chang Hsun, relying on the disorganization in the capital which we have dealt with in our preceding account, entered the Imperial City with his troops by prearrangement with the Imperial Family and at 4 o'clock on the morning of the 1st July the Manchu boy-emperor Hsuan Tung, who lost the Throne on the 12th February, 1912, was enthroned before a small assembly of Manchu nobles, courtiers and sycophantic Chinese. The capital woke up to find military patrols everywhere and to hear incredulously that the old order had returned. The police, obeying instructions, promptly visited all shops and dwelling-houses and ordered every one to fly the Dragon Flag. In the afternoon of the same day the following Restoration Edict was issued, its statements being a tissue of falsehoods, the alleged memorial from President Li Yuan Hung, which follows the principal document, being a bare-faced forgery, whilst no single name inserted in the text save that of Chang Hsun had any right to be there. There is also every reason to believe that the Manchu court party was itself coerced, terror being felt from the beginning regarding the consequences of this mad act which was largely possible because Peking is a Manchu city.
IMPERIAL EDICT
Issued the 13th day of the 5th Moon of the 9th year of Hsuan Tung.
While yet in our boyhood the inheritance of the great domain was unfortunately placed in our possession; and since we were then all alone, we were unable to weather the numerous difficulties. Upon the outbreak of the uprising in the year of Hsin Hai, Our Empress, Hsiao Ting Chin, owing to her Most High Virtue and Most Deep Benevolence was unwilling to allow the people to suffer, and courageously placed in the hands of the late Imperial Councillor, Yuan Shih-kai, the great dominion which our forefathers had built up, and with it the lives of the millions of Our People, with orders to establish a provisional government.
The power of State was thus voluntarily given to the whole country with the hope that disputes might disappear, disturbances might stop and the people enabled to live in peace. But ever since the form of State was changed into a Republic, continuous strife has prevailed and several wars have taken place. Forcible seizure, excessive taxation and bribery have been of everyday occurrence. Although the annual revenue has increased to 400 millions this amount is still insufficient to meet the needs. The total amount of foreign obligations has reached a figure of more than ten thousand millions yet more loans are being contracted. The people within the seas are shocked by this state of affairs and interest in life has forsaken them. The step reluctantly taken by Our Empress Hsiao Ting Chin for the purpose of giving respite to the people has resulted untowardly in increasing the burdens of Our People. This indeed Our Empress Hsiao Ting Chin was unable to foresee, and the result must have made her Spirit in Heaven to weep sorely. And it is owing to this that we have been praying to Heaven day and night in the close confines of the palace, meditating and weeping in silent suffering.
Recently party strife has resulted in war and the country has remained too long in an unsettled condition. The Republic has fallen to pieces and means of remedy have been exhausted.
Chang Hsun, Feng Kuo-chang and Lu Yung-ting have jointly memorialized the Throne stating that the minds of people are disturbed and they are longing to see the old regime restored, and asking that the throne be reoccupied in order to comfort the people.
Chu Hung-chi and others have also memorialized us stating that the country is in imminent danger and that the people have lost their faith in the Republic, and asking that we ascend the Throne in obedience to the mandate of Heaven and man.
Li Yuan Hung has also memorialized the throne, returning the great power of State to us in order to benefit the country and save the people.
A persual of the said memorials, which are worded in earnest terms, has filled our heart with regret and fear. On the one hand We, being yet in Our boyhood, are afraid to assume the great responsibilities for the existence of the country but on the other hand We are unwilling to turn our head away from the welfare of the millions simply because the step might affect Our own safety.
After weighing the two sides and considering the mandates of Heaven and man, we have decided reluctantly to comply with the prayers, and have again occupied the Court to attend to the affairs of State after resuming possession of the great power on the 13th day of the 5th moon of the 9th year of Hsuan Tung.
A new beginning will be made with our people. Hereafter the principles of morality and the sacred religion shall be our constitution in spirit, and order, righteousness, honesty and conscience will be practised to rebind the minds of the people who are now without bonds. People high and low will be uniformly treated with sincerity, and will not depend on obedience of law alone as the means of co-operation. Administration and orders will be based on conscientious realization and no one will be allowed to treat the form of State as material for experiment. At this time of exhaustion when its vitality is being wasted to the last drop and the existence of the country is hanging in the balance, we, as if treading on thin ice over deep waters, dare not in the slightest degree indulge in license on the principle that the Sovereign is entitled to enjoyment. It is our wish therefore that all officials, be they high or low, should purify their hearts and cleanse themselves of all forms of old corruption, constantly keeping in mind the real interests of the people. Every bit of vitality of the people they shall be able to preserve shall go to strengthen the life of the country for whatever it is worth. Only by doing so can the danger be averted and Heaven moved by our sincerity.
THE NINE ARTICLES
Herewith we promulgate the following principal things, which we must either introduce as reforms or abolish as undesirable in restoration.
1. We shall obey the edict of Emperor Teh Tsung Chin , namely, that the sovereign power shall be controlled by the Court but the detailed administration shall be subject to public opinion. The country shall be called The Empire of Ta Ching; and the methods of other constitutional monarchies shall be carefully copied.
2. The allowance for the Imperial House shall be the same as before, namely, $4,000,000 per year. The sum shall be paid annually and not a single cent is to be added.
3. We shall strictly obey the instructions of our forefathers to the extent that no member of the imperial family shall be allowed to interfere with administrative affairs.
4. The line of demarcation between Man and Han shall be positively obliterated. All Manchurian and Mongolian posts which have already been abolished shall not be restored. As to intermarrige and change of customs the officials concerned are hereby commanded to submit their views on the points concerning them respectively.
5. All treaties and loan agreements, money for which has already been paid, formally concluded and signed with any eastern and western countries before this 13th day of the 5th Moon of the 9th year of Hsuan Tung, shall continue to be valid.
6. The stamp duty which was introduced by the Republic is hereby abolished so that the people may be relieved of their burdens. As to other petty taxes and contributions the Viceroys and Governors of the provinces are hereby commanded to make investigations and report on the same for their abolition.
7. The criminal code of the Republic is unsuited to this country. It is hereby abolished. For the time being the provisional criminal code as adopted in the first year of Hsuan Tung shall be observed.
8. The evil custom of political parties is hereby forbidden. Old political offenders are all pardoned. We shall, however, not be able to pardon those who deliberately hold themselves aloof and disturb peace and order.
9. All of our people and officials shall be left to decide for themselves the custom of wearing or cutting their queues as commanded in the 9th moon of the 3rd year of Hsuan Tung.
We swear that we and our people shall abide by these articles. The Great Heaven and Earth bear witness to our words. Let this be made known to all.
Counter-signed by Chang Hsun, Member of the Imperial Privy Council.
ALLEGED MEMORIAL BY PRESIDENT LI YUAN HUNG
In a memorial submitted this day, offering to return the sovereign power of State and praying that we again ascend the throne to control the great empire, Li Yuan Hung states that some time ago he was forced by mutinous troops to steal the great throne and falsely remained at the head of the administration but failed to do good to the difficult situation. He enumerates the various evils in the establishment of a Republic and prays that we ascend the throne to again control the Empire with a view that the people may thereby be saved. As to himself he awaits punishment by the properly instituted authorities, etc. As his words are so mournful and full of remorse they must have been uttered from a sincere heart. Since it was not his free choice to follow the rebellion, the fact that he has returned the great power of administration to us shows that he knows the great principle of righteousness. At this time of national danger and uncertainty, he has taken the lead of the people in obeying their sovereign, and decided before others the plan to save the country from ruin. The merit is indeed great, and we are highly pleased with his achievement. Li Yuan- hung is hereby to have conferred on him the dignity of Duke of the first class so as to show our great appreciation. Let him accept our Edict and forever receive our blessings.
Counter-signed by Chang Hsun, Member of the Privy Council.
PRIVY COUNCIL
At this time of restoration a Privy Council is hereby established in order that we may be assisted in our duties and that responsibility may be made definite. Two Under-secretaries of the Council are also created. Other officials serving outside of the capital shall remain as under the system in force during the first year of Hsuan Tung. All civil and military officials who are now serving at their various posts are hereby commanded to continue in office as hitherto.
Counter-signed by Chang Hsun.

The general stupefaction at the madness of this act and the military occupation of all posts and telegraph-offices in Peking allowed 48 hours to go by before the reaction came. On the 2nd July Edicts still continued to appear attempting to galvanize to life the corpse of Imperialism and the puzzled populace flew the Dragon Flag. On the morning of the 3rd, however, the news suddenly spread that President Li Yuan-hung, who had virtually been made a prisoner in the Presidential Palace, had escaped at nine o'clock the night before by motorcar accompanied by two aides-de-camp, and after attempting to be received at the French Hospital in the Legation Quarter, had proceeded to the Japanese Legation where he was offered a suitable residence. On the evening of the 3rd the Japanese Legation issued the following official communique defining its attitude:
TRANSLATION
President Li, accompanied by two members of his staff, came at 9.30 on the evening of July 2 to the residence of General Saito, Military Attache of the Japanese Legation, and asked protection from him. He arrived in a spontaneous manner and without previous notice.
Under these circumstances, the Imperial Japanese Legation, following international usage, has decided to accord him the necessary protection and has placed at his disposal a part of the military barracks.
The Legation further declares that as long as President Li remains there, it will not permit any political action on his part.
Following this sensational development it became known that President Li Yuan Hung had completely frustrated the efforts of the Imperialists by sending away a number of important telegraphic Mandates by courier to Tientsin as well as the Presidential Seal. By a masterly move in one of these Mandates General Tuan Chi-jui was reappointed Premier, whilst Vice-President Feng Kuo-chang was asked to officiate as President, the arrangements being so complete as at once to catch Chang Hsun in his own net.
Here is the text of these four historically important messages:
Dated July 1. Today Inspector General Chang Hsun entered the city with his troops and actually restored the monarchy. He stopped traffic and sent Liang Ting-fen and others to my place to persuade me. Yuan-hung refused in firm language and swore that he would not recognize such a step. It is his hope that the Vice- President and others will take effective means to protect the Republic. LI YUAN HUNG.
Dated July 1. As Heaven does not scorn calamity so has the monarchy been restored. It is said that in an edict issued by the Ching House it is stated that Yuan-hung had actually memorialized to return the power of State to the said House. This is an extraordinary announcement. China changed from autocracy to a Republic by the unanimous wish of the five races of the country. Since Yuan-hung was entrusted by the people with the great responsibilities it is his natural duty to maintain the Republic to the very end. Nothing more or less than this will he care to say. He is sending this in order to avoid misunderstanding. LI YUAN HUNG.
The President to the Vice-President.
To the Vice-President Feng at Nanking--It is to be presumed that the two telegrams sent on the 1st have safely reached you. I state with deepest regret and greatest sorrow that as the result of my lack of ability to handle the situation the political crisis has eventually affected the form of government. For this Yuan-hung realizes that he owes the country apology. The situation in Peking is daily becoming more precarious. Since Yuan-hung is now unable to exercise his power the continuity of the Republic may be suddenly interrupted. You are also entrusted by the citizens with great responsibilities; I ask you to temporarily exercise the power and functions of the President in your own office in accordance with the provisions of Article 42 of the Provisional Constitution and Article 5 of the Presidential Election Law. As the means of communication is effectively blocked it is feared that the sending of my seal will meet with difficulty and obstruction. Tuan Chih-chuan has been appointed Premier, and is also ordered to temporarily protect the seal, and later to devise a means to forward it on to you. Hereafter every thing pertaining to the important question of saving the country shall be energetically pushed by you and Chih-chuan with utmost vigour. The situation is pressing and your duty is clear. In great anxiety and expectation I am sending you this telegram. LI YUAN HUNG.
Dated July 3. To Vice-President Feng, Tu Chuns and Governors of the Provinces, Provincial Assemblies, Inspector General Lu:--I presume that the two telegrams dated 1st and one dated 3rd inst. have safely reached your place. With bitter remorse to myself I now make the statement that the political crisis has resulted in affecting the form of government. Tuan Chih-chuan has been appointed on the 1st inst. as Premier; and the Vice-President has been asked to exercise the power and functions of the President in accordance of office by the Vice-President. Premier Tuan is authorized to act at his discretion. All the seal and documents have been sent to Tientsin, and Premier Tuan has been told to keep and guard the same for the time being. He has also been asked to forward the same to the Vice-President. The body guards of the President's Office have suddenly been replaced and I have been pressed to give up the Three Lakes. Yuan-hung has therefore removed to a sanctuary. As regards the means to save the country I trust that you will consult and work unitedly with Vice-President Feng and Premier Tuan. In great expectation, and with much of my heart not poured out. LI YUAN HUNG.
Meanwhile, whilst these dramatic events were occurring in Peking, others no less sensational were taking place in the provinces. The Tientsin group, suddenly realizing that the country was in danger, took action very swiftly, disclosing that in spite of all disputes Republicanism had become very dear to every thinking man in the country, and that at last it was possible to think of an united China. The Scholar Liang Chi Chao, spokesman of Chinese Liberalism, in an extraordinarily able message circularized the provinces in terms summarizing everything of importance. Beginning with the fine literary flight that "heaven has refused to sympathize with our difficulties by allowing traitors to be born" he ends with the astounding phrase that although he had proposed to remain silent to the end of his days, "at the sight of the fallen nest he has, however, spat the stopper out of his throat," and he calls upon all China to listen to his words which are simply that the Republic must be upheld or dissolution will come.
Arms now united with Literature. General Tuan Chi-jui, immediately accepting the burden placed on him, proceeded to the main entrenched camp outside Tientsin and assumed command of the troops massed there, issuing at the same time the following manifesto:
TUAN CHI-JUI'S MANIFESTO
To Vice-President Feng Kuo-chang, Inspector General of Wumin, Tu Chuns, Governors, Tu-tungs. ...
Heaven is chastening this country by the series of disturbances that have taken place. Chang Hsun, filled with sinister designs, has occupied the capital by bringing up his troops under the pretext of effecting a compromise with the astounding result that last night the Republican form of government was overthrown. The question of the form of Government is the very fundamental principle on which the national existence depends. It requires assiduous efforts to settle the form of government and once a decision has been reached on the subject, any attempt to change the same is bound to bring on unspeakable disasters to the country. Today the people of China are much more enlightened and democratic in spirit than ever before. It is, therefore, absolutely impossible to subjugate the millions by holding out to the country the majesty of any one family.
When the Republic of China was being founded, the Ching House, being well aware of the general inclinations of modern peoples, sincerely and modestly abdicated its power. Believing that such spirit deserved handsome recognition the people were willing to place the Ching House under the protection of special treatment and actually recorded the covenant on paper, whereby contentment and honour were vouchsafed the Ching House. Of the end of more than 20 dynasties of Chinese history, none can compare with the Ching dynasty for peace and safety.
Purely for sake of satisfying his ambitions of self-elevation Chang Hsun and others have audaciously committed a crime of inconceivable magnitude and are guilty of high treason. Like Wang Mang and Tung Tso he seeks to sway the whole nation by utilizing a young and helpless emperor. Moreover he has given the country to understand that Li Yuan-hung has memorialized the Ching House that many evils have resulted from republicanism and that the ex- emperor should be restored to save the masses. That Chang Hsun has been guilty of usurpation and forging documents is plain and the scandal is one that shocks all the world.
Can it be imagined that Chang Hsun is actuated by a patriotic motive? Surely despotism is no longer tolerated in this stage of modern civilization. Such a scheme can only provoke universal opposition. Five years have already passed since the friendly Powers accorded their recognition of the Chinese Republic and if we think we could afford to amuse ourselves with changes in the national fabric, we could not expect foreign powers to put up with such childishness. Internal strife is bound to invite foreign intervention and the end of the country will then be near.
Can it be possible that Chang Hsun has acted in the interest of the Ching House? The young boy-emperor lives in peace and contentment and has not the slightest idea of ever ruling China again. It is known that his tutors have been warning him of the dangers of intriguing for power. That the boy-emperor has been dragged on the throne entirely against his own wishes is undeniable. History tells us that no dynasty can live for ever. It is an unprecedented privilege for the Ching dynasty to be able to end with the gift of special treatment. How absurd to again place the Tsing house on the top of a high wall so that it may fall once more and disappear for ever.
Chi-jui, after his dismissal, resolved not to participate in political affairs, but as he has had a share, however insignificant, in the formation of the Chinese Republic, and having served the Republic for so long he cannot bear to see its destruction without stretching out a helping hand. Further, he has been a recipient of favours from the defunct dynasty, and he can not bear to watch unmoved, the sight of the Ching House being made the channel of brigandage with suicidal results. Wherever duty calls, Chi-jui will go in spite of the danger of death. You, gentlemen, are the pillars of the Republic of China and therefore have your own duties to perform. In face of this extraordinary crisis, our indignation must be one. For the interest of the country we should abide by our oath of unstinted loyalty; and for the sake of the Tsing House let us show our sympathy by sane and wise deeds. I feel sure you will put forth every ounce of your energy and combine your efforts to combat the great disaster. Though I am a feeble old soldier, I will follow you on the back of my steed. TUAN CHI-JUI.
Following the publication of this manifesto a general movement of troops began. On the 5th July the important Peking-Tientsin railway was reported interrupted forty miles from the capital--at Langfang which is the station where Admiral Seymour's relief expedition in 1900 was nearly surrounded and exterminated. Chang Hsun, made desperate by the swift answer to his coup, had moved out of Peking in force stiffening his own troops with numbers of Manchu soldiery, and announcing that he would fight it out to the bitter end, although this proved as false as the rest had been. The first collision occurred on the evening of the 5th July and was disastrous for the King-maker. The whole Northern army, with the exception of a Manchu Division in Peking, was so rapidly concentrated on the two main railways leading to the capital that Chang Hsun's army, hopelessly outnumbered and outmanoeuvred, fell back after a brief resistance. Chang Hsun himself was plainly stupefied by the discovery that imperialism of the classic type was as much out of date in the North as in the South; and within one week of his coup he was prepared to surrender if his life and reputation were spared. By the 9th July the position was this: the Republican forces had surrounded Peking: Chang Hsun had resigned every appointment save the command of his own troops: the Manchu Court party had drafted a fresh Edict of Renunciation, but being terrorized by the pigtailed troops surrounding the Palace did not dare to issue it.
The usual bargaining now commenced with the Legation Quarter acting as a species of middleman. No one was anxious to see warfare carried into the streets of Peking, as not only might this lead to the massacres of innocent people, but to foreign complications as well. The novelty had already been seen of a miniature air-raid on the Imperial city, and the panic that exploding bombs had carried into the hearts of the Manchu Imperial Family made them ready not only to capitulate but to run away. The chief point at issue was, however, not the fate of the monarchy, which was a dead thing, but simply what was going to happen to Chang Hsun's head--a matter which was profoundly distressing Chang Hsun. The Republican army had placed a price of 10,000 pounds on it, and the firebrands were advocating that the man must be captured, dead or alive, and suffer decapitation in front of the Great Dynastic Gate of the Palace as a revenge for his perfidy. Round this issue a subtle battle raged which was not brought to a head until the evening of the 11th July, when all attempts at forcing Chang Hsun to surrender unconditionally having failed, it was announced that a general attack would be made on his forces at daylight the next morning.
Promptly at dawn on the 12th July a gun-signal heralded the assault. Large Republican contingents entered the city through various Gates, and a storm of firing aroused terror among the populace. The main body of Chang Hsun's men, entrenched in the great walled enclosure of the Temple of Heaven, were soon surrounded, and although it would have been possible for them to hold out for several days, after a few hours' firing a parley began and they quietly surrendered. Similarly in the Imperial city, where Chang Hsun had taken up his residence, this leader, in spite of his fire-eating declarations, soon fled to the Legation Quarter and besought an asylum. His men held out until two in the afternoon, when their resistance collapsed and the cease-fire sounded. The number of casualties on both sides was infinitesimal, and thus after eleven days' farce the Manchu dynasty found itself worse off than ever before. It is necessary, however, not to lose sight of the main problem in China, which is the establishment of a united government and a cessation of internecine warfare,-- issues which have been somewhat simplified by Chang Hsun's escapade, but not solved. That a united government will ultimately be established is the writer's belief, based on a knowledge of all the facts. But to attain that further provincial struggles are inevitable, since China is too large a unit to find common ground without much suffering and bitterness. President Li Yuan Hung having declared that nothing would induce him to resume office, Vice-President Feng Kuo-chang has become the legal successor and has quietly assumed office. Chang Hsun's abortive coup has already cleared the air in North China to this extent: that the Manchu Imperial Family is to be removed from Peking and the Imperial allowance greatly reduced, whilst the proscription of such out- and-out imperialists as Kang Yu-wei has destroyed the last vestiges of public support. Finally the completion of China's foreign policy, i. e. the declaration of war against Germany and Austria, has at last been made on the 14th August, 1917, and a consistent course of action mapped out.

The Republic In Collision With Reality: Two Typical Instances Of "foreign Aggression"

2008-08-25T23:14:00.001-07:00

Such, then, were the internal conditions which the new administration was called upon to face with the death of Yuan Shih-kai. With very little money in the National Treasury and with the provinces unable or unwilling to remit to the capital a single dollar, it was fortunate that at least one public service, erected under foreign pressure, should be brilliantly justifying its existence. The Salt Administration, efficiently reorganized in the space of three years by the great Indian authority, Sir Richard Dane, was now providing a monthly surplus of nearly five million dollars; and it was this revenue which kept China alive during a troubled transitional period when every one was declaring that she must die. By husbanding this hard cash and mixing it liberally with paper money, the Central Government has been able since June, 1916, to meet its current obligations and to keep the general machinery from breaking down.
But in a country such as China new dangers have to be constantly faced and smoothed away--the interests of the outer world pressing on the country and conflicting with the native interest at a myriad points. And in order to illustrate and make clear the sort of daily exacerbation which the nation must endure because of the vastness of its territory and the octopus-hold of the foreigner we give two typical cases of international trouble which have occurred since Yuan Shih-kai's death. The first is the well-known Chengchiatun incident which occurred in Manchuria in August, 1916: the second is the Laohsikai affair which took place in Tientsin in November of the same year and created a storm of rage against France throughout North China which, at the moment of writing has not yet abated.
The facts about the Chengchiatun incident are incredibly simple and merit being properly told. Chengchiatun is a small Mongol- Manchurian market-down lying some sixty miles west of the South Manchurian railway by the ordinary cart-roads, though as the crow flies the distance is much less. The country round about is "new country," the prefecture in which Chengchiatun lies being originally purely Mongol territory on which Chinese squatted in such numbers that it was necessary to erect the ordinary Chinese civil administration. Thirty or forty miles due west of the town cultivation practically ceases; and then nothing meets the eye but the rolling grasslands of Mongolia, with their sparse encampments of nomad horsemen and shepherds which stretch so monotonously into the infinities of High Asia.
The region is strategically important because the trade-routes converge there from the growing marts of the Taonanfu administration, which is the extreme westernly limit of Chinese authority in the Mongolian borderland. A rich exchange in hides, furs, skins, cattle and foodstuffs has given this frontier-town from year to year an increasing importance in the eyes of the Chinese who are fully aware of the dangers of a laissez aller policy and are determined to protect the rights they have acquired by pre-emption. The fact that notorious Mongol brigand-chiefs, such as the famous Babachapu who was allied to the Manchu Restoration Party and who was said to have been subsidized by the Japanese Military Party, had been making Chengchiatun one of their objectives, brought concern early in 1916 to the Moukden Governor, the energetic General Chang Tso-lin, who in order to cope with the danger promptly established a military cordon round the district, with a relatively large reserve based on Chengchiatun, drawn from the 28th Army Division. A certain amount of desultory fighting months before any one had heard of the town had given Chengchiatun the odour of the camp; and when in the summer the Japanese began military manoeuvres in the district with various scattered detachments, on the excuse that the South Manchuria railway zone where they alone had the right under the Portsmouth Peace Treaty to be, was too cramped for field exercises, it became apparent that dangerous developments might be expected--particularly as a body of Japanese infantry was billeted right in the centre of the town.
On the 13th August a Japanese civilian at Chengchiatun--there is a small Japanese trading community there--approached a Chinese boy who was selling fish. On the boy refusing to sell at the price offered him, the Japanese caught hold of him and started beating him. A Chinese soldier of the 28th Division who was passing intervened; and a scuffle commenced in which other Chinese soldiers joined and which resulted in the Japanese being severely handled. After the Chinese had left him, the man betook himself to the nearest Japanese post and reported that he had been grievously assaulted by Chinese soldiers for no reason whatsoever. A Japanese gensdarme made a preliminary investigation in company with the man; then returning to the Japanese barracks, declared that he could find no one in authority; that his attempts at discovering the culprits had been resisted; and that he must have help. The Japanese officer in command, who was a captain, detailed a lieutenant and twenty men to proceed to the Chinese barracks to obtain satisfaction from the Chinese Commander--using force if necessary. It was precisely in this way that the play was set in motion.
The detachment marched off to the headquarters of the offending Chinese detachment, which was billeted in a pawnshop, and tried to force their way past a sentry who stood his ground, into the inner courtyards. A long parley ensued with lowered bayonets; and at last on the Chinese soldier absolutely refusing to give way, the lieutenant gave orders to cut him down. There appears to be no doubt about these important facts--that is to say, that the act of war was the deliberate attack by a Japanese armed detachment on a Chinese sentry who was guarding the quarters of his Commander.
A frightful scene followed. It appears that scattered groups of Chinese soldiers, some with their arms, and some without, had collected during this crisis and point-blank firing at once commenced. The first shots appear to have been fired--though this was never proved--by a Chinese regimental groom, who was standing with some horses some distance away in the gateway of some stabling and who is said to have killed or wounded the largest number of Japanese. In any case seven Japanese soldiers were killed outright, five more mortally wounded and four severely so, the Chinese themselves losing four killed, besides a number of wounded. The remnant of the Japanese detachment after this rude reverse managed to retreat with their wounded officer to their own barracks where the whole detachment barricaded themselves in, firing for many hours at everything that moved on the roads though absolutely no attempt was made by the Chinese soldiery to advance against them.
The sound of this heavy firing, and the wild report that many Japanese had been killed, had meanwhile spread panic throughout the town, and there was a general sauve qui pent, a terrible retribution being feared. The local Magistrate finally restored some semblance of order; and after dark proceeded in person with some notables of the town to the Japanese barracks to tender his regrets and to arrange for the removal of the Japanese corpses which were lying just as they had fallen, and which Chinese custom demanded should be decently cared for, though they constituted important and irrefragible evidence of the armed invasion which had been practised. The Japanese Commander, instead of meeting these conciliatory attempts half-way, thereupon illegally arrested the Magistrate and locked him up, being impelled to this action by the general fear among his men that a mass attack would be made in the night by the Chinese troops in garrison and the whole command wiped out. Nothing, however, occurred and on the 14th instant the Magistrate was duly released on his sending for his son to take his place as hostage. On the 16th the Magistrate had successfully arranged the withdrawal of all Chinese troops five miles outside the town to prevent further clashes. On the 15th Japanese cavalry and infantry began to arrive in large numbers from the South Manchuria railway zone and the town of Chengchiatun was arbitrarily placed by them in a state of siege.
Here is the stuff of which the whole incident was made: there is nothing material beyond the facts stated which illustrate very glaringly the manner in which a strong Power acts towards a weak one.
Meanwhile the effect in Tokyo of these happenings had been electrical. Relying on the well-known Japanese police axiom, that the man who gets in his story first is the prosecutor and the accused the guilty party, irrespective of what the evidence may be, the newspapers all came out with the same account of a calculated attack by "ferocious Chinese soldiers" on a Japanese detachment and the general public were asked to believe that a number of their enlisted nationals had been deliberately and brutally murdered. It was not, however, until more than a week after the incident that an official report was published by the Tokyo Foreign Office, when the following garbled account was distributed far and wide as the Japanese case:--
"When one Kiyokishy Yoshimoto, aged 27, an employee of a Japanese apothecary at Chengchiatun, was passing the headquarters of the Chinese troops on the 13th instant, a Chinese soldier stopped him, and, with some remarks, which were unintelligible to the Japanese, suddenly struck him on the head. Yoshimoto became enraged, but was soon surrounded by a large number of Chinese soldiers and others, who subjected him to all kind of humiliation. As a result of this lawlessness on the part of the Chinese, the Japanese sustained injuries in seven or eight places, but somehow he managed to break away and reach a Japanese police box, where he applied for help. On receipt of this news, a policeman, named Kowase, hastened to the spot, but by the time he arrived there all the offenders had fled. He therefore repaired to the headquarters of the Chinese to lay a complaint, but the sentry stopped him, and presented a pistol at him, and under these circumstances he was obliged to apply to the Japanese Garrison headquarters, where Captain Inone instructed Lieutenant Matsuo with twenty men to escort the policeman to the Chinese headquarters. When the party approached the Chinese headquarters, Chinese troops began to fire, and the policemen and others were either killed or wounded. Despite the fact that the Japanese troops retired, the Chinese troops did not give up firing, but besieged the Japanese garrison, delivering several severe attacks. Soon after the fighting ceased, the Chinese authorities visited the Japanese barracks, and expressed the desire that the affair be settled amicably. It was the original intention of the Japanese troops to fight it out, but they were completely out-numbered, and lest the safety of the Japanese residents be endangered, they stopped fighting. On examination of the dead bodies of seven Japanese soldiers, who were attacked outside the barracks, it was discovered that they had been all slain by the Chinese troops, the bodies bearing marks of violence."
Without entering again into the merits of the case, we would ask those who are acquainted with recent history whether it is likely that Chinese soldiers, knowing all the pains and penalties attaching to such action, would deliberately attack a body of twenty armed Japanese under an officer as the Japanese official account states? We believe that no impartial tribunal, investigating the matter on the spot, could fail to point out the real aggressors and withal lay bare the web of a most amazing state of affairs. For in order to understand what occurred, on the 13th August, 1916, it is necessary to turn far away from Chengchiatun and see what lies behind it all.
At the back of the brain of the Japanese Military Party, which by no means represents the Japanese nation or the Japanese Government although it exercises a powerful influence on both, is the fixed idea that South Manchuria and Inner Mongolia must be turned into a strongly held and fortified Japanese ENCLAVE, if the balance of power in Eastern Asia is to be maintained. Pursuant to this idea, Japanese diplomacy was induced many months ago to concentrate its efforts on winning--if not wringing--from Russia the strategically important strip of railway south of the Sungari River, because with the Sungari as the undisputed dividing-line between the Russian and Japanese spheres in Manchuria, and with Japanese shallow-draft gun-boats navigating that waterway and entering the Nonni river, it would be easily possible for Japan to complete a "Continental quadrilateral" which would include Korea, South Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, the extreme western barrier of which would be the new system of Inner Mongolian railways centring round Taonanfu and terminating at Jehol, for which Japan already holds the building rights. policing rights --in the outer zone of this enclave,--with a total exclusion of all Chinese garrisons, is the preliminary goal towards which the Japanese Military Party has been long plainly marching; and long before anybody had heard of Chengchiatun, a scheme of reconnoitring detachments had been put in force to spy out the land and form working alliances with the Mongol bands in order to harass and drive away all the representatives of Chinese authority. What occurred, then, at Chengchiatun might have taken place at any one of half-a-dozen other places in this vast and little-known region whither Japanese detachments have silently gone; and if Chinese diplomacy in the month of August, 1916, was faced with a rude surprise, it was only what political students had long been expecting. For though Japan should be the real defender of Chinese liberties, it is a fact that in Chinese affairs Japanese diplomacy has been too long dictated to by the Military Party in Tokio and attempts nothing save when violence allows it to tear from China some fresh portion of her independence.
And here we reach the crux of the matter. One of the little known peculiarities of the day lies in the fact that Japan is the land of political inaction because there is no tradition of action save that which has been built up by the military and naval chiefs since the Chinese war of 1894-95. Having only visualized the world in international terms during two short decades, there has been no time for a proper tradition to be created by the civil government of Japan; and because there is no such tradition, the island empire of the East has no true foreign policy and is at the mercy of manufactured crises, being too often committed to petty adventures which really range her on the side of those in Europe the Allies have set themselves to destroy. It is for this reason that the Chinese are consistently treated as though they were hewers of wood and drawers of water, helots who are occasionally flattered in the columns of the daily press and yet are secretly looked upon as men who have been born merely to be cuffed and conquered. The Moukden Governor, General Chang Tso-ling, discussing the Chengchiatun affair with the writer, put the matter in a nutshell. Striking the table he exclaimed: "After all we are not made of wood like this, we too are flesh and blood and must defend our own people. A dozen times I have said, 'Let them come and take Manchuria openly if they dare, but let them cease their childish intrigues.' Why do they not do so? Because they are not sure they can swallow us--not at all sure. Do you understand? We are weak, we are stupid, we are divided, but we are innumerable, and in the end, if they persist, China will burst the Japanese stomach."
Such passionate periods are all very well, but when it comes to the sober business of the council chamber it is a regrettable fact that Chinese, although foreign friends implore them to do so, do not properly use the many weapons in their armoury. Thus in this particular case, instead of at once hurrying to Chengchiatun some of the many foreign advisers who sit kicking their heels in Peking from one end of the year to the other and who number competent jurisconsults, China did next to nothing. No proper report was drawn up on the spot; sworn statements were not gathered, nor were witnesses brought to Peking; and it therefore happened that when Japan filed her demands for redress, China had not in her possession anything save an utterly inadequate defence. Mainly because of this she was forced to agree to foregoing any direct discussion of the rights and wrongs of the case, proceeding directly to negotiations based on the various claims which Japan filed and which were as follows:--
1. Punishment of the General commanding the 28th Division.
2. The dismissal of officers at Chengchiatun responsible for the occurrence as well as the severe punishment of those who took direct part in the fracas.
3. Proclamations to be posted ordering all Chinese soldiers and civilians in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia to refrain from any act calculated to provoke a breach of the peace with Japanese soldiers or civilians.
4. China to agree to the stationing of Japanese police officers in places in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia where their presence was considered necessary for the protection of Japanese subjects. China also to agree to the engagement by the officials of South Manchuria of Japanese police advisers.
And in addition:--
1. Chinese troops stationed in South Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia to employ a certain number of Japanese Military officers as advisers.
2. Chinese Military Cadet schools to employ a certain number of Japanese Military officers as instructors.
3. The Military Governor of Moukden to proceed personally to Port Arthur to the Japanese Military Governor of Kwantung to apologize for the occurrence and to tender similar personal apologies to the Japanese Consul General in Moukden.
4. Adequate compensation to be paid by China to the Japanese sufferers and to the families of those killed.
The merest tyro will see at once that so far from caring very much about the killing of her soldiery, Japan was bent on utilizing the opportunity to gain a certain number of new rights and privileges in the zone of Southern Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia-- notably an extension of her police and military-supervision rights. In spite, however, of the faulty procedure to which she had consented, China showed considerable tenacity in the course of negotiations which lasted nearly half a year, and by the end of January, 1917, had whittled down the question of Japanese compensation to fairly meagre proportions. To be precise the two governments agreed to embody by the exchange of Notes the five following stipulations:
1. The General commanding the 28th Division to be reprimanded.
2. Officers responsible to be punished according to law. If the law provides for severe punishment, such punishment will be inflicted.
3. Proclamations to be issued enjoining Chinese soldiers and civilians in the districts where there is mixed residence to accord considerate treatment to Japanese soldiers and civilians.
4. The Military Governor of Moukden to send a representative to Port Arthur to convey his regret when the Military Governor of Kwantung and Japanese Consul General at Moukden are there together,
5. A solatium of $500 to be given to the Japanese merchant Yoshimoto.
But though the incident was thus nominally closed, and amicable relations restored, the most important point--the question of Japanese police-rights in Southern Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia--was left precisely where it had been before, the most vigorous Chinese protests not having induced Japan to abate in the slightest her pretensions. During previous years a number of Japanese police-stations and police-boxes had been established in defiance of the local authorities in these regions, and although China in these negotiations recorded her strongest possible objection to their presence as being the principal cause of the continual friction between Chinese and Japanese, Japan refused to withdraw from her contention that they did not constitute any extension of the principle of extraterritoriality, and that indeed Japanese police, distributed at such points as the Japanese consular authorities considered necessary, must be permanently accepted. Here then is a matter which will require careful consideration when the Powers meet to revise their Chinese Treaties as they must revise them after the world-war; for Japan in Manchuria is fundamentally in no different a position from England in the Yangtsze Valley and what applies to one must apply to the other. The new Chinese police which are being distributed in ever greater numbers throughout China form an admirable force and are superior to Japanese police in the performance of nearly all their duties. It is monstrous that Japan, as well as other Powers, should act in such a reprehensible manner when the Chinese administration is doing all it can to provide efficient guardians of the peace.
The second case was one in which French officialdom by a curious act of folly gravely alienated Chinese sympathies and gave a powerful weapon to the German propaganda in China at the end of 1916. The Lao-hsi-kai dispute, which involved a bare 333 acres of land in Tientsin, has now taken its place beside the Chengchiatun affair, and has become a leading case in that great dossier of griefs which many Chinese declare make up the corpus of Euro- Chinese relations. Here again the facts are absolutely simple and absolutely undisputed. In 1902 the French consular authorities in Tientsin filed a request to have their Concession extended on the ground that they were becoming cramped. The Chinese authorities, although not wishing to grant the request and indeed ignoring it for a long time, were finally induced to begin fitful negotiations; and in October, 1916, after having passed through various processes of alteration, reduction, and re-statement during the interval of fourteen years, the issue had been so fined down that a virtual agreement regarding the administration of the new area had been reached--an agreement which the Peking Government was prepared to put into force subject to one reasonable stipulation, that the local opposition to the new grant of territory which was very real, as Chinese feel passionately on the subject of the police-control of their land-acreage, was first overcome. The whole essence or soul of the disputes lay therein: that the lords of the soil, the people of China, and in this case more particularly the population of Tientsin, should accept the decision arrived at which was that a joint Franco-Chinese administration be established under a Chinese Chairman.
When the terms of this proposed agreement were communicated to the Tientsin Consulate by the French Legation the arrangement did not please the French Consul-General, who was under transfer to Shanghai and who proposed to settle the case to the satisfaction of his nationals before he left. There is absolutely no dispute about this fact either--namely that the main pre-occupation of a consular officer, charged primarily under the Treaties with the simple preservation of law and order among his nationals, was the closing-up of a vexatious outstanding case, by force if necessary, before he handed over his office to his successor. It was with this idea that an ultimatum was drawn up by the French Consul General and, having been weakly approved by the French Legation, was handed to the Chinese local authorities. It gave them a time- limit of twenty-four hours in which to effect the complete police evacuation of the coveted strip of territory on the ground that the delay in the signature of a formal Protocol had been wilful and deliberate and had closed the door to further negotiations; and as no response came at the end of the time-limit, an open invasion of Chinese territory was practised by an armed French detachment; nine uniformed Chinese constables on duty being forcibly removed and locked up in French barracks and French sentries posted on the disputed boundary.
The result of this misguided action was an enormous Chinese outcry and the beginning of a boycott of the French in North China,--and this in the middle of a war when France has acted with inspiring nobility. Some 2,000 native police, servants and employes promptly deserted the French Concession en masse; popular unions were formed to keep alive resentment; and although in the end the arrested police were set at liberty, the friendly intervention of the Allies proved unable to effect a settlement of the case which at the moment of writing remains precisely where it was a year ago.
Here you have the matter of foreign interests in China explained in the sense that they appear to Chinese. It is not too much to say that this illustration of the deliberate lawlessness, which has too often been practised in the past by consuls who are simply Justices of the Peace, would be incredible elsewhere; and yet it is this lawlessness which has come to be accepted as part and parcel of what is called "policy" in China because in the fifty years preceding the establishment of the Republic a weak and effeminate mandarinate consistently sought safety in surrenders. It is this lawlessness which must at all costs be suppressed if we are to have a happy future. The Chinese people have so far contented themselves by pacific retaliation and have not exploded into rage; but those who see in the gospel of boycott an ugly manifestation of what lies slumbering should give thanks nightly that they live in a land where reason is so supreme. Think of what might not happen in China if the people were not wholly reasonable! Throughout the length and breadth of the land you have small communities of foreigners, mere drops in a mighty ocean of four hundred millions, living absolutely secure although absolutely at the mercy of their huge swarms of neighbours. All such foreigners--or nearly all--have come to China for purposes of profit; they depend for their livelihood on co-operation with the Chinese; and once that co-operation ceases they might as well be dead and buried for all the good residence will do them. In such circumstances it would be reasonable to suppose that a certain decency would inspire their attitude, and that a policy of give- and-take would always be sedulously practised; and we are happy to say that there is more of this than there used to be. It is only when incidents such as the Chengchiatun and Laihsikai affairs occur that the placid population is stirred to action. Even then, instead of turning and rending the many little defenceless communities--as European mobs would certainly do--they simply confine themselves to boycotting the offenders and hoping that this evidence of their displeasure will finally induce the world to believe that they are determined to get reasonable treatment. The Chinese as a people may be very irritating in the slowness with which they do certain things--though they are as quick in business as the quickest Anglo-Saxon--but that is no excuse why men who call themselves superior should treat them with contempt. The Chinese are the first to acknowledge that it will take them a generation at least to modernize effectively their country and their government; but they believe that having erected a Republic and having declared themselves as disciples of the West they are justified in expecting the same treatment and consideration which are to be given after the war even to the smallest and weakest nations of Europe.