After Washington: The Future of the Pacific Problem
I
THE rapidly increasing volume of attention that has lately been directed by journalists and review writers to the Pacific problem (or, as it is alternately called, the Far Eastern question) indicates that public opinion is gradually coming to realize the importance and imminence of the Struggle between the great commercial powers for the actual and potential trade of China and its great hinterlands. The Washington Conference may be regarded as an official, world-wide recognition of the fact that, as the result of the European war, the nations which are now most directly and immediately involved in this struggle are the United States and Japan. It also implied recognition of the truth that certain antagonistic elements whose growth and direction have been manifest to close watchers of the political skies since the beginning of the century, have now come to confront each other so closely, that it was necessary for the leaders of a nation which preserves its ardent faith in pacts and conferences, to discuss ways and means of preventing the economic struggle from developing into ordeal by battle.
Before proceeding to discuss to what extent, and in what way, the results of the Conference may be said to have served to diminish the points of friction and to postpone, or modify, the inevitable struggle, I would ask the reader briefly to consider an important aspect of the problem, which Mr. Harding and his colleagues, following the example of all peace conferences, tacitly ignored.
As the result of a painful process of education in elementary economics, the modern world is being slowly, but surely, led to perceive that its collective intelligence has no chance of triumphing over its collective folly, to the extent of making war as ‘unthinkable’ as many earnest people proclaim it to be, so long as civilization continues to be subjected to severe and increasing economic pressure. It remains eternally true that ‘a hungry belly has no ears.’ Governments and statesmen may agree to limit armaments and to subscribe to rules of international arbitration, but they can never stay the hunger-marches of virile nations, whose numbers have outstripped their food-supply, and who look for new places in the sun. Furthermore, the truth is forcing itself upon the minds of statesmen and political economists, that the intensity of economic pressure — the fundamental cause of war — can never be checked, unless and until our collective intelligence, discarding false sentiment and religious prejudice, is prepared to admit that the root-cause of this pressure lies in the modern world’s unregulated and excessive population. In other words, as Mill truly says, ‘the triumphs of science over the powers of nature can never become the means of improving and elevating the universal lot, until, in addition to just institutions, the increase of mankind shall come under the deliberate guidance of judicious foresight.’
The Washington Conference testified once more to the world’s belief in just institutions; but again, as at Versailles, a gathering of representative statesmen, endeavoring to devise means for the prevention of war, completely failed to face the fundamental realities, or even tentatively to discuss the only means by which the collective intelligence of humanity can ever hope to remove the root-cause of ever-recurring strife. Many noble sentiments were recorded about ‘the torches of understanding having been lighted,’ and about ‘a public mind and worldopinion made ready to grant justice precisely as it exacts it’; much confidence was expressed in the foundations of world-disarmament, so well and truly laid by Mr. Secretary Hughes; and there was a good deal of talk about the hopeful dawn of new eras; but of the ‘deliberate guidance of judicious foresight,’ alas! there was neither word nor sign.
A very significant indication of the illuminating value of the new ‘torches of understanding,’ as well as of the persistence of the powers of darkness in high places, was manifested, even while the Conference was beginning its labors, when a public meeting, convened at New York by Mrs. Sanger, Mr. Harold Cox, and other leaders of the birth-control movement, to discuss the question of overpopulation as a chronic cause of war, was forcibly broken up by the police, at the instigation of a Roman Catholic prelate. And the representatives of a regenerate world, discussing at Washington the limitation of armaments, apparently saw nothing remarkable in the spectacle of the arm of the law at New York illegally preventing any discussion of the limitation of cannon-fodder!
The unwillingness, or inability, of responsible statesmen to admit, or even to discuss, the obvious facts and inevitable consequences of the law of population, is the more remarkable in this present case of the Washington Conference, insomuch as, on both shores of the Pacific, the evidences of economic pressure, due to rapidly increasing numbers, are matters of common knowledge, undeniable, and generally recognized. Every student of the Pacific problem can readily trace for himself the steady growth of the cloud of impending conflict, which loomed up forty years ago, no bigger than a man’s hand, when first the rulers of Japan entered actively upon their policy of expansion on the Asiatic mainland, by challenging China’s claims to the overlordship of Korea. Later on, the people of the United States looked on complacently, even sympathetically, while the Island Empire of the East made good its foothold in Manchuria and Korea, at the cost of a stern struggle with Russia.
But for some time before that war, and before the question of Asiatic immigration into the White Man’s countries had produced a rankling sense of injustice in Japan and a feeling of irritation in America, it had become evident to many observers that the increase of population and of industrialism in the United States must eventually create a situation in which America’s interests, and her rulers’ conception of national security, would bring her into conflict with Japan’s policy of economic penetration on the Asiatic mainland. Long before Mr. Roosevelt’s declaration that the destinies of America lay upon the Pacific (1903), or before her own inevitable expansion westward and need of Far Eastern markets were foreshadowed by the annexation of Hawaii and the building of the Panama Canal, the orientation of American foreign policy, conscious or unconscious, had steadily been toward the safeguarding of her interests in the Far East. In convening the Washington Conference, Mr. Hughes merely carried to its logical conclusion the policy of a long line of predecessors, and proclaimed to the world the fact that the United States, having become a great military power, intends henceforth to protect Oriental claims that were pegged out by farseeing prospectors long ago.
It is, indeed, extremely interesting to cast back, and to observe how, since the days of President Monroe, successive administrations, while declaring that the interests of America necessitated complete detachment from the affairs of Europe, have never ceased to display an active interest in the affairs of Asia. Almost at the same time as the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine, America sent Edmund Roberts, her first envoy to the East, to make treaties of peace and good-will with Annam and Siam. After him came Caleb Cushing, who negotiated the first American treaty with China (1844); and thereafter, the opening of Japan to the western world by Commodore Perry. Under President McKinley, America became possessed of the Philippines; Mr. Roosevelt’s administration testified to its interest in the affairs of Asia by intervening as peacemaker in the Russo-Japanese war. There then followed a period of diplomatic manœuvres, during which American statesmen, confronted first by the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, and later by the Russo-Japanese Entente, contented themselves with reiterating diplomatic insistence upon Mr. Secretary Hay’s principles of the ‘Open Door’ and equal opportunity, without any immediate intention of demanding their practical application.
With the great European war came, on the one hand, Japan’s opportunity to advance her outposts, and to consolidate her position on the Asiatic mainland, and, on the other, the rapid demonstration of America’s latent military resources. The broad shadow of to-day’s events was then plainly cast. In October, 1916, at a moment when both Russia and Japan were visibly encroaching upon China’s territory and sovereign rights, the State Department at Washington announced its intention of postponing the several questions thus created until the end of the war, ‘no matter what conditions might arise in China,’ restricting itself, for the time being, to the collection of information and records.
On the conclusion of the war, following once again the line of national interests, American statesmanship detached itself from the League of Nations and European ‘entanglements,’ and having done so, proceeded to convene a meeting of the Powers, to discuss the limitation of armaments and the arbitrament of differences in the Far East, that is to say, in that region where America’s special interests and overseas possessions lie.
Seen in this light, the Washington Conference becomes the natural and inevitable conclusion of a national policy which, despite occasional lapses, may be traced back through successive administrations to George Washington’s conception and justification of purely national interests. In America, as elsewhere, the first object of every statesman must always be national security; and the men of clear vision who direct the affairs of the United States to-day are well aware that, for the great industrial nations, national security has come to depend more and more critically upon control of raw materials and of markets. They know that, within the lifetime of the present generation, America must be confronted, though in a lesser degree, with the same grim problem as that which confronts England and Japan (not to mention Western Europe), namely, the problem of finding and keeping ways and means of selling enough of its industrial products, under increasingly severe competition, to provide daily bread for vast masses of town-dwelling workers, who consume, but do not produce, food. And they look to find that market in China.
II
Since Mr. Secretary Hay first proclaimed the devotion of the United States to the principle of the Open Door in China, many events have occurred and many changes taken place in the balance of power, to emphasize and accelerate the development of America’s interests in the Far East, and therefore to increase the probability of conflict between her and Japan, whose ‘special interests’ are already firmly established in that region.
As the result of China’s rapid descent down the path of financial and political demoralization, and of her repeatedly demonstrated incapacity to organize any effective military forces, the defenselessness of the world’s greatest undeveloped market has been made manifest, at the same time that her potential value has been enormously increased by reason of the collapse of international commerce in Europe. Appreciation of the value of the pearl which awaits the Power that shall successfully open the Chinese oyster is no new thing. If China succeeded in escaping political tutelage and economic exploitation at the close of the nineteenth century, it was only because of the neutralizing effect of international jealousies. When Russia, in alliance with France moving up from Tonquin, came down upon the Middle Kingdom through Siberia and Manchuria, it was not the moral force of the principle of the Open Door, but only the restraining virtue of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which, for the time, made the ‘integrity of China’ something more than a diplomatic catchword.
Again, after the untoward announcement of Mr. Secretary Knox’s scheme for the neutralization of Manchurian railways, when Russia and Japan joined forces, in 1910, and declared their intention to support each other’s claims to vague but far-reaching ‘special interests’ in China’s loosely held dependencies, the Open Door became practically closed in that region, American protests notwithstanding. When, in 1912, the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty destroyed the last remnants of central authority at Peking, China became the happy hunting-ground of political adventurers, and a swift process of ‘economic gravitation’ set in, which threatened to destroy her sovereignty at many points. But once again the kind Fates intervened: by the elimination of Russia as a great Power, the European war relieved China at least from any immediate danger of the fulfillment of Mouravieff’s dream, and the risks she ran became obviously less with the disappearance of the Russo-Japanese Entente.
The ‘Twenty-one Demands’ imposed upon the helpless Chinese Government by Japan in May, 1915, showed, however, that the Elder Statesmen at Tokyo intended, should the course of events and the results of the European war favor such action, to take those steps, long planned, which would establish Japan’s national security upon a firmly held position of economic and strategic advantage on the Asiatic mainland. The Twenty-one Demands were, in effect, something in the nature of a gamble on the outcome of the European war. Had it ended in a stalemate, or in victory for Germany, Japan’s position would undoubtedly have been rapidly extended and strengthened in China.
Moreover, the nature and extent of these demands amounted to acceptance in advance of the termination, in any case, of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance; for the claims thus advanced were clearly incompatible with the principles of the Open Door and equal opportunity. It was a gamble justified, from the Japanese point of view, not only by the uncertainties and opportunities of the general situation, but because the failure of Japanese attempts to colonize in Formosa, Korea, and Manchuria had led the Japanese Government, naturally enough, to regard the establishment and protection of ‘special interests’ in China (that is to say, of a position of political and economic advantage) as essentially necessary. Thus the end of the war, and the coming together of the new map-makers at Versailles, found the Far Eastern problem to lie, as before, in the reconciliation of conflicting interests, in the race for priority of opportunity in developing and exploiting the trade and resources of China. Only the chief protagonists had changed.
In spite of Mr. Wilson’s Fourteen Points, and of the benevolent activities of Women’s Leagues for Peace and Freedom, and of other philanthropists, the truth was clearly manifested at Versailles, and subsequently demonstrated with equal clearness at Washington, that the conditions which Japan considers necessary for her national security and economic existence, are bound to conflict, with everincreasing intensity, with America’s conception of her own national interests. Disguise the truth as we may with diplomatic phrases, the policy and pronouncements set forth by Mr. Hughes at Washington are intended to confine Japanese expansion within definite limits, and, at the same time, so to establish the principle of equal opportunity, as virtually to place China (and, for that matter, Eastern Russia) under a Four-Power protectorate, in the working of which America might confidently look for the support of England and France, to oppose Japan’s claims to a preferential position.
It was equally made manifest at Washington, for those who had eyes to see, that beneath Japan’s attitude of courteous acquiescence lies an unshaken determination to maintain at all costs the position of economic and strategic advantage in Manchuria and Mongolia, which the nation has won for itself at the cost of two great wars, and which its rulers consider vital to its future security. Therefore the Far Eastern problem of to-day, reduced to its simplest expression, lies in this question: how far, and by what means, can the respective interests of America and Japan, and their conflicting conceptions of national security, be reconciled, with a view to the preservation of peace? It is a question which immediately concerns the whole world, and particularly England, to whose manufacturers and merchants the peaceful and early development of China’s potential trade has now become a matter of vital importance.
III
Bearing in mind the grim realities that lurk beneath all the polite conventions of diplomacy and the euphemisms of statecraft, and discarding the fashionable lip-service of sentimental idealism, let us first consider the raison d’être and immediate results of the Washington Conference, and then endeavor to forecast its ultimate effect upon the Pacific problem, as above defined.
It is unnecessary, for our purpose, to inquire to what extent President Harding and Mr. Secretary Hughes may have been moved by the exigencies of domestic politics in inviting the Powers to meet at Washington, and in endeavoring to secure such a readjustment of the Far Eastern question as would fulfill the requirements of American interests. There may be — indeed, there probably is — justification for the opinion expressed in the American press, that President Harding’s hand was forced, in the matter of the Conference, by Senator Borah, representing a very strong element of public opinion, determined to expiate Mr. Wilson’s failure at Versailles, and to vindicate American idealism in world politics; but even so, everything in the attitude and utterances of the Administration justifies the conclusion that the inception of the Conference was inspired by a national, rather than by a party, conception of foreign policy. Indeed, in proposing to bring the United States into something very closely resembling an alliance with other Powers, for political ends, Mr. Harding undoubtedly took risks which no former President had ever successfully taken. It is only fair to assume that he took those risks in the confident belief that the strength of public opinion behind the disarmament idea, and in favor of anything that might serve to promote the cause of world peace, would eventually secure the ratification of his treaties, even by the ‘malcontent third’ in the Senate. As events proved, and as the Conference proceeded, the activities of the ‘no-more-war’ idealists became an unexpected source of embarrassment, at times, to the Administration; and Mr. Hughes’s difficult task was in no way lightened by the necessity in which he found himself of reconciling to his ultimately practical aims a body of public opinion which, while earnestly demanding complete disarmament and a World League of Peace, at the same time evidently expected the Government to protect, not only China, but the remnants of Russian authority in Siberia, from Japanese aggression.
As a matter of vitally necessary policy, based on national tradition and on a justifiable anticipation of national interests, the Administration’s first object was to reaffirm and reëstablish the principle of the Open Door and equal opportunity in China; and, with that end in view, to secure the substitution of a new alignment of the Powers for the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. Its immediate purpose, which lost nothing of its predominant significance by being omitted from the agenda, was, therefore, to secure at least the tacit approval of Great Britain and the Dominions for a policy which would aim at putting a check on Japanese expansion and challenging her preferential position. The procedure of the Conference followed, of course, the conventions of international courtesy: there were the usual references to a new world, regenerate by the ‘spirit of generous coöperation,’ and the delegates were invited to approach the solution of their problems ‘with the full consciousness that they were working in the service of mankind’; but, as Senator Lodge justly observed at the conclusion of the proceedings, its success was chiefly due to the fact that its scope was strictly limited to matters of immediate concern to the United States.
On the subject of naval disarmament, which figured first on the agenda, Mr. Lodge was ‘more impressed by the limitation of the tonnage of ships and calibre of guns, than by the reduction of the number of capital ships.’ It is safe to say that the other naval powers, and particularly Japan, were similarly impressed by the nature and terms of the agreement, proposed with such dramatic unexpectedness by the nation which, not so very long before, through the mouth of its servant Daniels, had announced its intention to build the greatest navy in the world. The Administration claimed and received no small measure of warmhearted approbation for this beau geste, and for setting so forthright an example of pacific intentions; throughout the civilized world, the press resounded with eulogies of the statesmanship which had had the courage to take so bold a step on the road to universal brotherhood, and had shown a practical way to reduce the burden of armaments.
But the naval experts, who also stood and waited, and certain other cold-blooded realists, whose minds are trained to regard all such questions in the light of national security, were not slow to perceive the connection between a limitation of the tonnage of capital ships and the accommodation limits offered by the Panama Canal. Similarly, they saw that the practical impossibility of coaling and victualing an unlimited number of battleships and cruisers, based in the Philippine Islands, made it a matter of the most vital strategic importance for the United States to secure a proportional reduction of the number of each nation’s capital ships, even though, in so doing, Great Britain should be left with a slight numerical superiority over America. As Lieutenant-Colonel Reboul observes, ‘The ideal of President Harding is sincere, and the programme of Mr. Hughes is certainly capable of contributing, if it were possible, to the peace of the world; suffice it to point out that their objects are not incompatible with the immediate and imperative strategic interests of the United States.'
The Japanese, while fully alive to the strategical significance of the American proposals, were sincerely, and quite naturally, well-disposed toward any scheme which afforded a prospect of reducing expenditure on armaments, so long as no vital national interests were endangered. They therefore agreed to the disarmament scheme; but their acceptance was made conditional upon America’s undertaking to maintain the status quo of fortifications and naval bases in her Western Pacific possessions, that is to say, in Guam and the Philippines — a condition which, in the event of war, leaves these possessions practically defenseless against a Japanese coup de main, and therefore deprives the United States of her only base for carrying out an offensive against, Japan in the Pacific.
Thus regarded, the results of the Washington Conference undoubtedly make for peace, in the sense that, so long as the treaty remains in force (which should be till December, 1936), they make it practically impossible for either antagonist to do the other any vital injury. So far, so good; but no useful purpose is served by evading the truth that, while both parties at the Conference showed an earnest desire to find and pursue the path of peace, both were nevertheless obviously manœuvring for position, with an eye to the eventual possibilities of conflict. And the ultimate cause of strife — namely, rivalry for the Far Eastern markets — remained not only untouched, but with every prospect of steady aggravation, as the result of the treaties, and especially of their contingent resolutions, proposed by Mr. Secretary Hughes and adopted by the Conference.
In the political sphere, the chief result of the Conference has been to put an end to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and prospectively, to strengthen the hands of the American Government by the expectation of British support for the principle of the Open Door. The position in which the Japanese representatives found themselves placed with regard to the Twenty-one Demands was plainly that of a defendant; and the official statement made by Baron Shidehara on the subject, placed on record with the Treaties, may fairly be regarded as tantamount to a confession that the gamble of 1915 had been unfortunate.
On the subject of Eastern Siberia and Saghalien, also, Mr. Hughes’s exposition of American policy, his solemnly recorded declaration of the hope that Japan’s pledges of evacuation would be carried out ‘in the near future,’ together with his expressed intention of revitalizing the principle of equal opportunity by virtue of the Nine-Power Treaty, all served to emphasize the possibility of Japanese isolation, as a result of the new political and economic conditions that have arisen since the war.
Finally, in the matter of Japan’s ‘special interests,’ recognized, but never precisely defined by the LansingIshii agreement of 1917, Baron Shidehara, while cheerfully subscribing to the principle of the Open Door, took occasion to reiterate the sufficiently obvious truth that it is to the Asiatic mainland that Japan must look for the raw materials and markets which are absolutely vital to her economic existence. He carefully refrained from introducing any argument or allusion in reference to that aspect of the doctrine of equal opportunity which had proved such a stumbling-block to Mr. Wilson and the peacemakers at Versailles — namely, the question of Japanese immigration into continents other than the Asiatic. So far as Japan was concerned, every sleeping dog was allowed to lie undisturbed. With inscrutably smiling faces her delegates went home, to ponder at their leisure over Mr. Harding’s eloquent peroration, and, in particular, over his assurance that ‘the achievement of the Conference had been supreme, because no seed of conflict had been sown; no reaction in regret or resentment can ever justify resort to arms. The very atmosphere has shamed national selfishness into retreat.’
Mr. Frank Simonds, whose wide knowledge of foreign politics and affairs makes him a peculiarly distinguished figure in American journalism, was practically alone in pointing out, at the time when Mr. Hughes’s policy began to be outlined, that the principles he was seeking to ‘revitalize’ involve the assertion of a moral guardianship over China, and a course of action definitely committed to limiting Japanese expansion in the only direction which has been left open to them; a policy which, according to every historical precedent, must inevitably lead to war. Mr. Simonds might well have added that the principal factor in the Far Eastern problem, the unknown factor upon the determination of which Japanese policy now waits, lies in the nature and proclivities of whatsoever national government shall, in process of time, emerge out of the present chaos in Russia. For it must be evident that a renewal of the RussoJapanese Entente of 1910, with Germany redivivus in the background, would very rapidly devitalize the principle of the Open Door in China.
For the present, however, the principle has been revitalized, and in the words of Senator Lodge, an immediate result of the Conference has been ‘to render such aid to China as may help her to secure real independence.’ Nevertheless, it remains eternally and undeniably true that the fons et origo of the Far Eastern question — China’s defenseless weakness and lack of constructive initiative— can never be remedied by any number of treaties and resolutions, whether adopted by four or by nine Powers. The preservation of her integrity and sovereignty can be achieved, in the long run, only by her own efforts and by the growth of a genuine spirit of patriotism, which shall aim, in the first instance, not at constitutions and parliaments, but at a systematic reform of the administration, particularly in the field of finance. And this being so, the future of the Far Eastern problem must depend upon the readiness and ability of the rulers of China to avail themselves of the latest period of grace afforded them by the present position of international affairs, and by the aid proffered to them from Washington. Thus regarded, the outlook cannot be considered hopeful; for the most prominent groups and individuals who have recently come to the front in Chinese politics give even less evidence than their predecessors of any real appreciation of their country’s needs.
For the present, however, the principle of the Open Door has been proclaimed and accepted by all the Powers concerned; it remains now to be seen how the principle will work out in practice, when the various international commissions created by the Washington Conference begin their labors, especially those whose duty it will be to consider economic and railway conditions in the Far East, and the revision of the Chinese tariff. In these negotiations, it is safe to predict, the rival Powers will continue, as in the field of strategy, to manœuvre for position; and the avoidance in the immediate future of such a divergency of views as might lead to a serious crisis, or even to a casus belli, will depend in the first instance upon the interpretation which American diplomacy and the body of public opinion behind it decides upon attaching to that extremely nebulous expression— ‘equal opportunity.’
Japan, reassured as to the strategical situation created by the limitation of armaments, and sincerely anxious to reduce her national expenditure, will, no doubt, proceed with the withdrawal of her military outposts in Shantung, Siberia, and Saghalien; but, as I have already said, it is not possible to conceive of any circumstances, or any cause other than decisive military defeat, which can ever induce her to abandon her position of economic and strategical advantage in Manchuria and Eastern Mongolia. On the contrary, she will undoubtedly continue to develop with all the resources at her disposal, and to accelerate at every favorable point her ‘peaceful penetration’ into that ‘field of economic activity’ upon which, as Baron Shidehara frankly told the Conference, she depends for her very existence. It is also quite certain that this process of peaceful penetration will continue, as heretofore, to be facilitated by the incorrigible venality of Chinese officials — a deplorably constant, and apparently increasing, factor in the Far Eastern problem.
IV
The first thing requisite, therefore, for the maintenance of the atmosphere of ‘harmonious coœperation’ created by the Washington Conference, would appear to lie in a clear definition and recognition of the position of undeniable advantage which, with the help of China’s complaisant officials, Japan has been able to build up, since her war with Russia, in the region from which she ejected that Power, and of the ‘special interests’ thus created. At the same time, it will be necessary to recognize the simple fact that, say what we will, these ‘special interests’ (for example, the control of the South Manchurian railway system) do, in fact, stultify the principle of the Open Door, much in the same way that America’s peaceful penetration of Mexico stultifies it in that country, or her acquisition of the Panama Canal nullifies, at that point and by virtue of the Tolls Act, the principle of equal opportunity for the maritime commerce of other nations.
Among the statesmen gathered together at Washington there appears to have been a sort of tacit impulse, or agreement, to profess belief in the reality of the equal opportunity and Open Door ‘ Snarks,’ and to persist very seriously in their pursuit; but, as a matter of fact, everyone at that solemn gathering must have been perfectly well aware that both these beautiful abstractions are, in reality, ‘Boojums.’
All euphemisms apart, the Pacific problem is the problem of a struggle, in which each of the rival Powers, desirous of developing and exploiting the Far Eastern markets for its own benefit, is endeavoring by all possible means to obtain a position of advantage. And the struggle is intensified and complicated by the fact that, in the meantime, the rulers of China, pursuing their traditional policy, are seeking, in the first place, to reap some material advantage for themselves from this rivalry, and, in the second, to ‘set one barbarian against the other,’ so that, in the ensuing strife, the Flowery Kingdom may evade the penalties of the concessions, or ‘special interests,’ granted to one or other of the rivals, or to both. The very material advantages which Chinese officialdom derived from declaring war against Germany in 1917, with perfect impunity and no responsibilities of conflict, have not been, and are not likely to be, forgotten; nothing would suit the Peking Government better to-day than to see the United States at war with Japan, and, after a period of watchful waiting, to cast in her lot with America, and thus liquidate the large burden of loans borrowed from Japanese financiers, against various concessions, during the past ten years.
Japan’s present policy, following the methods inaugurated by Russia in 1897, is that of ‘conquest by railway and bank’—a policy whose rapid successes could never have been achieved by either power without Chinese official connivance. America’s policy, unofficial but nevertheless unmistakable, aims at obtaining a position of advantage at Peking, and thus throughout the country, by supporting the aspirations to rulership of the ultramodern school of Young China officials, trained to the profession of American ‘democratic’ ideas in American universities, and ostensibly pledged to the furtherance of American interests—incidentally, therefore, be it observed, to the stultification of the principle of equal opportunity.
The rapidly increasing influence of American-educated Chinese students in Chinese politics, and their quite unconcealed purpose of inciting public opinion in America to increasing hostility against Japan, constitute factors in the general situation whose importance must not be overlooked. The effect of their insidious propaganda has recently been greatly reinforced and stimulated by the sensational, gravely injudicious, and often unfounded utterances of the late Lord Northcliffe in Australia and California, during his world tour.
Few people realize how far-reaching and powerful is this skillfully organized propaganda of Young China, in its appeal to chivalrous sentiment combined with material advantage, not only upon evangelical and educational societies in the United States, but also upon a large section of the American press, and, in a less degree, upon public opinion in England. Those, however, who have occasion to study the signs of the times, as reflected in recent American literature dealing with the Pacific problem, can hardly fail to have been impressed by the unvarying similarity of opinions expressed, and policies advocated, by the semiofficial propagandists of Young China, — for example, Dr. M. T. Z. Tyau, Mr. S. G. Cheng, Mr. Joshua Bau, and others, — and those set forth in such widely read works as Mr. Mark Sullivan’s Great Adventure at Washington, Mr. Sydney Greenbie’s Pacific Triangle, and Mr. Alexander Powell’s Asia at the Cross-Roads. These last may not represent the official mind of America, but they do most undeniably represent the views of those from whom great numbers of well-meaning but uninstructed readers take their opinions, and, ultimately, a dead weight of prejudice, which in its turn is bound to affect American policy.
The tone and temper of these books, and others, published in the United States during and since the Washington Conference, are, generally speaking, such that no impartial observer, alive to the stem realities underlying the Pacific problem, can easily persuade himself that it is likely to be permanently and peacefully settled; for there is little or no evidence here of any broad-minded, sympathetic recognition of the real issues involved, nor any definite attempt to solve the problem in a spirit of ‘harmonious coöperation’ and reasonable compromise. The American writers above-named, and many others, wield the ‘Big Stick’ with an exasperating assurance of moral superiority, and leave one with the uncomfortable feeling that the Great Republic’s Pacific policy is not likely to diminish the rigor of the impending racial struggle for survival, or to avert any of its increasing penalties.
At this point we are forced back upon the question with which our review of the situation began—a question wider than the Pacific, older than Nineveh and Babylon, namely: Is it possible for the idealists’ vision of universal brotherhood ever to be attained, unless and until the collective intelligence of humanity brings the increase of mankind under the ‘deliberate guidance of judicious foresight’?