The Drift in the Pacific
I
THE open-door doctrine is older than the Monroe Doctrine. When Admiral Taussig, speaking recently before the committee on naval affairs of the Senate, said that he did not ‘see how we can escape being forced into an eventual war in the Far East ‘ he was expressing an opinion formed after careful thought and scholarly study of the long history of our Far Eastern policy. He may have had in mind also the dictum of the German military historian Clausewitz, that war is but the final argument of diplomacy. The rights and interests of the United States are bound up by a century of diplomacy with an independent China, those of Japan with one or more dependent Chinese states. If two great states are to avoid war under these circumstances, one or both must give way. There is no sign at present of yielding on either side.
The ‘open door’ was not invented by John Hay, nor by any of his advisers, nor by those who advised his advisers. Ever since our first merchant vessels entered the port of Canton in 1784 we have insisted upon equality of rights in commercial relations with the states of Eastern Asia. In terms of treaty law we have demanded the status of most favored nation in the Orient as well as in the Occident. This phrase has a tone of superiority about it that is untrue to its real meaning. Commercial treaties which embody the clause simply guarantee that no third state shall be admitted by either party to a more favored position than the treaty provides for the signatory states. The open-door doctrine is the most-favored-nation clause in a dress suit. The dramatic incidents of the Spanish-American War and the Boxer Rebellion have emphasized the application of the policy in relations with China, but it applies equally to Canada, to France, or to the Netherlands Indies.
In the 1890’s Senator Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt persuaded President McKinley to take the Philippines. In his instructions to the American commissioners who made peace with Spain, McKinley wrote: ‘Incidental to our tenure of the Philippines is the commercial opportunity to which American statesmanship cannot be indifferent. It is just to use every legitimate means for the enlargement of American trade; but we seek no advantages in the Orient which are not common to all. Asking only the open door for ourselves, we are ready to accord the open door to others.’ Thereafter the term ‘open door’ became the vernacular for the more formal phrase ‘equality of opportunity’ used in Secretary Hay’s famous notes and in treaty after treaty, and most completely elaborated in the Nine-Power Treaty of Washington. That it was an effective ally of American interests is apparent in the growth of our China trade to the value of $371,454,000 (Chinese) in 1936, when it exceeded that of any other country.
The integrity of China’s territory and government was recognized by the American government as a condition essential to the desired equality of treatment many years before the Boxer Rebellion. The necessity was underlined in 1900 because of the scramble of Japan and certain European powers for Chinese territory between 1894 and that year. ‘Integrity’ and ‘open door’ became complementary ideas; as Secretary Hughes said at the Washington Conference: ‘These principles have been called coordinate, but they are, in effect, different aspects of the same principle. . . . The distinction between the two phases of this question would therefore seem to be one of relative emphasis rather than kind.’
President Taft and Secretary Knox tried seriously but ineffectually to apply the doctrine on behalf of American bankers. Their plans were foiled partly by the bankers, partly by other powers, and partly by President Wilson. Wilson, however, set a precedent for President Hoover in the non-recognition notes of 1915 challenging the iniquitous Twentyone Demands by which Japan sought to slip her yoke over China’s bent shoulders. Harding and Hughes at the Washington Conference aided China to regain Shantung and persuaded the powers to accept a charter of self-restraint, the Nine-Power Treaty. Hoover and Stimson refused to recognize the statehood of Manchukuo; Roosevelt and Hull continued that refusal and took the same line in relation to the new government of Wang Ch’ing-wei at Nanking. Republicans and Democrats in unending sequence have supported the open door.
History, then, justifies a prophecy that we will maintain this doublebarreled doctrine of equality for our business relations with an independent China. As the road gets more precipitous we put on more power. This country never has fought for the open door. We have never felt the necessity of fighting. The new elements in the situation are the apparent determination of Japan to dominate the Chinese state and the apparent power of Japan to carry out that determination. Japan’s announced purpose to brook no independent relations between China and foreign states offers no visible ground for compromise.
The United States has done little more than protest Japan’s conquest of a fourth of the Chinese empire. We have stood by while millions of Chinese people, combatant and civilian, have been killed, billions in property values destroyed. The principal cities and railways and the entire coast line of China are now in Japanese hands. All but a fraction of the national revenues are being collected under Japanese supervision. The National Government of China is a refugee régime in the southwest, supported by a Communist army in the northwest only because the Communist leaders have the cause of national salvation at heart. Despite these hard facts, China still stands, recognized by all powers, including Japan. Three fourths of her territory within the Great Wall is unoccupied by enemy forces. Half of her people live in the unoccupied area. The national spirit is more vigorous than ever. The ablest statesmen, military officers, scientists, and engineers are loyal to the government of the Kuomintang. The peasantry, in guerrilla armies and industrial coöperatives, is a solid mass of resistance to the invader.
A rival government claiming national scope and prerogative has been established under Japanese auspices at Nanking. Wang Ch’ing-wei, a lifetime follower of Sun Yat-sen and member of the Kuomintang, is head of this government. Wang claims that he is demanding not position only but power. He refuses to be called a puppet. If Wang fails to get power, or if, installed in office under promise of power, he is treated as a puppet, he may, if he escapes assassination, abscond or commit suicide. If he gets power, China is saved. If he remains as a puppet, or if a weaker man accepts office, the country will not support him and Japan will have to increase her military effort to reduce the people by force. At best, however, the National Government cannot hope, by itself, to do more than hang on to the remote, poverty-stricken western provinces.
II
Although the open-door doctrine and its corollary principle of an independent Chinese state provide the dominant figures in the pattern of Chinese-American relations, there are other significant motives that have been woven harmoniously into the fabric. Humanitarian ideas, spread principally by missionaries, have stimulated a unique regard for the Chinese people, particularly in the Middle West; from that region missionaries are sent out in considerable numbers, and their constant contact with the home congregations has kept the cause of Christianity in China before a stratum of the population that is normally disinterested in foreign affairs. Naïve in their attitude toward the non-humanitarian objectives of national policies, they are highly susceptible to appeals to their sympathies, particularly when these appeals come from representatives of the church. The influence of this great idealistic element, slow to comprehend the danger to its interests but moving with the power of a moral crusade when it does identify a cause, may hardly be overestimated.
Another historical motive has been the interest of the American government and people in the spread of republicanism and federalism. The United States was the first to accord recognition to the Chinese Republic, doing so in opposition to the wishes of Japan, where it was believed that the Chinese were not suited to or prepared for a republic. Hundreds of Chinese now prominent in the political and business world were educated in American colleges in China and in the United States. These men may not represent the ideas of the Chinese people as a whole, but they do represent, in fact they are, the reformist China, the Kuomintang. Between them and American officials, business men, and teachers the bonds of mutual respect and regard are numerous and strong.
Americans have had an important share in China’s political development during the past thirty years. Goodnow, Reinsch, Baker, Young, Cleveland, Johnson, Arnold, and Willoughby are a few of the more notable among Americans who have, either as salaried advisers or as friendly consultants, conveyed American experience and technical knowledge to the Chinese. Teachers in American universities have been more than casually interested in the thousands of Chinese students completing their training here. Not only has this relationship been a stimulus in scientific work; the personal friendships formed between teacher and student and between American and Chinese students have added a warm human interest in the subsequent careers of individuals which tends to foster a sympathetic attitude toward their country.
American enthusiasm for democracy as an exportable commodity is quite as keen as that of the Third International for the world-wide spread of Communism. This is now being challenged in China both by Communism and by Japan’s ‘holy war’ to convert the Chinese to something resembling its own Kodo, the cult of the ‘divine’ imperial dynasty. In this country, the interest in democracy supplements appreciably the humanitarian concern for the preservation of China’s integrity and her people’s freedom.
Hector Bywater, an Englishman of considerable reputation as a naval strategist, said in 1935, in Pacific Affairs, ‘It is in the last degree improbable that Japan would undertake any large offensive against the American mainland or even Hawaii. To do so would be to dissipate its forces and play right into American hands. . . . Japan would be mad to attempt any big stroke across the Pacific.’ His view is supported by American authorities. There is a popular fear in the United States, nevertheless, that if Japan brings the resources and man power of China into her empire, our western coast will be vulnerable to her resulting naval and air power. Wherefore American opinion adds to our concern for China and China’s economic development a desire to maintain a balance of power in the Orient that will assure our own immunity from attack.
The implications of this motive extend beyond the assumed danger to our shores. The protection of the Philippines remains an American obligation at least until July 4, 1946, and the bill introduced into the Senate with Presidential backing early in 1939, by which the President would be authorized to enter into an executive agreement with the President of the Philippines extending the period of preferential trade relations until the end of 1960, would, if passed, extend correspondingly the duration of our political interest in the independence of the Islands. Beyond that objective lies our dependence upon the East Indies and Malaya for rubber, tin, and other essential industrial commodities.
Last but not least among the desiderata of America’s Far Eastern policy is the preservation of a great nation’s prestige. President Wilson was proved wrong when he said, ‘We are too proud to fight.’ On the contrary, a great country may be too proud not to fight. The emotional potential that is latent in our century-old open-door doctrine, our assurance of inexhaustible resources and power, our sensitiveness to slight by a smaller state’s challenge to our rights, and our oft-voiced devotion to international law and order are dry tinder for the spark of appeals to national honor.
III
Until the Russo-Japanese War revealed Japan’s power and continental ambitions, the American people were more cordial and the American government more helpful toward the Japanese than toward the Chinese. The former were more like ourselves, more efficient, more pushing, and more successful in adapting our ideas to their circumstances. All the unpleasantness of the subsequent years has not extinguished that mutual admiration. And the expansion of Japanese-American trade, which has for many years shown a balance in our favor, to the point where Japan is our third-best customer, has been an effective stimulant to friendship. Though in smaller numbers, American missionaries in Japan have played the same rôle as their colleagues in China. Japanese students have sat in the same classes with Chinese in our universities.
Racial antagonism and industrial and financial competition have contributed to the development of the crisis in Japanese-American relations. Our immigration legislation and naturalization policy express an attitude which the Japanese interpret as unneighborly discrimination, if not contempt. Our tariffs on cheap textiles, rubber goods, and so forth, seem to them unfair in the light of our large favorable balance of trade with Japan. These factors seem insignificant to us, as in fact they are in terms of numbers of individuals affected and amount of trade involved. To the Japanese, however, they stand as repudiation of our democratic doctrines of equality and justice. To them the Monroe Doctrine and the open-door doctrine are self-given charters of imperialism. The former, in their eyes, controls the economic policies of Latin America, the latter that of China. They believe that Occidental capital is determined to develop China — not private capital only, but that of such governmental agencies as our ExportImport Bank. That these may be misconceptions of America is less important than that they are entertained.
Today we have no commercial treaty with Japan and have moved a little way along the road to war with that country by official suggestion of a ‘moral’ embargo upon certain types of military supplies. A vigorous lobby is besieging Congress to come out openly against Japan with whatever action may be needed to frustrate her policy in China. Our navy is concentrated in the Pacific, and is being expanded rapidly. Our air force likewise is attaining wartime proportions. Between us and Japan still stands the fundamental issue of the independence of China.
The degree to which the open door, like the Monroe Doctrine, has been shielded by British sea power was revealed sharply by the heightened tension in our relations with Japan that followed the exposure of British vulnerability by the German conquest of the Netherlands. The withdrawal from Flanders placed the British Isles in the greatest peril and removed all possibility of effective British naval action in the Pacific. For the United States the immediate consequence of these events was the assumption of a new responsibility, the support of the neutrality of the Netherlands East Indies. It is well known that Japanese naval and industrial leaders have for many years regarded the wealthy Dutch islands as within their orbit of expansion. Deprived of British protection, the colony would succumb quickly to Japanese attack unless this country were prepared to guarantee its integrity. Secretary Hull’s public statement of April 17, 1940, in which he said that ‘intervention in the domestic affairs of the Netherlands Indies or any alteration of their status quo by other than peaceful processes would be prejudicial to the cause of stability, peace, and security not only in the region of the Netherlands Indies but in the entire Pacific area,’ was a warning to which the location of the American fleet at Hawaii added vigor.
If any European power, or if the United States, were minded to take over the East Indies ‘for the duration,’ Japan would resent, and oppose such action. She takes third place, following the Netherlands and the United States, in the trade of the islands. Political prestige, strategic interests, and other considerations are as important to Japan in this connection as to any other power. Moreover, free access to the oil, rubber, and tin of the colony would be crucial to Japan if American markets should be closed to her. Whatever else her imperialists may want, however, Japan will hardly put other ambitions ahead of her primary object of forcing a satisfactory settlement, in China. So long as our fleet remains in the Pacific and our markets remain open, it is unlikely that Japan will strike.
Since the outbreak of the Far Eastern war, the American government has been in a dilemma: should we aid China by an embargo on oil to Japan, thereby inviting an attack upon the Indies, or should we continue to supply Japan and thus help to assure her ‘New Order in East Asia’? Neither alternative was pleasant. On the one hand, we needed Japan’s trade, and on the other we could only prevent the seizure of the Indies by fighting. We have so far avoided the plunge into economic sanctions, contenting ourselves with the thought that moral and financial support to China would enable her to hold out long enough to obtain a satisfactory peace with an exhausted Japan. Greatly pleased with our moderation, Japan proceeded as rapidly as possible to close the open door into eastern China. Whereupon we countered by abrogating our commercial treaty with her, but continued to trade as though the treaty were still in force. As we were gathering courage for more effective measures the Blitzkrieg in Europe came to Japan’s aid, compelling careful reconsideration of our position in both oceans.
IV
Japanese editors are charging that the United States is casting an imperialistic eye upon the Indies. We can refute them by pointing to our renunciation of the Philippines. But temporary protective custody, established by ‘peaceful processes,’ — to use Mr. Hull’s term, — would be a fateful step, since the Netherlands is now legally under German rule and the Indies share the legal status of the mother country. The American, British, and Japanese governments have declared their satisfaction with the status quo, but without reference to Germany’s relation to it. Should Germany sign a treaty with Holland relinquishing direct rule in return for colonial territory, her legal title to the colony would be valid. To support an independence movement in the Indies or to recognize a new state there would be betting that Germany will lose the war. American concern over the Indies makes sense only on the supposition that Germany will be defeated and that Holland will be restored in Europe and in her colonies. Neither to us nor to Great Britain or France would there be any advantage in a Nazi East Indies instead of a Japanese colony there.
Our announced intention to support the status quo in the Indies adds appreciably to the danger of war with Japan. In relation to Germany, Japan will have the alternatives of alliance, with a promise of at least a share of the Dutch empire to bind the bargain, or an attempt to seize the islands for herself and thus to forestall such a division with a European power. It is worth noting that Japan’s ‘New Order’ is designed for ‘East Asia,’ not for China only, and that the East Indies are regarded in Japan as part of East Asia. To those who are suggesting that this country should make its peace with Japan by sacrificing our China policy it may be pointed out that they are asking the impossible. Our position in the Pacific is incapable of separation into parts for bargaining purposes. If Japan is strong enough to force our capitulation respecting China, she is strong enough to take the East Indies, the Philippines, and the remaining American territories in the western Pacific. She would not need to bargain with us. Our authority in Pacific diplomacy rests on our fleet, which must remain in the Pacific unless we are prepared to concede hegemony west of Hawaii to Japan.
Admittedly this judgment may underestimate Japanese appreciation of the importance of continued friendly relations with the United States. This country is Japan’s best customer and the principal source of raw materials for her industry. It is her greatest potential supplier of capital for the economic enterprises she hopes to launch in a ‘coöperative’ China. The United States has no desire to thwart true Sino-Japanese coöperation or to obstruct Japan’s access to markets and raw materials. Its protests against Japan’s pressure upon France and Britain to close the IndoChinese and Burmese routes into ‘Free China’ are but restatements of rights, interests, and sentiments which Japan must consider. One may hope that these considerations will guide Japan. But one must doubt very strongly that they will.
With the necessities that may compel us to move the fleet into the Atlantic, I am not here concerned. The capacity of our fleet to defend our territories, rights, and interests in the Pacific is for naval experts to appraise. I may conclude only that the ‘open door’ is today but one aspect of our Pacific policy, destined to stand or fall according as we demonstrate or fail to demonstrate a combination of statesmanship and military strength competent to maintain the balance of power. Whether we should do so even if we could may already have been decided — in the affirmative. If not — the sands are running out.