The Problem of China

of Japan towards Russia has been quite as bad as that of any other Power. At the time of the Czecho-Slovak revolt, the Allies jointly occupied Vladivostok, but after a time all withdrew except the Japanese. All Siberia east of Lake Baikal, including Vladivostok, now forms one State, the Far Eastern Republic, with its capital at Chita. Against this Republic, which is practically though not theoretically Bolshevik, the Japanese have launched a whole series of miniature Kolchaks—Semenov, Horvath, Ungern, etc. These have all been defeated, but the Japanese remain in military occupation of Vladivostok and a great part of the Maritime Province, though they continually affirm their earnest wish to retire. In the early days of the Bolshevik régime the Russians lost Northern Manchuria, which is now controlled by Japan. A board consisting partly of Chinese and partly of reactionary Russians forms the directorate of the Chinese Eastern Railway, which runs through Manchuria and connects with the Siberian Railway. There is not through communication by rail between Peking and Europe as in the days before 1914. This is an extreme annoyance to European business men in the Far East, since it means that letters or journeys from Peking to London take five or six weeks instead of a fortnight. They try to persuade themselves that the fault lies with the Bolsheviks, but they are gradually realizing that the real cause is the reactionary control of the Chinese Eastern Railway. Meanwhile, various Americans are interesting themselves in this railway and endeavouring to get it internationalized. Motives similar to those which led to the Vanderlip concession are forcing friendship with Russia upon all Americans who have Siberian interests. If Japan were engaged in a war with America, the Bolsheviks would in all likelihood seize the opportunity to liberate Vladivostok and recover Russia's former position in Manchuria. Already, according to The Times correspondent in Peking, Outer Mongolia, a country about as large as England, France and Germany combined, has been conquered by Bolshevik armies and propaganda. The Bolsheviks have, of course, the enthusiastic sympathy of the younger Chinese students. If they can weather their present troubles, they have a good chance of being accepted by all vigorous progressive people in Asia as the liberators of Asia from the tyranny of the Great Powers. As they were not invited to Washington, they are not a party to any of the agreements reached there, and it may turn out that they will upset impartially the ambitions of Japan, Great Britain and America.[83] For America, no less than other Powers, has ambitions, though they are economic rather than territorial. If America is victorious in the Far East, China will be Americanized, and though the shell of political freedom may remain, there will be an economic and cultural bondage beneath it. Russia is not strong enough to dominate in this way, but may become strong enough to secure some real freedom for China. This, however, is as yet no more than a possibility. It is worth remembering, because everybody chooses to forget it, and because, while Russia is treated as a pariah, no settlement of the Far East can be stable. But what part Russia is going to play in the affairs of China it is as yet impossible to say. FOOTNOTES: [63] On this subject George Gleason, What Shall I Think of Japan? pp. 174-5, says: "This paragraph concerns the iron and steel mills at the city of Hanyang, which, with Wuchang and Hangkow, form the Upper Yangtze commercial centre with a population of 1,500,000 people. The Hanyeping Company owns a large part of the Tayeh iron mines, eighty miles east of Hangkow, with which there are water and rail connections. The ore is 67 per cent. iron, fills the whole of a series of hills 500 feet high, and is sufficient to turn out 1,000,000 tons a year for 700 years. [Probably an overstatement.] Coal for the furnaces is obtained from Pinghsiang, 200 miles distant by water, where in 1913 five thousand miners dug 690,000 tons. Japanese have estimated that the vein is capable of producing yearly a million tons for at least five centuries.... "Thus did Japan attempt to enter and control a vital spot in the heart of China which for many years Great Britain has regarded as her special trade domain." Mr. Gleason is an American, not an Englishman. The best account of this matter is given by Mr. Coleman, The Far East Unveiled, chaps. x.-xiv. See below, pp. 232-3. [64] See letter from Mr. Eugene Chen, Japan Weekly Chronicle, October 20, 1921. [65] The Notes embodying this agreement are quoted in Pooley, Japan's Foreign Policies, Allen & Unwin, 1920, pp. 141-2. [66] On this subject, Baron Hayashi, now Japanese Ambassador to the United Kingdom, said to Mr. Coleman: "When Viscount Kato sent China a Note containing five groups, however, and then sent to England what purported to be a copy of his Note to China, and that copy only contained four of the groups and omitted the fifth altogether, which was directly a breach of the agreement contained in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, he did something which I can no more explain than you can. Outside of the question of probity involved, his action was unbelievably foolish" (The Far East Unveiled, p. 73). [67] The demands in their original and revised forms, with the negotiations concerning them, are printed in Appendix B of Democracy and the Eastern Question, by Thomas F. Millard, Allen & Unwin, 1919. [68] The texts concerned in the various stages of the Shantung question are printed in S.G. Cheng's Modern China, Appendix ii, iii and ix. For text of Ishii-Lansing Agreement, see Gleason, op. cit. pp. 214-6. [69] Three books, all by Americans, give the secret and official history of this matter. They are: An American Diplomat in China, by Paul S. Reinsch, Doubleday, Page & Co., 1922; Democracy and the Eastern Question, by Thomas F. Millard, Allen & Unwin, 1919; and China, Captive or Free? by the Rev. Gilbert Reid, A.M., D.D. Director of International Institute of China, Allen & Unwin, 1922. [70] Millard, p. 99. [71] See Pooley, Japan's Foreign Policies, pp. 23 ff; Coleman, The Far East Unveiled, chap, v., and Millard, chap. iii. [72] Millard, pp. 64-66. [73] Reid, op. cit. pp. 114-5; Cheng, op. cit., pp. 343-6. [74] See Appendix III of Cheng's Modern China, which contains this note (p. 346) as well as the other "documents relative to the negotiations between Japan and the Allied Powers as to the disposal of the German rights in respect of Shantung Province, and the South Sea Islands north of the Equator." [75] The story of the steps leading up to China's declaration of war is admirably told in Reid, op. cit. pp. 88-109. [76] Port of the letter is quoted by Dr. Reid, p. 108. [77] Reid, op. cit. p. 161. Chap. vii. of this book, "Commercial Rivalries as affecting China," should be read by anyone who still thinks that the Allies stood for honesty or mercy or anything except money-grubbing. [78] Appendix C, pp. 421-4. [79] A list of these loans is given by Hollington K. Tong in an article on "China's Finances in 1918" in China in 1918, published early in 1919 by the Peking leader, pp. 61-2. The list and some of the comments appear also in Putnam Weale's The Truth about China and Japan. [80] Mr. Lansing's book, in so far as it deals with Japanese questions, is severely criticized from a Japanese point of view in Dr. Y. Soyeda's pamphlet "Shantung Question and Japanese Case," League of Nations Association of Japan, June 1921. I do not think Dr. Soyeda's arguments are likely to appeal to anyone who is not Japanese. [81] See the clauses concerning Shantung, in full, in Cheng's Modern China, Clarendon Press, pp. 360-1. [82] This agitation is well described in Mr. M.T.Z. Tyau's China Awakened (Macmillan, 1922) chap, ix., "The Student Movement." [83] "Soviet Russia has addressed to the Powers a protest against the discussion at the Washington Conference of the East China Railway, a question exclusively affecting China and Russia, and declares that it reserves for itself full liberty of action in order to compel due deference to the rights of the Russian labouring masses and to make demands consistent with those rights" (Daily Herald, December 22, 1921). This is the new-style imperialism. It was not the "Russian labouring masses," but the Chinese coolies, who built the railway. What Russia contributed was capital, but one is surprised to find the Bolsheviks considering that this confers rights upon themselves as heirs of the capitalists.