Part 27 (1/2)
These, then, are some of the ways in which j.a.pan has and has not followed in the footsteps of America.
Let us follow the Chinese giant a bit, and see what blundering paths he has pursued. Unfortunately, he has had his mind too much on the American colossus to observe the mole. And so he blundered into accepting a republican form of government. A vain _Malvolio_, he thought he was being honored with blue and yellow ribbons on his enormous legs, but to stretch the metaphor a little farther, it turns out that these alien Lilliputians are strapping him securely down to earth. The ribbons and the Lilliputian bands are the foreign-built and foreign-controlled and operated railroads which have been talked of with sanctimonious metaphors to make them palatable. And now China parades herself before the world as a republic. That is some of the influence of America. The Republic of China is our own handiwork. Is it anything to be proud of?
Poor China is a battered republic, with hands outstretched, appealing to us for help. As I write the newspapers tell of the appeal of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, recently elected President of the South China Republic. After surveying what he regards as the situation, exposing the Peking government, declaring that but for its intriguing with j.a.pan there would have been unity between North and South, and that the Northern militarists were profiteering in food during the recent famine, and charging them with a string of other crimes, he adds:
Such is the state of affairs in China that unless America, her traditional friend and supporter, comes forward to lend a helping hand in this critical period, we would be compelled against our will to submit to the twenty-one demands of j.a.pan. I make this special appeal, therefore, through Your Excellency, to the Government of the United States to save China once more, for it is through America's genuine friends.h.i.+p, as exemplified by the John Hay doctrine, that China owes her existence as a nation.
Now let us listen to the word from j.a.pan on American diplomacy in China.
The ”Asahi s.h.i.+mbun” said:
Of all the foreign representatives in Peking the American was the least known previous to the revolution. A lawyer by profession, he was not credited with any diplomatic ability or resource. Yet he will reap more credit than any of the others on account of the ability and energy which he has displayed. But what have our Government and our diplomacy done to counteract the American influence? Our interests in China far exceed those of any other country, and yet our officials have allowed themselves to be outplayed by a diplomatically untrained lawyer. China, which ought to look to j.a.pan for help and guidance, does not do so, but looks to America. The inertia of the Kasumigaseki has given Mr. Calhoun an opportunity to restore American prestige in the neighbouring country.
j.a.pan has done nothing to gain the good-will of China, and America is constantly veering her s.h.i.+p with its treasury of Chinese good-will more and more in the direction of j.a.pan. We had in j.a.pan a man of unusual gifts and sagacity. Mr. Roland S. Morris, American Amba.s.sador under the Wilson administration, though avowedly a friend of j.a.pan, certainly had a most unenviable position to maintain. He seemed peculiarly fitted for his post, for during his years in j.a.pan, notwithstanding the innumerable missions that moved like settings on a circular stage, and the infinite number of dinners that fall to the lot of distinguished foreigners in j.a.pan, he never seems to have got political indigestion. And doubtless he is to-day a friend of China.
With an eye to the ”special interests” of j.a.pan, Dr. Paul S. Reinsch was permitted to throw up his hands in despair. We were not doing much to save China from being Shantung-ed. Because Mr. Crane once undiplomatically expressed himself in ways unwelcome to j.a.pan, he was recalled before he got beyond Chicago. Several years later, Mr. Crane succeeded in smuggling himself through to China as American Minister, and as far as may be seen, he did n.o.ble work in connection with the Famine Relief last winter. Now we have dispatched a j.a.panophile to China. Dr. Jacob Gould Shurman was so strongly impressed with the schools of j.a.pan that he gave up Cornell University to go to China and help j.a.panize the Celestial. At least, that is the mood in which he left America. A man who knows him well and is close to the inner circle of American financial affairs in China a.s.sured me the other day that Shurman would not be in China six months before he would completely reverse his sentiments, and regard j.a.pan's work in China as it is regarded by every one there who is not a j.a.panese official.
Poor deluded, short-sighted j.a.pan! She could have China as a plaything if she only went about it properly. Propinquity could put special interests in last year's list of bad debts if j.a.pan sincerely, honestly, firmly made a friend of China, threw the doors wide open,--and then laughed a hearty, healthy laugh at the efforts of white men to outwit her in Asia. Propinquity has made j.a.pan Oriental, it has given j.a.pan a script that opens the doors for her more than for any other alien: Oriental methods, Oriental concepts, Oriental customs and requirements give j.a.pan a better chance in China than all her millions of soldiers and dreadnaughts ever will. Yet the little mole loves it underground.
5
Thus we are blindly following the j.a.panese mole. We are catering to j.a.panese ”sensitiveness” by sending diplomats with a list in the direction of j.a.pan now. Presently, I presume, we shall withdraw our diplomats from China as we did from Korea, and forget about it. But, then, of course, we sha'n't. Things in the Far East are not going to pan out so easily, not in the matter of China and j.a.pan. Ever since the first American clipper flirted with Chinese trade, American interests have been involved in the interests of China, and they will continue to be so involved. Without ordinary, decent, honest trade among nations, the relations.h.i.+p of peoples ceases to have its reason for existence.
Just imagine a world of nothing but tourists! But decent trade is not the forcing of opium on a country against its will, as Britain forced it on China in the early days and as j.a.pan forces it to-day. Decent trade is not the impoveris.h.i.+ng of native industries by the introduction of cheap products from j.a.panese, European, and American factories. Neither is decent trade altruism. The spirit of really decent trade may be found, though not yet fully defined, in the motives behind the consortium; but, then, that scheme has not yet been proved workable. Its future remains to be seen, and I shall later describe it as far as it has gone.
It has been admitted, even by the most prejudiced--and by j.a.panese--that America's practices in the Far East, and China in particular, have been essentially well-principled. The Philippines are restively seeking independence, but they cannot claim that America's protectorate has been discreditable. One could go on all the way through to the return of the Boxer Indemnity, and the only serious charge that can be made with truth is that altruism has often been accompanied by indecision and inefficiency.
The question that now faces the world is whether the effect of Western democratic governmental methods, which seem to have made a sudden, yet vital, impression on the minds of the Chinese, shall become effective with time, or shall be uprooted by another Oriental country for whom we have expressed constantly the most affectionate regard. We do not love a child less because it needs correction; correction, we realize, is the necessary accompaniment of growth. j.a.pan needs to be shown the error of her ways; not in high-flown moral terms, but in just plain, everyday examples of the impracticability of her doings in China. Thus, having been instrumental in the opening of j.a.pan to the world; having acquired possessions in the Pacific which must remain the outposts of democratic management of native peoples; having set an example of disinterested, generous treatment of unwieldy China; having stood by as her friend, as her preceptor, her sponsor; having, in a word, made that inexplicable journey from the Atlantic to the farthest reaches of the Pacific, let the robin say of Johnny Appleseed:
To the farthest West he has followed the sun, His life and his empire just begun....
CHAPTER XXI
WHERE THE PROBLEM DOVETAILS
1
I have come now to the most delicate and most difficult task in the whole problem, that of the dovetailing of nations. Twice has this phase of the subject come before us: once when we met it in that welter of racial experiments, Hawaii and the South Seas in general; and again in that great outpost of the white race, Australasia. But in the one it is too localized, and the other too much in antic.i.p.ation. In Hawaii it is hard to say which race has justly a prior right to possession; in Australia the problem is only imminent.
But in California and the entire West the impact of the two races of the Pacific has taken place. Nothing but a just solution can possibly be any solution at all. Let me therefore define the problem at the very outset, lest that which is really irrelevant be expected, or insinuate itself into the discussion.
Primarily, the problem of j.a.pan in America is not a racial one.
Primarily it is political, and hinges upon the rights of nations.
Secondarily, it is economic, and only in so far as the political and economic factors are unsolvable can the problem become a racial one, and terminate in conflict. All attempts at handling the situation which do not take into consideration these two factors would be like crossing the stream to get a bucket of water. For nothing can be done without reciprocity, and reciprocity is the last thing that j.a.pan would ever consent to, as it involves a transformation in her political philosophy and the relinquishment of her own position from the very outset. Hence, before we can even approach the consideration of facts in California, we must get clearly in mind exactly what j.a.pan is doing within her own territories. j.a.pan is the appellant. j.a.pan demands that her people be given free entry the world over. We are not asking her to let our people enter j.a.pan and her possessions as laborers and agriculturists. Hence, before she can make her plea at all rational, she must show that she herself is not discriminating in the identical manner as the one she objects to.
Now, in only one or two instances have I seen that question emphasized.
In all the literature I have read emanating from j.a.panese sources, in the lectures of its propagandists here, I have never seen it faced fairly and squarely. The actions of j.a.pan are ignored or glossed over.
The protagonists of j.a.pan in California--Americans, mind you--make of it purely an American issue, as though discrimination were a fault peculiar to ourselves. Two blacks don't make a white, but neither do two blacks quarrel with each other for being black.