Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net CHINA, JAPAN AND THE U. S. A. Present-day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing on the Washington Conference _by_ JOHN DEWEY Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University _New Republic Pamphlet No. 1_ Published by the REPUBLIC PUBLISHING CO., INC. 421 West Twenty-first Street _New York City_ 1921 Copyright 1921 REPUBLIC PUBLISHING CO. INC. _Introductory Note_ _The articles following are reprinted as they were written in spite of the fact that any picture of contemporary events is modified by subsequent increase of knowledge and by later events. In the main, however, the writer would still stand by what was said at the time. A few foot notes have been inserted where the text is likely to give rise to misapprehensions. The date of writing has been retained as a guide to the reader._ I On Two Sides of the Eastern Seas It is three days' easy journey from Japan to China. It is doubtful whether anywhere in the world another journey of the same length brings with it such a complete change of political temper and belief. Certainly it is greater than the alteration perceived in journeying directly from San Francisco to Shanghai. The difference is not one in customs and modes of life; that goes without saying. It concerns the ideas, beliefs and alleged information current about one and the same fact: the status of Japan in the international world and especially its attitude toward China. One finds everywhere in Japan a feeling of uncertainty, hesitation, even of weakness. There is a subtle nervous tension in the atmosphere as of a country on the verge of change but not knowing where the change will take it. Liberalism is in the air, but genuine liberals are encompassed with all sorts of difficulties especially in combining their liberalism with the devotion to theocratic robes which the imperialist militarists who rule Japan have so skilfully thrown about the Throne and the Government. But what one senses in China from the first moment is the feeling of the all-pervading power of Japan which is working as surely as fate to its unhesitating conclusion--the domination of Chinese politics and industry by Japan with a view to its final absorption. It is not my object to analyze the realities of the situation or to inquire whether the universal feeling in China is a collective hallucination or is grounded in fact. The phenomenon is worthy of record on its own