New Forces in Old China: An Inevitable AwakeningBrown, Arthur Judson
History
New Forces in Old China: An Inevitable Awakening
Brown, Arthur Judson
China -- Commerce; China -- Foreign relations; China -- Politics and government; Missions -- China
Nor is it simply by sending Japanese to neighbouring countries
that Japan is extending her power. She is encouraging
Chinese students to come to her shores. Dr. David S. Spencer
of Japan declares that 300 Chinese are studying the art of
war in Japanese barracks. Dr. Sydney L. Gulick says that
5,000 Chinese are being trained in the schools of Japan for
positions of future power in their own country. It is significant that
Viceroy Yuan Shih Kai, the ablest and most far-seeing statesman
in China, is reported in the telegraphic despatches of
February 5, 1904, as having memorialized the Throne in favour
of an offensive and defensive alliance with Japan to regain
Manchuria from the Russians, while the North China Daily
News represents Prince Su, Prince Ching, Na Tung, President
of the Wai-wu-pu, and Tieh Liang as in favour of the same
policy. Mr. Holcombe is of the opinion that ``the brightest
spot in the outlook for China is in the increasing probability of alliance
and affiliation with Japan. . . . Together these two
great nations of the Far East may, and it is confidently hoped
will, safely confront those Governments whose schemes are hostile
to both, and prove their right to manage their own affairs
and determine their own destinies.''[91]
[91] Article in The Outlook, February 13, 1904.
But whatever the immediate future may be, it is not probable
that so huge and virile a population as the Chinese will be
permanently led by a foreign nation. Even if partition should
come, it would only hasten the development of those teeming
millions of people, for foreign domination would mean more
railway, telegraph and steamship lines. It would mean the
opening of mines, the development of the press, the complete
ascendency of Western ideas. Though China as a political organism
might be divided, the Chinese people would remain--
the most virile, industrious, untiring people of Asia, and perhaps,
after due tutelage, a coming power of the world. China's
assimilative power is enormous. The black man may be dominated
by the white and the Hindu by the English, but China is
neither Africa nor India. It is true that the present dynasty is
Manchu, but the Manchus are more akin to the Chinese than
either the Russians or the Japanese. Moreover the Manchus
have not tried to rule China from the outside, but have permanently
settled in China, and while they have succeeded as a
rule in maintaining a separate name, they have not made the
Chinese Manchus, but instead they have themselves been prac-
tically merged into the engulfing mass of China. ``Those who
imagine that the vast population of the Empire will submit
quietly to the partition of their country, or that any military
force of moderate size could force it to acquiesce in such a
scheme, know but little of the Chinese character, of their intense
love of country, or of their unconquerable tenacity of
purpose.''[92] The foreign nation that gets the Chinese, or even
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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