VI. DEVELOPMENT OF JAPANESE COMMERCE 135 VII. THE FINANCES OF JAPAN 143 VIII. THE DOMESTIC POLITICS AND PARLIAMENT OF JAPAN 154 IX. JAPAN’S FOREIGN POLICY AND HER MILITARY POWER 164 X. THE FUTURE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION IN JAPAN—RELATIONS BETWEEN JAPANESE AND FOREIGNERS 171 _PART III.—CHINA_ I. THE CHINESE PROBLEM 183 II. THE CAPITAL OF CHINA 188 III. THE COUNTRY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PEKING—NUMEROUS SIGNS OF THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE 198 IV. THE LITERARY AND MANDARIN CLASS—PRINCIPAL CAUSES OF THE DECADENCE OF THE EMPIRE 204 V. THE CHINESE PEOPLE AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS 212 VI. FOREIGNERS IN CHINA—THE ATTITUDE OF THE CHINESE TOWARDS WESTERN CIVILIZATION 228 VII. THE POSITION AND WORK OF FOREIGNERS IN CHINA 234 VIII. CHINA AND THE POWERS 242 IX. RUSSIA, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND IN THE FAR EAST IN 1895–97 253 X. CHINA AND THE POWERS 1897–99—‘SPHERES OF INFLUENCE,’ AND THE ‘OPEN DOOR’ 266 XI. THE FUTURE OF CHINA—MAINTENANCE OR PARTITION OF THE CELESTIAL EMPIRE? 276 INTRODUCTION[5] This book is the result of personal observations made in the course of a journey through Siberia, China, and Japan, lasting over a year, and is supplemented by information derived chiefly from official and carefully collated documents. Asia, the largest of the five Continents, is still the most densely populated; but after being the cradle of civilization, it has been for many centuries dead to all progress. It is in the awakening of this vast Continent through the influx of men and ideas from the West, by the application of modern science to the exploitation of its wealth, that consists the phenomenon which we are witnessing at the present time, and to the examination of which the author devotes the following pages.