"In Japan, and as yet in Japan alone, do we find the Asiatic welcoming European culture, in which, if a tree may fairly be judged by its fruit, is to be found the best prospect for the human personal liberty, in due combination with restraints of law sufficient to, but not in excess of, the requirements of the general welfare. In this particular distinctiveness of characteristic, which has thus differentiated the receptivity of the Japanese from that of the continental Asiatic, we may perhaps see the influence of the insular environment that has permitted and favored the evolution of a strong national personality; and in the same condition we may not err in finding a promise of power to preserve and to propagate, by example and by influence, among those akin to her, the new policy which she has adopted, and by which she has profited, affording to them the example which she herself has found in the development of Eastern peoples."[245] Now that is exactly what the Japanese aimed at accomplishing. They were desirous of contributing to the intellectual and moral advance of the Chinese and other backward peoples of the Far East, in the same way as France is laudably desirous of aiding the Syrians, or Great Britain the Persians. And what is more, Japan undertook to uphold the principle of the open door, and generally to respect the legitimate interests of European peoples in the Far East. But the white races had economic designs of their own on China, and one of the preliminary conditions of their execution was that Japan's aspirations should be foiled. Witte opened the campaign by inaugurating the process of peaceful penetration, but his remarkable efforts were neutralized and defeated by his own sovereign. The Japanese, after the Manchurian campaign, which they had done everything possible to avoid, contrived wholly to eliminate Russian aggression from the Far East. The feat was arduous and the masterly way in which it was tackled and achieved sheds a luster on Japanese statesmanship as personified by Viscount Motono. The Tsardom, in lieu of a potential enemy, was transformed into a stanch and powerful friend and ally, on whom Nippon could, as she believed, rely against future aggressors. Russia came to stand toward her in the same political relationship as toward France. Japanese statesmen took the alliance with the Tsardom as a solid and durable postulate of their foreign policy.