China rejuvenescent! It was but a step to China rampant. She discovered
a new pride in herself and a will of her own. She began to chafe under
the guidance of Japan, but she did not chafe long. On Japan’s advice, in
the beginning, she had expelled from the Empire all Western missionaries,
engineers, drill sergeants, merchants, and teachers. She now began to
expel the similar representatives of Japan. The latter’s advisory
statesmen were showered with honours and decorations, and sent home. The
West had awakened Japan, and, as Japan had then requited the West, Japan
was not requited by China. Japan was thanked for her kindly aid and
flung out bag and baggage by her gigantic protégé. The Western nations
chuckled. Japan’s rainbow dream had gone glimmering. She grew angry.
China laughed at her. The blood and the swords of the Samurai would out,
and Japan rashly went to war. This occurred in 1922, and in seven bloody
months Manchuria, Korea, and Formosa were taken away from her and she was
hurled back, bankrupt, to stifle in her tiny, crowded islands. Exit
Japan from the world drama. Thereafter she devoted herself to art, and
her task became to please the world greatly with her creations of wonder
and beauty.
Contrary to expectation, China did not prove warlike. She had no
Napoleonic dream, and was content to devote herself to the arts of peace.
After a time of disquiet, the idea was accepted that China was to be
feared, not in war, but in commerce. It will be seen that the real
danger was not apprehended. China went on consummating her
machine-civilization. Instead of a large standing army, she developed an
immensely larger and splendidly efficient militia. Her navy was so small
that it was the laughing stock of the world; nor did she attempt to
strengthen her navy. The treaty ports of the world were never entered by
her visiting battleships.
The real danger lay in the fecundity of her loins, and it was in 1970
that the first cry of alarm was raised. For some time all territories
adjacent to China had been grumbling at Chinese immigration; but now it
suddenly came home to the world that China’s population was 500,000,000.
She had increased by a hundred millions since her awakening. Burchaldter
called attention to the fact that there were more Chinese in existence
than white-skinned people. He performed a simple sum in arithmetic. He
added together the populations of the United States, Canada, New Zealand,
Australia, South Africa, England, France, Germany, Italy, Austria,
European Russia, and all Scandinavia. The result was 495,000,000. And
the population of China overtopped this tremendous total by 5,000,000.
Burchaldter’s figures went round the world, and the world shivered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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