The treaties and international notes which hold China in obligations to the outside world (Wai Ih, outside foreigners), and which the republicans promise to observe, are in part as follows. The “most favored nation” clause admits nations which did not participate in the original treaty.

1842. Nanking Treaty—Nanking, Canton, Amoy, Fuchau, Ningpo and Shanghai opened.

1858. Tientsin-British—Newchwang, Chifu, Swatow, Kiangchow opened.

1860. Tientsin-French Treaty—Tientsin opened.

1861. German Treaty—Chinkiang, Hankau opened.

1876. Chifu Convention—Ichang, Wuhu, Wenchow, Pakhoi opened.

1881. Russia-China—Russian commercial influence in Ili, Mongolia, Manchuria; consulates and extraterritoriality provided for.

1890. Chungking Convention—Chungking opened.

1895. Japan Treaty—Suchow, Hangchow opened.

1896. Russia-China Treaty—Russia given railway and other privileges in Manchuria; this brought on the war with Japan in 1904.

1897. West River Ports—Samshui, Wuchow, etc., opened.

1899. Russia-China—China not to build railways north of Peking without Russia’s consent. 1902. British Commercial Treaty (Mackay)—Changsha, Ngan-king, Wan Hsien, Waichou opened. Likin to be abolished and customs possibly raised from five per cent. to twelve per cent. ad valorem.

1905. Japan-China—Grants to Japan by treaty what war with Russia won for Japan; i.e., military, commercial, mining and railway dominance in South Manchuria, and Japan to have power to nullify Chinese or other foreign railway schemes.

Treaties Affecting China

1899. Britain-Russia—Britain not to interfere with Russia north of great wall, and Russia not to interfere in Yangtze valley.

1899. America to Powers (John Hay’s Note)—“Open door” for all in China, and preservation of territorial integrity.

1905. Portsmouth Treaty (Russia-Japan)—Japan takes Korea and part of Manchuria.

1905. Britain-Japan—Alliance and assuring integrity of China.

1907. Russia-Japan—Recognize territorial integrity of China.

1907. Britain-Russia—Britain to support China in Tibet.

1908. America-Japan—Open door in China; integrity of China.

1910. America to Powers—Internationalize Manchurian railways; rejected by Russia and Japan.

1910. Russia-Japan—Secret convention to reject America’s financial and commercial plans in Manchuria; Russia and Japan to divide Manchuria in spheres of influence and trade.

These treaties sound very well, but mean very little, excepting this, that if Japan or Russia persistently breaks them and invades China, Britain and America have a cause before the world, to thrash, if it is necessary, the offender’s navy, and cut Japan off from Korea and Manchuria. The treaties are a confusion. They all specify that the “open-door” theory is acknowledged, but Russia and Japan have forced China to assent to their visÉ on any proposed railway schemes in Manchuria and Pechili. Despite the Britain-Japan Treaty of 1905, wherein the “integrity of China” is specified as a promise to the nations, the London Times confesses as follows: “The grim facts of the economic gravitation of Manchuria toward Russian and Japanese control are beyond remedy, treaties and agreements notwithstanding.” Yet at one time the thunderer would bring on a war for the sake of a straw! If Russia continues to offend there is no way to stop her except that America and Britain shall send their navies to pound her Baltic gates until she behaves in Manchuria, Mongolia, etc., which she soon would do in fear of her Duma on the inside of the Baltic gates. Britain never again can use Japan to pound Russia, for Japan and Russia have agreed to take the Manchurian spoil, as Japan did in the case of Korea, whenever the opportunity offers through dissension among the powers. Japan and Russia are high-tariff countries, and wherever they establish themselves, Britain, America, Germany and France will knock in vain for trade entry. China, like Britain, is a low-tariff country (at present five per cent., and even the proposed twelve per cent. would be low), and the manufacturing nations therefore desire the “open door” maintained, which can only be done on America’s and Britain’s reiterated treaty stipulations of the “integrity of China”. America must always keep a Pacific fleet stronger than Japan’s. A fight is unnecessary, for Japan is checkmated at once by this policy. Britain and America, and, if possible, Germany, must work together in the Far East to watch both Russia and Japan, and see that China gets the “square deal” in having reserved for her expansion her immemorial preserves of Manchuria, Mongolia and Turkestan. In Premier Yuan’s difficulties, the irreconcilable former Manchu major general, Yin Tchang, fled to Dalny, where he ran a bureau which plotted for the overthrow of the republic.

China made a beginning in 1911 in the agitation for the retrocession of some of the foreign colonies. Prince Ching then suggested that commissioners should be appointed by the Cabinet to discuss with Britain the retrocession of Wei-Hai-Wei. There are other nations which hold vastly more territory than do America and Britain, whether in concessions, settlements or colonies. The other nations have done comparatively little for China as compared with America and Britain, and Prince Ching might have approached this worthy subject in proportionate order. Until China is on her feet, foreign concessions at all her ports are the best object lesson she could have in municipal government and improvements, but foreign colonies, as large as Germany’s Kiaochou and Japan’s and Russia’s spheres of occupation in Manchuria, are unjust to her.

The New China party bears as a thorn in its flesh the awful burden of 1900, the old Russian and the Japanese indemnities. America alone, under President Roosevelt’s administration, remitted her share of the 1900 (Boxer) indemnity. These punitive indemnity payments prevented China from offering relief in the terrible pneumonic plague epidemic in Manchuria in 1911, and in the famines which followed the floods in 1911 and 1912 in the central and eastern provinces. Half a million people starved to death, and China has not forgotten that the funds which the starving people needed were taken by the rich European nations as indemnity payments. Britain, however, did return part of her indemnity on condition that it should be applied to the Shansi University at Taiyuan, of which Doctor Timothy Richards was president.

China’s helpless position without a navy could not be more eloquently shown than by the following case: In the Mexican revolution of 1911, Chinese lives and property were destroyed to the estimated amount of $33,000,000. China put in a claim to satisfy the heirs and claimants, but no attention has been paid to it. How different it was when Germany and Britain held Venezuelan claims only a short time previously!

In the interim, before the establishment of an effective diplomacy and parliaments or congresses in China, the guilds, with their boycott, have to a degree acted as the foreign office of the people in obtaining concessions which armies, navies and courtiers were not yet powerful enough to obtain. Their effective boycotts are a proof that the people really ruled in China, and without the expense of armies and navies. They, moreover, proved that the Chinese people can think together, and keep their word of faith so fixedly that it is seldom necessary for the central committee of the guilds to put in effect the heavy money penalties involved. There is this conclusion among others to be drawn from the interesting history of guilds and boycotts in China, especially in the last fifteen years, that the provincial and central parliaments, or congresses, which began work in 1909 and 1910, will remain, and with some improvement each year reach ever higher toward the standards of liberty and righteousness, or, in expressive American slang, the “square deal”. Who will gainsay that the Chinese is a long-suffering being even in his own land? I quote the following from the Hongkong Telegraph of September 1, 1911: “At 6.00 P.M., on August 25, a German in the employ of a British company, and an Italian priest went into a shop at Shek Ki (near Canton). The German, who disliked the demeanor of the shop employÉ, dealt the man a nasty cut on the head. The foreigners afterward left the shop and went to a money changer’s. As the changer was slow, the German snatched a lamp from a table, and smashed it on the ground. The German assaulted two chair coolies. A riot developed. The two foreigners rushed into the dwelling of a missionary lady doctor.” Such abuse as this leads to international troubles, and the consuls at the ports, to whom the patient Chinese turn over foreign offenders, should be more severe than they are. These foreign offenders should really be brought back to the village where they create a disturbance, and in the presence of the consul, and Chinese taotais and mandarins, should pay to the headman of the village sufficient damages. Then the Chinese would know that the foreigner is sincere in his legal measures. Thoughtless or drunken action, like that of the German, often leads to missionary and other riots before the resentment of the indignant natives cools. One brutal fool of this kind, violens in vino, can place at jeopardy the lives of thousands of foreigners and the peace of the nations. We must scrupulously show China that we are sincere. She has some cause to feel that when we established our extraterritorial courts we meant to cheat her of justice. We shall later hear from Wu Ting Fang on this subject, as he is making a specialty of codifying the laws.

The British government introduced to the foreign office (Tsung Li Yamen and Wai Wu Pu) for many years, Sir Walter Hillier, as adviser, but since his appointment was to a degree forced he had less influence than in the case of the voluntary appointments of the Americans, Dennison and Stevens, as advisers in the foreign offices of Japan and Korea, respectively. The four-nations bankers will have foreign advisers on the Chinese Finance and Foreign Boards, and great tact and patience with China’s difficulties will at all times be required.

Long before the revolution, as well as after it, the masses of the Chinese had commenced to think of national and international politics. Whenever missionaries opened new “tan” (preaching or “talk” halls, as the Chinese call churches) the auditors listened respectfully for a while to the “doctrine” or “tao” (way). When the missionary came down from the platform, and joined the audience on the benches for a familiar “tan” (chat), religious subjects were not the first spoken of, the following questioning being common:

“Our first question is, what is your name, age and number of children?”

“Did you come from your country by railway or steamship?”

“How far is it and what was the cost?”

“What is your real business outside of your kindly avocation of achieving merit by temporarily talking about Jesus?”

“How long have you been in this province of China?”

“Were your clothes made in a China port, or in America, and at what cost?”

“You do not shave your head and face or change your outer clothes often, so we suppose you do not bathe often.”

“What do you think of this talk of republics, foreign loans, centralized government, armies and railways?”

There is no sycamore tree for ZacchÆus to climb; he must come down. They know you are peaceful as an amateur, but they insist on your professional opinion, and they believe your profession is something more practical than talking religion. Are you a doctor, a government employÉ, a farmer, a soldier, a spy, an artisan, a merchant? If so, you must know about these practical things, and can answer the questions propounded.

The emigration treaties now stand in almost a humorous attitude in one respect. To save Japan’s “face” (the Oriental idiom for pride), Japan is granted permission to land coolies, but Japan by a secret postscriptum agrees not to let her coolies make the slightest use of this permission, as she has room for them in Korea, Manchuria, the navy, etc., at present. China is not permitted to land her coolies, but land some of them she does by the “underground”, which runs via Canada, Mexico, Central America, Cuba, etc. Our Pacific coast is correct, notwithstanding the exigencies of diplomacy, that she can not and will not absorb Oriental labor, any more than we foist Occidental labor on the Orient. The Pacific coast is quite consistent for the “square deal”, though it took her some time to trust the signing of the 1911 Japan Treaty, the immigration clause of which it is secretly understood is not to be taken advantage of. America can not welcome too many Chinese students and travelers, and a certain number of specialized merchants, agriculturalists, agents, artisans and artists, whom we can well accept as our tutors in their specialties.

On the subject of Asiatic immigration, the authority on American naval and foreign affairs, Admiral Mahan, writes as follows: “A large preponderance of Asiatics in a given region is a real annexation, more effective than the political annexations against which the Monroe doctrine was formulated. Free Asiatic immigration to the Pacific coast in its present condition of sparse population would mean Asiatic occupation—Asia colonized in America. This the United States government can not accept because of the violent resistance of the Pacific states, if for no other reason.”

In a former book I have recommended the immigration of a number of Chinese into the Philippines. The Straits Settlements cover only a small area. Their population is 300,000 Malays, who are akin to the Filipino. Four hundred thousand Chinese were brought in, and the little colony in 1911 exported $200,000,000 of tin and other products. Sir Frank Swettenham, the famous governor of the settlement in its formative period up to 1904, says of the Chinese: “The industrial development of the country is entirely due to the Chinese. They are the only people in the peninsula who can be depended upon. They tolerate no interruptions in the performance of their daily labor, and save their money to make prudent investments. Without the Chinese nothing would have been done in the Malay states. No progress would have been made, and the enormous natural resources of the country would still be lying dormant.” A remarkable instance of the orderliness of the Chinese was exhibited in the deportation in 1908 of 60,000 Chinese emigrants from the Transvaal gold mines to China. Such a body of any other labor would have shown many signs of rebellion against their removal from the scenes to which they had grown attached, and where they were prospering, and against the hot journey of 8,000 miles, made the more unpleasant because of the crowded quarters on shipboard. No friction or disturbance marked this unusual industrial event. Coolies though they were, they kept their word like statesmen, and said: “We promised the colony that we would only substitute black labor for four years, and as the blacks now are ready to return to the field, we are going.” The nations should get together, and permit China to levy a provisional import duty of twelve per cent. instead of five per cent., and not keep her government helpless because of starvation. If she had an army and navy like Japan, she would not need to ask the permission of others to allow her own government to live. Advice should be given to her, as in the Mackay Treaty, to strike away the inter-provincial and inter-district fetters of likin (transit taxes) and export tax, by which method the provinces raise much of their revenue; and the government should divide up the customs receipts between the provinces, or permit the provinces to keep all their land tax.

France, which owns the only railway to Yunnan at present, is imposing an unjust transit tax of ten per cent. on American, British and German goods, shipped from Hongkong to Yunnan, or vice versa, and which must cross French China. Canada in the same situation bids for American freights by making no transit tax, and indeed quoting lower freight rates; this is intelligent modernism. China and the three commercial nations should have this Indo-Chinese tax removed, and demand equal rates on French railways. This rate equalization is what America has demanded of Japan and Russia on railways in Manchuria. It is the same thing that Germany, at the point of the Panther’s cannon, demanded of France in the Agadir incident in Morocco. In other words, the “square deal”, and it must be put in effect, say the Chinese people and the nations which advocate the “open door”.

The political economists of Japan are beginning to denounce the exportation of coal, and recommend the reservation of the fields as a war supply. The proposition is to use foreign coal in manufacturing. Accordingly, measures have been taken to develop the Manchurian, Korean, Saghalien and Formosan fields, as well as purchasing from the rich Chinese supplies. This conservation method will certainly be followed by Australia, England, Germany and America, as the years go by. The export of coal is not a benefit; it is an impoverishment. The Japanese make into briquettes the anthracite coal of Ping Yang, Korea, so as to produce a smokeless navy coal.

An interesting aftermath of the Boxer massacres in 1900 was the strange disappearance of the Manchu prince, Liang Chow, who was condemned to be strangled in private with the silver cord, which two unseen friends were to tighten behind two holes bored in a wall. Prince Liang fled to America, where he became a pauper, and was buried in the Alamosa, Colorado, cemetery. At the request of the Manchu throne his body was exhumed on November 25, 1910, and started on its way to China to the tombs of the Manchu emperors west of Peking (not the Ming tombs, which are northwest). A splendid, dragon-gilded coffin was furnished, and the Manchus sent magnificent mandarin robes, a yellow jacket, peacock feather and pearl button of honor. The Chinese whom Prince Liang found in America were not Manchus, but republican Cantonese of southern Kwangtung province.

Hongkong, the dean of foreign settlements, Shanghai, Tientsin, Singapore, Hankau, Harbin, etc., all have volunteer military companies and inter-port rifle matches. Every man in a settlement can be impressed for the protection of life and property. All these uniformed companies have seen hard active service in the taking of Kowloon, the various riots at Shanghai, the Peking Relief Expedition and the revolution which broke out at Hankau in October, 1911. The companies cover infantry, machine and field gun, bicycle and garrison corps trained in the use of cannon. Hongkong’s uniformed contingent at King George’s coronation in London attracted much attention for the smartness of their swinging march. “We didn’t think the jaded tropics could turn out such ambition,” was the remark of many onlookers.

The English historian, Creasy, who lived in the Far East, in writing his book, Decisive Battles of the World, as early as 1852 recognized the importance of America’s mission across the Pacific. These are his words: “The conquests of China and Japan by the fleets and armies of the United States are events which many now living are likely to witness. Compared with the magnitude of such changes in the dominion of the old world, the certain ascendancy of the Anglo-Americans over central and southern America seems a matter of secondary importance.” If we change Creasy’s favorite idea of physical conquest to that of moral, educational and commercial, with physical power only as an auxiliary in the case of the heinous jealousy of those not concerned, we shall agree with him as to America’s advance across the Pacific. It was nevertheless a wonderful prophecy, made as long ago as 1852, when the tide of America’s western advance, with the exception of one meager settlement, had not yet risen over the Rockies. All the Chinese leaders, republican and conservative, look for the growing evidence of America’s interests across the Pacific, and American affairs and history are keenly studied.

Some of the Chinese proverbs on international politics are the following:

“He who doesn’t follow up his words with deeds is no more terrible than the wind on painted water.” “If you have to guess at roads, the middle one will average up best.”

“Go slow; only the turtle is equipped to draw his head in suddenly.”

“Don’t cross a river with your feet in two boats.”