Friday, August 29, 2008

New Forces in Old China Growing Irritation Of The Chinese--the Reform Party

XVI



THE effect of the operation of these commercial and political forces upon a conservative and exclusive people was of course to exasperate to a high degree. A proud people were wounded in their most sensitive place by the ruthless and arrogant way in which foreigners broke down their cherished wall of separation from the rest of the world and trampled upon their highly-prized customs and institutions.

It must be admitted that the history of the dealings of the Christian powers with China is not altogether pleasant reading. The provocation was indeed great, but the retaliation was heavy. And all the time foreign nations refused to grant to the Chinese the privileges which they forced them to grant to others. We sometimes imagine that the Golden Rule is peculiar to Christianity. It is indeed in its highest form, but its spirit was recognized by Confucius five centuries before Christ. His expression of it was negative, but it gave the Chinese some idea of the principle. They were not, therefore, pleasantly impressed when they found the alleged Christian nations violating that principle. Even Christian America has not been an exception. We have Chinese exclusion laws, but we will not allow China to exclude Americans. We sail our gunboats up her rivers, but we would not allow China to sail gunboats into ours. If a Chinese commits a crime in America, he is amenable to American law as interpreted by an American court. But if an American commits a crime in China, he can be tried only by his consul; not a Chinese court in the Empire has jurisdiction over him, and the people naturally infer from this that we have no confidence in their sense of justice or in their administration of it.

This law of extra-territoriality is one of the chief sources of irritation against foreigners, for it not only implies contempt, but it makes foreigners a privileged class. Said Minister Wen Hsiang in 1868:--``Take away your extra-territorial clause, and merchant and missionary may settle anywhere and everywhere. But retain it, and we must do our best to confine you and our trouble to the treaty ports.'' But unfortunately this is a cause of resentment that Western nations cannot prudently remove in the near future. While we can understand the resentment of the Chinese magistrates as they see their methods discredited by the foreigner, it would not do to subject Europeans and Americans to Chinese legal procedure. The language of Mr. Wade, the British Minister, to Minister Wen Hsiang in June, 1, is still applicable:--

``Experience has shown that, in many cases, the latter will condemn a prisoner to death, where the law of England would be satisfied by a penalty far less severe, if indeed, it were possible to punish the man at all. It is to be deplored that misunderstandings should arise from a difference in our codes; but I see no remedy for this until China shall see fit to revise the process of investigation now common in her courts. So long as evidence is wrung from witnesses by torture, it is scarcely possible for the authorities of a foreign power to associate themselves with those of China in the trial of a criminal case; and unless the authorities of both nationalities are present, there will always be a suspicion of unfairness on one side or the other. This difficulty surmounted, there would be none in the way of providing a code of laws to affect mixed cases; none, certainly, on the part of England; none, in my belief, either, on the part of any other Power.''

Meantime, as the Hon. Frederick F. Low, United States Minister at Peking, wrote to the State Department at Wash- ington, March 20, 1871:--``The dictates of humanity will not permit the renunciation of the right for all foreigners that they shall be governed and punished by their own laws.''

But the Chinese do not see the question in that light. Their methods of legal procedure are sanctioned in their eyes by immemorial custom and they fail to understand why forms that, in their judgment, are good enough for Chinese are not also good enough for despised foreigners. When we take into consideration the further fact that the typical white man, the world over, acts as if he were a lord of creation, and treats Asiatics with more or less condescension as if they were his inferiors, we can understand the very natural resentment of the Chinese, who have just as much pride of race as we have, and who indeed consider themselves the most highly civilized people in the world. The fact that foreign nations are able to thrash them does not convince them that those nations are superior, any more than a gentleman's physical defeat by a pugilist would satisfy him that the pugilist is a better man. It is not without significance that the white man is generally designated in China as ``the foreign devil.''

The natural resentment of the Chinese in such circumstances was intensified by the conduct of the foreign soldiery. Army life is not a school of virtue anywhere, particularly in Asia where a comparatively defenseless people open wide opportunities for evil practices and where Asiatic methods of opposition infuriate men. In almost every place where the soldiers of Europe landed, they pillaged and burned and raped and slaughtered like incarnate fiends. Chefoo to-day is an illustration of the effect. It is a city where foreigners have resided for forty years, where there are consuls of all nations and extensive business relations with other ports, where foreign steamers regularly touch and where war-ships frequently lie. There were five formidable cruisers there during my visit. Surely the Chinese of Chefoo should understand the situation. But during the troubles of 1860, French troops were quartered there and their conduct was so atrociously brutal and lustful that Chefoo has ever since been bitterly anti-foreign. The Presbyterian missionaries have repeatedly tried to do Christian work in the old walled city, but have never succeeded in gaining a foothold, and all their local missionary work is confined to the numerous population which has come from other parts of the province and settled around Chefoo proper. Nothing but battleships in the harbour kept that old city from attacking foreigners during the Boxer outbreak. Even to-day the cry ``kill, kill'' is sometimes raised as a foreigner walks through the streets, and inflammatory placards are often posted on the walls.

With the record of foreign aggressions in China before us, can we wonder that the Chinese became restive? The New York Sun truly says: ``It was while Chinese territory was thus virtually being given away that the people became uneasy and riots were started; the people felt that their land had been despoiled.'' The Hon. Chester Holcombe truly remarks:--

``Those who desire to know more particularly what the Chinese think about it, how they regard the proposed dismemberment of the Empire and the extinction of their national life, are referred to the Boxer movement as furnishing a practical exposition of their views. It contained the concentrated wrath and hate of sixty years' slow growth. And it had the hearty sympathy of many, many millions of Chinese, who took no active part in it. For, beyond a doubt, it represented to them a patriotic effort to save their country from foreign aggression and ultimate destruction.... The European Powers have only themselves to thank for the bitter hatred of the Chinese and the crash in which it culminated. Governmental policies outrageous and beyond excuse, scandalous diplomacy, and unprovoked attacks upon the rights and possessions of China, have been at the root of all the trouble.''

And shall we pretend innocent surprise that the irritation of the Chinese rapidly grew? Suppose that after the murder of the Chinese in Rock Springs, Wyoming, a Chinese fleet had been able to seize New York and Boston Harbours, and suppose our Government had been weak enough to acquiesce. Would the American people have made any protest? Would the lives of Chinese have been safe on our streets? And was it an entirely base impulse that led the men of China violently to oppose the forcible seizure of their country by aliens? The Empress Dowager declared in her now famous edict:--

``The various Powers cast upon us looks of tiger-like voracity, hustling each other in their endeavours to be first to seize upon our innermost territories. They think that China, having neither money nor troops, would never venture to go to war with them. They fail to understand, however, that there are certain things which this Empire can never consent to, and that, if hard pressed, we have no alternative but to rely upon the justice of our cause, the knowledge of which in our breasts strengthens our resolves and steels us to present a united front against our aggressors.''

That would probably be called patriotic if it had emanated from the ruler of any other people.

When with Russia in Manchuria, Germany in Shantung, England in the valleys of the Yang-tze and the Pearl, France in Tonquin and Japan in Formosa, the whole Empire appeared to be in imminent danger of absorption, the United States again showed itself the friend of China by trying to stem the tide. Our great Secretary of State, John Hay, sent to the European capitals that famous note of September, 1899, which none of them wanted to answer but which none of them dared to refuse, inviting them to join the United States in assuring the apprehensive Chinese that the Governments of Europe and America had no designs upon China's territorial integrity, but simply desired an ``open door'' for commerce, and that any claims by one nation of ``sphere of influence'' would ``in no way interfere with any treaty port or any vested interest'' within that sphere, but that all nations should continue to enjoy equality of treatment. In response, the Russian Government, December 30, 1899, through Count Mouravieff, suavely declared:--

``The Imperial Government has already demonstrated its firm intention to follow the policy of the `open door.' . . . As to the ports now opened or hereafter to be opened to foreign commerce by the Chinese Government, . . . the Imperial Government has no intention whatever of claiming any privileges for its own subjects to the exclusion of other foreigners.''

The other Powers also assented. But it was all in vain. Matters had already gone too far, and, beside, the Chinese knew well enough that the Powers were not to be trusted beyond the limits of self-interest.

Some of the Chinese, it is true, had the intelligence to see that changes were inevitable, and the result was the development of a Reform Party among the Chinese themselves. It was not large, but it included some influential men, though, unfortunately, their zeal was not always tempered by discretion. The war with Japan powerfully aided them. True, many of the Chinese do not yet know that there was such a war, for news travels slowly in a land whose railway and telegraph lines, newspapers and post-offices are yet few, and whose average inhabitant has never been twenty miles from the village in which he was born. But some who did know realized that Japan had won by the aid of Western methods. An eagerness to acquire those methods resulted. Missionaries were besieged by Chinese who wished to learn English. Modern books were given a wide circulation. Several of the influential advisers of the Emperor became students of Occidental science and political economy. In five years, 1893-1898, the book sales of one society--that for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge Among the Chinese--leaped from $817 to $18,457, while every mission press was run to its utmost capacity to supply the new demands.

A powerful exponent of the new ideas appeared in the great Viceroy, Chang Chih-tung. He wrote a book, entitled ``China's Only Hope,'' exposing the causes of China's weakness and advocating radical reforms. The book was printed by the Tsung-li Yamen, and by royal command copies were sent to the high officials of the Empire. Big yellow posters advertised it from the walls of leading cities, and in a short time a million copies were sold. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that ``this book made more history in a shorter time than any other modern piece of literature, that it astonished a kingdom, convulsed an Empire and brought on a war.''

The Reform Party urged the young Emperor to use the imperial power for the advancement of his people. He yielded to the pressure and became an eager and diligent student of the Western learning and methods. In the opening months of the year 1898, he bought no less than 129 foreign books, including a Bible and several scientific works, besides maps, globes, and wind and current charts. Nor did he stop with this, but with the ardour of a new convert issued the now famous reform edicts, which, if they could have been carried into effect, would have revolutionized China and started her on the high road to national greatness. These memorable decrees have been summarized as follows:

1. Establishing a university at Peking.

2. Sending imperial clansmen to study European and American Governments.

3. Encouraging art, science and modern agriculture

4. Expressing the willingness of the Emperor to hear the objections of the conservatives to progress and reform.

5. Abolishing the literary essay as a prominent part of the Government examinations

6. Censuring those who attempted to delay the establishment of the Peking Imperial University.

7. Directing that the construction of the Lu Han railway be carried on with more vigour.

8. Advising the adoption of Western arms and drill for all the Tartar troops.

9. Ordering the establishment of agricultural schools in the provinces to teach improved methods of agriculture.

10. Ordering the introduction of patent and copyright laws.

11. Ordering the Board of War and the Foreign Office to report on the reform of the military examinations.

12. Offering special rewards to inventors and authors.

13. Ordering officials to encourage trade and assist merchants.

14. Ordering the foundation of school boards in every city in the Empire.

15. Establishing a Bureau of Mines and Railroads.

16. Encouraging journalists to write on all political subjects.

17. Establishing naval academies and training ships.

18. Summoning the ministers and provincial authorities to assist the Emperor in his work of reform.

19. Directing that schools be founded in connection with all the Chinese legations in foreign countries for the benefit of the children of Chinese in those countries.

20. Establishing commercial bureaus in Shanghai for the encouragement of trade.

21. Abolishing six useless Boards in Peking.

22. Granting the right to memorialize the Throne by sealed memorials.

23. Dismissing two presidents and four vice-presidents of the Board of Rites for disobeying the Emperor's orders that memorials should be presented to him unopened.

24. Abolishing the governorships of Hupeh, Kwang-tung and Yun-nan as a useless expense to the country.

25. Establishing schools for instruction in the preparation of tea and silk.

20, Abolishing the slow courier posts in favour of the Imperial Customs' Post.

27 Approving a system of budgets as in Western countries.

But, alas, it is disastrous to try to ``hustle the East.'' The Chinese are phlegmatic and will endure much, but this was a little too much. Myriads of scholars and officials, who saw their hopes and positions jeopardized by the new tests, protested with all the virulence of the silversmiths of Ephesus, and all the conservatism of China rallied to their support.

Meantime, the Yellow River, aptly named ``China's Sorrow,'' again overflowed its banks, devastating a region 100 miles long and varying from twenty-five to fifty miles wide. Three hundred villages were swept away and 1,000,000 people made homeless. Famine and pestilence speedily followed, so that the whole catastrophe assumed appalling proportions. Even American communities are apt to become reckless and riotous in time of calamity, and in China this tendency of human nature was intensified by a superstition which led the people to believe that the disaster was due to the baleful influence of the foreigners, or that it was a punishment for their failure to resist them, while in the farther north a drought led to equally superstitious fury against ``the foreign devils.''

The virile and resolute Empress-Dowager headed the reaction against the headlong progressiveness of the young Emperor. September 22, 1898, the world was startled by an Imperial Decree which read in part as follows:--

``Her Imperial Majesty the Empress-Dowager, Tze Hsi, since the first years of the reign of the late Emperor Tung Chih down to our present reign, has twice ably filled the regency of the Empire, and never did her Majesty fail in happily bringing to a successful issue even the most difficult problems of government. In all things we have ever placed the interests of our Empire before those of others, and, looking back at her Majesty's successful handiwork, we are now led to beseech, for a third time, for this assistance from her Imperial majesty, so that we may benefit from her wise and kindly advice in all matters of State. Having now obtained her Majesty's gracious consent, we truly consider this to be a great boon both to ourselves as well as to the people of our Empire. Hence we now command that from henceforth, commencing with this morning, the affairs of state shall be transacted in the ordinary Throne Hall, and that to-morrow we shall, at the head of the Princes and Nobles and Ministers of our Court, attend in full dress in the Ching-cheng Throne Hall, to pay ceremonial obeisance to her Imperial Majesty the Empress- Dowager. Let the Board of Rites draw up for our perusal the ceremonies to be observed on the above occasion.''

The youthful son of Toanwong was appointed heir to the throne and the ambitious father immediately proceeded to use his enhanced prestige to set the Empire in a blaze.

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