Across China on Foot

by Edwin John Dingle

And here the foreigner re-appeared to disturb them. Even in Anning-cheo, only a day from the capital, I was regarded as a being of another species, and was treated with little respect. I was not wanted.

No international question has become more hackneyed than "Does China want the foreigner?" Columns of utter nonsense have from time to time been printed in the English press, purporting to have come from men supposed to know, to the effect that this Empire is crying out, waiting with open arms to welcome the European and the American with all his advanced methods of Christendom and civilization. It has by general assent come to be understood that China does want the foreigner. But those who know the Chinese, and who have lived with them, and know their inherent insincerity in all that they do, still wonder on, and still ask, "Does she?"

To the European in Hong-Kong, or any of the China ports, having trustworthy Chinese on his commercial staff—without whom few businesses in the Far East can make progress—my argument may seem to have no raison d'etre. He will be inclined to blurt out vehemently the absurdity of the idea that the Chinese do not want the foreigner. First, they cannot do without him if China is to come into line as a great nation among Eastern and Western powers. And then, again, could anyone doubt the sincerity of the desire on the part of the Celestial for closer and downright friendly intercourse if he has had nothing more than mere superficial dealings with them?

Thus thought the writer at one time in his life. He has had in a large commercial firm some of the best Chinese assistants living, in China or out of it, and has nothing but praise for their assiduous perseverance and remarkable business acumen and integrity.

As a business man, I admire them far and away above any other race of people in the East and Far East. Is there any business man in the Straits Settlements who has not the same opinion of the Straits-born Chinese? But as one who has traveled in China, living among the Chinese and with them, seeing them under all natural conditions, at home in their own country, I say unhesitatingly that at the present time only an infinitesimal percentage of the population of the vast Interior entertain genuine respect for the white man, and, in centers where Western influence has done so much to break down the old-time hatred towards us, the real, unveneered attitude of the ordinary Chinese is one not calculated to foster between the Occident and the Orient the brotherhood of man. Difficult is it for the foreigner in civilized parts of China—and impossible for the great preponderance of the European peoples at home—to grasp the fact that in huge tracts of Interior China the populace have never seen a foreigner, save for the ubiquitous missionary, who takes on more often than not the dress of the native.

Although the Chinese Government recognizes the dangerous situation of the nation vis-à-vis with nations of Europe, and has ratified one treaty after another with us, the nation itself does not, so far as the traveler can see, appreciate the fact that she cannot possibly resist the white man, and hold herself in seclusion as formerly from the Western world. China is discovering—has discovered officially, although that does not necessarily mean nationally—as Japan did so admirably when her progress was most marked, that steam and machinery have made the world too small for any part thereof to separate itself entirely from the broadening current of the world's life.

Whilst not for a moment failing to admire the aggressive character of Occidentals, and the resultant necessity of thwarting them—we see[1] this especially in official circles in Yün-nan—Chinese leaders of thought and activity are recognizing that in international relations the final appeal can be only to a superior power, and that power, to be superior, must be thorough, and thorough throughout. So different to what has held good in China for countless ages. That is why China is making sure of her army, and why she will have ready in 1912—ten years before the period originally intended—no less than thirty-six divisions, each division formed of ten thousand units.[A] China is now endeavoring to walk the ground which led Japan to greatness among the nations—she takes Japan as her pattern, and thinks that what Japan has done she can do—and, officially abandoning her long course of self-sufficient isolation, is plunging into the flood of international progress, determined to acquire all the knowledge she can, and thus win for herself a place among the Powers.

But I am in Yün-nan, and things move slowly here.

All this does not mean that my presence is desired, or that fear of me, the foreigner, has ceased. On the contrary, it signifies that I am more greatly to be feared. The European is not wanted in China, no matter how absurd it may seem to the student of international politics, who sits and devours all the newspaper copy—good, bad and indifferent—which filters through regarding China becoming the El Dorado of the Westerner. He is wanted for no other reason than that of teaching the Chinese to foreignize as much as he can, teaching the leaders of the people to strive to modify national life, and to raise public conduct and administration to the best standards of the West.

When China is capable of looking after herself, and able to maintain the position she is securing by the aid of the foreigner in her provinces, following her present mode of thought and action, the foreigner may go back again. But it is to be hoped that the evolution of the country will be different.