A clipping from a Paris paper, the "Petit Parisien," has been reproduced in the Chinese press, and given prominence. The Chinese colossus is not asked to rise to its feet merely to demonstrate its huge proportions. If it rises, it must be to serve a purpose. With a simple frankness due perhaps to a failure to consider possible quotation in the Peking press, the "Petit Parisien" comments upon the "Value of China's Intervention" thus:
The intervention of China is not to be underrated. The Chinese army at present is sufficiently instructed and equipped, well officered and supplied, and possesses large reserves. The military schools are in a position to train nearly five thousand officers a year, and this figure could be increased five times, if needed. The natural resources of China would enable her to supply raw materials for the ammunition and machinery, as well as leather, cotton, rice, tea, and other commodities.
In exchange for these natural resources, to develop which China will have to mortgage herself to the Allies, is offered cancelation of the Boxer indemnity to the Germans, and postponement (not cancelation) of the indemnities paid to the other nations. There are also, as I have said before, vague hints that China may be allowed to revise her tariffs and place a duty upon certain commodities. But even with the first suggestion of such tariff revision comes opposition, from Japan. The Allies, who have no cotton to import to China at the present moment, may generously consent to protective duties on this article, but Japan, which has plenty of it to import, objects to a handicap to her cotton-trade. If the Allies require China's intervention, then let them pay for it. Thus the "Chugwai Shogyo," a Japanese newspaper, under date of March 7:
Buying China's Friendship. We maintain that the Foreign Office [Japanese] officials should resolutely refuse to agree to the raising of the Chinese customs tariff. But it is reported that the officials are backing out. They are goody-goody people. They seem to think that the Chinese proposal is a just one. There is no reason why China should make any unjust claim. But even if China's claim is intrinsically just from her own standpoint, we should not agree to it if it is disadvantageous to us. Besides, if China makes that claim as her condition of her joining the Entente Powers, it is not right. If China thinks that to sever her relations with Germany and Austria is disadvantageous to her, and therefore wants to obtain a quid pro quo for so[Pg 179] doing, this consideration should be given by the Entente Powers, not Japan. Is the participation in the war beneficial to China or to the Entente Powers? If the former, then China should not ask any compensation. If the latter, then the compensation should be paid by the Entente Powers, not Japan. From the point of view of Oriental peace, there is no absolute necessity for China to participate in the war.
Sun Yat Sen, the great revolutionary leader and spokesman for the more enlightened Chinese of South China and Canton, has also sprung into the arena, and makes a protest against dragging China into the war. In an open letter to the Prime Minister of England, which appeared in the papers under the date of March 7, he says:
To His Excellency Lloyd George, London.
Your Excellency: As a patriot of China and grateful friend of England, to whom I owe my life, I deem it my duty to point out to you the injurious consequences to China and England caused by this agitation of some of your officials here, to bring China into the European conflict. I have been approached by prominent English to consider the question of China joining the Allies. After careful study[Pg 180] I come to the conclusion that it would be disastrous to both countries should China break her neutrality.
For China is yet an infant Republic and as a nation she may be likened to a sick man just entering the hospital of constitutionalism. Unable to look after herself at this stage, she needs careful nursing and support. Therefore China cannot be regarded as an organized country. She is held intact only by custom and sentiment of a peace-loving people. But at once, should there arise discord, general anarchy would result.
Hitherto the Chinese possessed unbounded faith and assurance in the strength of England and her ultimate triumph, but since the agitation by shortsighted though well-meaning people, while some English dailies even advocate the sending of several Chinese divisions into Mesopotamia, this confidence has been greatly shaken.
Should China enter the war, it would prove dangerous to her national life and injurious to the prestige of England in the Far East. The mere desire to get China to join the Allies is to Chinese minds a confession of the Allies' inability to cope with Germany. Just now comes Premier Tuan's report to the President that the Entente Powers are coercing China to join the Allies. Already the question has raised bitter dissensions among our statesmen. Discord now may evoke anarchism which will arouse the two strong but perilous elements in China,[Pg 181] anti-foreign fanatics and Mohammedans. Since our revolution, anti-foreign feelings have been suppressed by us, but anti-foreign spirit lives and may take advantage of the critical time and rise in another Boxer movement with general massacre of foreigners. If war is declared against any country, the ignorant class cannot distinguish one nation from another, and consequences would be more fatal to England, owing to her larger interest in the Orient.