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CHINA’S INTERNATIONAL POLITICS.
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”.