From this island, with a good navy, any power almost might be exerted over the North and South China Seas, and over the Pacific highways from Hong Kong to Australia, Panama, Nicaragua, San Francisco, Vancouver, Japan, Shanghai. All these are in fairly close proximity to Formosa, and the Shanghai route to Hong Kong actually runs between the island and the China mainland.
There remain still two or three more facts which must not be neglected in order to obtain a fair view of this important question.
(a) It is a fine post for any offensive attack upon China, and also a stronghold for an attack upon the British power in the Pacific. If fortified and defended by a navy from any other power, Formosa would prove a great rival to Hong Kong, which would lose at least half of its importance, commercially and strategically, and which has already been somewhat weakened by the French occupation of Cochin China, in 1882.[[23]]
(b) In case of Asiatic complications, England would naturally expect reinforcements from Australia, and from the mother country by the Canadian Pacific Railway, but after they arrive at Vancouver, and are on transport, they will be at the mercy either of Japan or the occupier, whoever it may be, of Formosa. Even the Bismarckian policy re New Guinea would be broken down, i.e., all commercial and strategical communication between Hong Kong and Australia would be seriously incommoded by the occupation of Formosa.
(c) If China herself occupied Formosa thoroughly,[[24]] and allied with Japan who occupies the Loo Choo Islands, they would be impregnable in the sea above 20° of N. lat.
Again, if the occupier of the Loo Choo Islands[[25]] also occupied Formosa on a military basis, she again would have nearly absolute control of the North Pacific. England would be supreme if she held both Hong Kong and Formosa; Germany if the holder would not only complete the Bismarckian policy in New Guinea, but would start a new Germanic policy in the North Pacific.
Thus we see that Japan, China, England, and Germany, might become important actors in the China Sea, while Russia and China would be actors behind the scenes in Manchooria and Mongolia.
The whole result of a historical study of the foreign policy of England and Russia tells us that Russia has increased her influence by annexing and conquering in every[[26]] direction of the compass with Moscow as the centre of the Empire. Peter the Great started in the direction of the Baltic, i.e., north-west; Catherine II. towards the Crimea and Poland in a south and westerly direction; Alexander I. confined his attention to the Balkans and Caucasus, while Nicholas improved on the same directions, and marched into Central Asia, and since 1858 the Russian attention has been turned on the East, i.e., the Pacific.
England, on the other hand, has added to her fame by establishing the following naval and coaling stations along the great highways of trade:—
Heligoland in the North Sea, the Channel Islands, Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Perim, Aden, Ceylon, Singapore, Hong Kong and Labuan; the Accession Islands, St. Helena, and the Cape of Good Hope, in Africa; the Bermuda Islands, Halifax, the West Indies, especially Jamaica, and the Falkland Islands in America, besides many important islands in the South and West Pacific.