Fourth, the Western territorial concessions constituted an economic disadvantage to the Chinese. Wrested from the old Manchu government, they gave the foreigners a strangle-hold on the Chinese economy. Besides, they represented a direct loss to the Chinese by means of the following items: taxes paid to the foreign authorities in the conceded ports, which was paid by the Chinese and lost to China; land rents paid by Chinese to foreign individuals, who adopted this means of supplementing the tribute levied from the Chinese in the form of taxes; [pg 179] finally, the unearned increment paid out by Chinese to foreign land speculators, which amounted to an actual loss to China. Under a nationalist economic program, not only would the favorable position of the foreign banks be reduced to one comparable with that of the Chinese banks, but the concessions would be abolished. Taxes would go to the Chinese state, the land rent system would be corrected, and unearned increment would be confiscated under a somewhat novel tax scheme proposed by Sun Yat-sen.
Fifth, the Chinese lost by reason of various foreign monopolies or special concessions. Such enterprises as the Kailan Mining Administration and the South Manchuria Railway were wholly foreign, and were, by privileges politically obtained, in a position to prevent Chinese competition. This too had to be corrected under a system of economic nationalism. The new state, initiated by the Kuomintang and carried on by the people, had to be able to assure the Chinese an equality of economic privilege in their own country.
Sixth, the foreigners introduced “speculation and various other sorts of swindle” into China.[236] They had exchanges and lotteries by which the Chinese lost tens of millions of dollars yearly.
Under these six headings Sun Yat-sen estimated the Chinese tribute to Western imperialism to be not less than one billion two hundred millions a year, silver. There were, of course, other forms of exaction which the Westerners practised on the Chinese, such as the requirement of war indemnities for the various wars which they had fought with China. Furthermore, the possible wealth which China might have gained from continued relations with her lost vassal states was diverted to the Western powers and Japan. Sun Yat-sen also referred to the [pg 180] possible losses of Chinese overseas, which they suffered because China was not powerful enough to watch their rights and to assure them equality of opportunity.
Sun Yat-sen did not expect that forces other than those which political nationalism exerted upon the economic situation could save the Chinese. “If we do not find remedies to that big leakage of $1,200,000,000.00 per year, that sum will increase every year; there is no reason why it should naturally decrease of its own accord.”[237] The danger was great, and the Chinese had to use their nationalism to offset the imperialist economic oppression which was not only impoverishing the nation from year to year, but which was actually preventing the development of a new, strong, modern national economy.
What is the relation of the sub-principle of economic nationalism to the principle of min shêng?[238] Economic nationalism was the preliminary remedy. The program of min shêng was positive. It was the means of creating a wealthy state, a modern, just economic society. But the old oppressions of imperialism, lingering on, had to be cleared away before China could really initiate such a program. Not only was it the duty of the Chinese national and nationalist state to fight the political methods of Western imperialism; the Chinese people could help by using that old Asiatic weapon—the boycott.
Sun Yat-sen was pleased and impressed with the consequences of Gandhi's policy of non-coöperation. He [pg 181] pointed out that even India, which was a subject country, could practise non-coöperation to the extreme discomfort of the British. The creation of race-nationalism, and of allegiance to a strong Chinese state, might take time. Non-coöperation did not. It was a tool at hand. “The reason why India gained results from the non-coöperation policy was that it could be practised by all the citizens.”[239] The Chinese could begin their economic nationalist program immediately.
Sun Yat-sen pointed out that the basis for the weakness of China, and its exploitation by the foreigners, was the inadequacy of the Chinese ideology. “The reason why we suffer from foreign oppression is our ignorance; we ‘are born in a stupor and die in a dream’.”[240] Conscious of the peril of the foreign economic oppression, the Chinese had to exert economic nationalism to clear the way for the positive initiation of a program of min shêng. In practising economic nationalism, there were two ways that the Chinese could make the force of their national union and national spirit felt: first, through the actual advancement of the programs of the whole of nationalism and the progress of the political and economic condition of the country; second, through non-coöperation, “... a negative boycott which weakens the action of imperialism, protects national standing, and preserves from destruction.”[241]