An American Diplomat in China

by Paul S. Reinsch

It was necessary to dissociate banking from building; such a union would mean monopoly and fierce attacks upon it by all outside interests. With the financing separate, the contracting might be left free to all competitors, bidding low and resting their bids upon their repute and responsibility.

So long as it remained possible for different countries to acquire special privileges in distinct spheres, promises of "integrity and sovereignty" would be nothing but empty words. No matter how much they might promise that they would not discriminate against the trade of other nations, the fact remains that established position in itself constitutes preference.

The favoured nations might more honestly say: "Give us our special position and we will give you all the equal opportunity you ask."

Foreign influence could safely be wielded only as a trusteeship for China and the world, without any vested political interests or economic advantages secured through political pressure. But Chinese administration was lax. I urged the Chinese officials to set their house in order, to put their public accounting on an efficient plane; even if necessary to employ foreign experts to do this. They said: "Yes, if the United States will lead," for a long record of square dealing had endeared our business men to the Chinese.

But Americans had been slow in China. Two years had fled, and the Grand Canal was not yet restored as promised. The half million dollars advanced had been spent on preliminary surveys. Silver had risen; American gold bought only one half what it had before. Overhead expense was high, and for the preliminary work more than the half-million was needed. The Chinese were disappointed, grief-stricken; they began to be suspicious.

The Japanese-controlled papers redoubled their attacks on Americans. Pretty soon a Japanese journal at Tsinanfu assaulted the name and character of President Wilson. I had an understanding with my Japanese colleague that all press misstatement should be corrected. I saw him about this attack on the head of a friendly nation. He promised to look into it. After ten days I wrote inquiring again. Under the press laws of Japan, he responded, a paper could indeed be punished for libellous attack upon the head of a foreign state, provided that such head happened to be in Japan at the time. As this paper was notoriously under the domination of the Japanese authorities, amenable to their very breath and whisper, I failed to see how the minister should find it hard to bring it to book. I merely called for a retraction where the Japanese, if a Chinese-owned paper so scurrilously had attacked the Japanese Emperor, would have asked for total suppression. The Japanese minister said he would "further consider the matter" and would see what he could do. A mild apology and retraction were eventually published.

The action of the Japanese in China, official and unofficial, during the war, had aroused the deepest resentment among the Chinese, who were on the verge of despair. The Chinese people were being whirled in the vortex of old and new. The old organization was beginning to crumble; the new had not yet taken shape. It was easy to find spots of weakness and corruption, aggravation of which would bring about an actual demoralization of social and political life and the obstruction of every improvement; bandits could be furnished with arms; weak persons craving a stimulant could be drugged with morphia; the credit of native institutions could be ruined; and the most corrupt elements in the government encouraged. For the original weaknesses and evils the outside influence was not responsible, but it was culpable for making them its instruments for the achievement of its aims of political dominion.

A vast system whose object was the drugging of China with morphia, which utilized the petty Japanese hucksters and traders throughout the country, was exposed in the "opium blacklist" published by the British papers in China. Specific proof was adduced in each case. Often the blacklist extended over two pages of a paper. Obviously these Japanese druggists, photographers, and the whole outfit of small-fry traders could not traffic in morphia without the connivance of the Japanese Government and the support of semi-official Japanese interests. The Japanese post offices were used for its distribution in China. Chinese police interference with the thousands of Japanese purveyors was ruled out under the exterritoriality agreements. In Korea, the Japanese opium grown officially for "medicinal uses" was produced far in excess of medicinal needs, and through the ports of Dairen and Tsingtao large quantities of morphia came into China.

The Japanese-controlled press at first answered the blacklist with charges of tu quoque; but when they defamed the American missionary hospitals, alleging that they were centres for distributing narcotic drugs, nobody among the Chinese paid further attention to them. The blacklists mapped graphically the thickly sown morphia "joints" around the police station of the Japanese settlement at Tientsin and the responsibility was brought home to Japan. An official Japanese announcement was evoked that no effort would be spared to stop the "regrettable, secret, illicit traffic."