I visited General Tuan, finding him calm but stubborn as usual. I asked him whether, if the students should call on him, he would go out to speak to them. "I would certainly do that," he replied; "I am in sympathy with them, but I feel that they are often misled by people whose motives are not disinterested." I told him that I believed the students would gladly follow him and make him their leader if they could be assured that he would not be controlled by counsellors who had not the true welfare of China at heart.
This movement of the Chinese people impressed me the more vividly in the light of a letter from R.F. Johnston on July 3rd which led me to hark back to the days of the old Empire. Mr. Johnston was a tutor of the young Emperor, and he inclosed a translation of a Chinese poem which the Emperor had written out for me. It bore the Imperial seals, and was dated: "Eleventh year of Hsuan Tung, sixth month, fifth day." Here is the first verse:
The red bows unbent,
Were received and deposited.
I have here an admirable guest,
And with all my heart I bestow one on him.
The bells and drums have been arranged in order,
And all the morning will I feast him.
Shortly after, in a talk I had with Mr. Johnston, he told me that the little Emperor had himself conceived the idea of writing something for me. Johnston had suggested a certain poem but it did not satisfy his pupil, who finally made his own selection. He said to his tutor: "I want to imagine that the American minister is coming to the palace as my guest."
The young Emperor, Mr. Johnston said, was interested in everything that went on in the political and social life of the capital, and read the papers every day. I attributed his interest in my doings to the fact that the Emperor shared the love for America that is general in China; but, also, I think the repeated likelihood of being taken to the American Legation for refuge and shelter had impressed itself very strongly on his youthful mind, so that it seemed to him a haven of escape from all terror and danger.
Reports came at the end of July that President Wilson was defending the Shantung settlement, by stating that it conferred on Japan no political rights but only economic privileges. Had Mr. Wilson given attention to the details of the question, as reported over and over again in telegrams and dispatches from the Legation and consulates in China, he could not have harboured such a misunderstanding. In this instance the President based his action rather on vague assurances given by Japan, the actual bearing of which he did not know. The term "economic privileges" can hardly apply to such matters as control of the port of Tsingtao and the Shantung Railway, and to a general commercial preference in Shantung Province; yet these were plainly what Japan wished to retain. Her pledge "to return Shantung Peninsula with full sovereignty" sounded satisfactory, but it was never defined to cover more than the 150 square miles of agricultural and mountain land which the Germans had held as a leasehold, exclusive of Tsingtao port. That important harbour the Japanese intended to retain, as well as the terminals, railway, and mines.
The refusal of the Chinese to sign the Paris Treaty afforded an opportunity for saving Shantung to China. But if the German rights were to be confirmed to Japan under the term of "economic privileges," we should soon find that these economic privileges meant an end of independent American enterprise in Shantung Province. Japan had used such "economic privileges" in Manchuria. We were amply warned what to expect from an extension of that policy to other parts of China.
President Wilson stated later that the League would prevent Japan from assuming full sovereignty over Shantung. Here he again misunderstood. Japan had no idea of asking for sovereignty over Shantung; she had absolutely no right to it, and did not need it for carrying out her plans, so long as she could retain the politico-economic rights awarded at Paris.
I reiterated these statements in my telegrams to Washington. I explained again that ownership by a foreign government of port facilities and of a railway leading into the interior of China, together with exclusive commercial preferences, are economic rights so fortified politically that they constitute political control—as Manchuria shows—without the name. In fact, they could be safely accompanied with most profuse protestations to respect Chinese sovereignty.
The question of political sovereignty was beside the mark. It had been broached, as I have pointed out, to make the world believe that something was being returned. "Returning Shantung Peninsula with full sovereignty" was a big phrase and it had an imposing sound. But the sovereignty of Shantung was not involved, it had never been either German or Japanese: it had always been Chinese. The 150 square miles of unimportant land outside the port of Tsingtao might be "returned with full sovereignty," but nobody cared for that. To talk of sovereignty merely obscured the issue.