An American Diplomat in China

by Paul S. Reinsch

Events had moved rapidly. Tsingtau had been taken, German control had been wholly eliminated from the leasehold and the railway. The Chinese Government notified Japan that permission to use part of the Province of Shantung for military operations would be withdrawn, since occasion for it had disappeared. This the Japanese seized upon as a calculated and malignant insult; it was made the excuse for presentation of the demands.

The blow fell on January 18th. The Japanese minister sought a private interview with Yuan Shih-kai. This meeting took place at night. With a mien of great mystery and importance the minister opened the discussion. He enjoined absolute secrecy on pain of serious consequences before handing Yuan the text of the demands. He made therewith an oral statement of the considerations which favoured the granting of them.

The Chinese, fearing greater evils, did their best to guard the secret. They could not, however, keep in complete ignorance those whose interests would have been vitally affected; also memoranda of important conversations had to be set down. As soon as I received the first inkling of what was going on, I impressed it on the Chinese that, since the subjects under discussion intimately affected American rights in China, I should be kept fully informed in order that my government, relying on the treaties and understandings concerning Chinese independence, could take necessary steps to safeguard its interests. The Chinese were of course ready to comply with my request. My intercourse with Chinese cabinet ministers and Foreign Office members was not confined to formal interviews and dinners. We exchanged many visits during which we conversed far into the night, without wasting time over formalities or official camouflage.

In the conversation in which he presented the twenty-one demands, the Japanese minister dropped several significant hints.

The minister then spoke of the Chinese revolutionists "who have very close relations with many Japanese outside of the Government, and have means and influence"; further, "it may not be possible for the Japanese Government to restrain such people from stirring up trouble in China unless the Chinese Government shall give some positive proof of friendship." The majority of the Japanese people, he continued, were opposed to President Yuan Shih-kai. "They believe," he went on, "that the President is strongly anti-Japanese, and that his government befriends the distant countries (Europe and America) and antagonizes the neighbour. If the President will now grant these demands, the Japanese people will be convinced that his feeling is friendly, and it will then be possible for the Japanese Government to give assistance to President Yuan." Yuan sat silent throughout this ominous conversation. The blow stunned him. He could only say: "You cannot expect me to say anything to-night."

Quite aside from the substance of the twenty-one demands, the threats and promises implied in this statement convinced the Chinese leaders that Japan was contemplating a policy of extensive interference in the domestic affairs and political controversies in China, making use of these as a leverage to attain its own desires. The Chinese considered it an ominous fact that the paper on which the demands were written was watermarked with dreadnoughts and machine guns. They believed that the use of this particular paper was not purely accidental. Such details mean a good deal with people who are accustomed to say unpleasant things by hints or suggestions rather than by direct statements.

A Japanese press reporter called at the Legation on January 19th, and related his troubles to one of the secretaries. The Japanese minister refused absolutely, he said, to say anything about what passed between him and the President; therefore he had sought the American Legation, which might have knowledge which could help him. With his assumed naïveté the man possibly hoped to get a hint as to whether a "leak" had occurred between the Chinese and the American minister. But it was not until January 22nd that I learned the astonishing nature of the Japanese proposals. Calling on one of the Chinese ministers on current business, I found him perturbed. He finally confided to me, almost with tears, that Japan had made categorical demands which, if conceded, would destroy the independence of his country and reduce her to a servile state. He then told me in general terms their nature, saying: "Control of natural resources, finances, army! What will be left to China! Our people are being punished for their peacefulness and sense of justice." The blow evidently had come with stunning force, and the counsellors of the President had not been able to overcome the first terrified surprise, or to develop any idea as to how the crisis might be met.

An ice festival was being given on the next evening at the American guard skating rink. Mr. B. Lenox Simpson sought me out and accosted me quite dramatically, with the words: "While we are gambolling here, the sovereignty of the country is passing like a cloud to the east. It is Korea over again." He had received accurate information as to the general character of the demands. Two days later the representative of the London Times, who had been out of town, asked me casually: "Has anything happened?" "You may discover that something has happened," I replied, "if you look about." That evening he returned to me with all that he could gather.

Although these correspondents, as well as the Associated Press representative, telegraphed the astounding news to their papers, nothing was published for two weeks either in America or in England. The Associated Press withheld the report because its truth was categorically denied by the Japanese ambassador at Washington. Its Peking representative was directed to send "facts, not rumours." On January 27th it was given out "on the highest authority" both at Tokyo and at Washington that information purporting to outline the basis of negotiations was "absolutely without foundation." Only gradually the truth dawned on the British and American press. The British censor had held up the reports for a fortnight, but on February 5th Mr. Simpson wrote me in a hasty note: "My editors are in communication with me, and we have beaten the censors." From 25th January on, the demands began to be discussed confidentially among members of the diplomatic corps but publicly by the press in Peking. As the impossibility of keeping the matter secret locally was now universally granted from this time high Chinese officials consulted with me almost daily about their difficulties. The acceptance of these demands, of course, would have effectively put an end to the equal opportunities hitherto enjoyed in China by American citizens; I therefore made it my duty to watch the negotiations with great care.

The Japanese were avoiding any interference with the formal "integrity, sovereignty, and independence" of China; they were developing special interests, similar to those enjoyed by Japan in Manchuria, in other parts of China as well, particularly in the provinces of Shantung and Fukien. They could place the Chinese state as a whole in vassalage, through exercising control over its military establishment and over the most important parts of its administration. There would be three centres from which Japanese influence would be exercised—Manchuria, Shantung, and Fukien. Manchuria was to be made more completely a reserved area for Japanese capital and colonization, but with administrative control wielded through advisers and through priority in the matter of loans. In Shantung, the interest formerly belonging to Germany was to be taken over and expanded. A priority of right in Fukien was demanded, both in investment and development; this would effectively bar other nations and would assimilate this province to Manchuria. The northern sphere of Japan was to be expanded by including Inner Mongolia. From the Shantung sphere influence could be made to radiate to the interior by means of railway extensions to Honan and Shansi. Similarly, from the Fukien sphere, railway concessions would carry Japanese influence into the provinces of Kiangsi, Hupei, and Kwangtung. The Japanese interest already existing in the Hanyehping iron and coal enterprise, which was a mortgage with right to purchase pig iron at certain rates, was to be consolidated into a Japanese-controlled company. Added to these was the significant demand that outsiders be denied the right to work any mines in the neighbourhood of those owned by the Hanyehping company without its consent; nor were they to be permitted, lacking such consent, to carry out any undertaking that might directly or indirectly affect the interests of that company. This astonishing proposal sought to make the Japanese concern the arbiter of industrial enterprise in the middle Yangtse Valley.