CHAPTER II
WHAT CHINA MEANS TO THE WORLD
The day is past when any one in Europe, whether Christian or non-Christian, can be indifferent to what is happening in China. The Christian has indeed been for a long time alive to the importance of these developments, but the ordinary citizen with no strong religious views has usually neither displayed nor felt any interest in a country separated from us by so many miles and by such an untraversable gulf in thought and language. If the Christian has urged the importance of Chinese missions, his neighbours have answered by asking him why he cannot leave the Chinese to themselves and to their own religion. Whatever justice the opponent of missions in times past may have thought he had for this view, he cannot now maintain that the Chinese question is one which may be put on one side by any thoughtful man. The movements of this vast mass of humanity, amounting to a quarter of the population of the world, cannot but fail to have a very real and vital effect on the whole civilised world.
The revolution that is affecting China brings Europe and America into close contact with a country equal to Europe in size, and not far inferior in productive power. A few years ago China was so far away that except as an outlet for trade it had little interest for people here. The voyage occupied many months and was esteemed a hazardous journey, owing to the dangerous coasts and typhoons of the China seas. Now a train-de-luxe conveys the traveller in a fortnight across Asia to Peking, and if the accommodation on the Chinese part of the railway is not altogether luxurious, the traveller remembers that it is far superior to that on the first railways opened in our own land. The journey is of course tedious, but the fact that business men in the north of China are talking of always spending their summer holidays in England, will show how close China is now to Europe. It is no exaggeration to say that in reckoning distance by the time it takes to complete the journey, China is nearer to England than London was to Scotland in the days of Dr. Johnson, while in point of comfort and convenience there is no comparison. The journey from London to Peking is far easier at the present day than the journey from London to Edinburgh in the days of Johnson's famous trip to the Hebrides.
If in this way we are getting closer to China, we are still more growing closer in thought. No longer can we speak of a gulf that separates us from China. Every year English is becoming more and more the language of educated men in East; even though we cannot read their books, they are reading ours either in translations or in the original. Japan has set the example of having English taught universally in her high schools, and now China is following her example. A foreigner, talking about Esperanto, remarked: "What would be the use of making an universal language? English, at any rate in the East, is the universal language." That barbarous patois, "pidgin" or business English, lives still in China. It consists of English roots, enlarged by the addition of Portuguese words, put into Chinese idiom and pronounced Chinese fashion. But "pidgin" English is fast giving way to pure English, spoken most commonly with a marked American accent.
If this growing proximity of China compels the attention of the civilised world, the virgin wealth of her mineral resources and the cheapness of her labour have excited the cupidity of the Western capitalist, and it is daily more obvious that China must become the centre of international politics, therefore the extent to which she will affect the rest of the world should be a matter for careful consideration. India, it will be urged, has long been in contact with Europe, and the effect on Europe is small. Why should there be any difference when another Oriental race comes in close proximity with Europe? Putting on one side the fact that India has, both in trade and in politics, had a very great effect on England, it can be answered that there is an essential difference between the brown inhabitants of India and the yellow race. The former are, through religion or custom, unable to accommodate themselves to the conditions of Western civilisation; the latter have shown themselves such adepts at accepting Western life that they have excelled the white man, to his great annoyance, in his own civilisation. The Chinaman, who is forbidden to enter America, Australia, and South Africa, is refused admittance, not because he has been untried or because he has been tried and found wanting, but because he has been tried in the three continents and found by all who have tried him eminently efficient—so efficient that if he were allowed to continue in those countries, he would soon render the presence of the white settler unnecessary. He has been tried in three just balances and been found of such value that the white voter is unanimous in demanding his exclusion. But even the most aggressive Chinese exclusionist can scarcely hope to exclude him from his own country, and the Chinaman who stays at home is probably a better man than the Chinaman who goes abroad.
Western civilisation may be expected to grow with equal rapidity in China as it has in Japan. Obviously Japan is the precedent that China will follow rather than India, whether Hindu or Mohammedan.
A few years ago a man would have been classed as an eccentric who dared foretell that Russia would be defeated by Japan. When Japan talked about going to war with Russia, Russia laughed. Who can tell how we shall speak of China a few years hence? For Japan after all is only the same size in population as Great Britain, but China is eight times as large.
There are three ways in which China may affect Europe. Militarily, she may menace her by her enormous armies enlisted from her vast population. Commercially, she may afford an outlet for our trade far greater than we possess at the present time, and perhaps be a competitor in trade and a place where the capital of Europe will be invested. Morally, she may either depress or elevate our social morals. Perhaps the reader may be inclined to smile at the idea of China being in a higher moral condition than Europe, so as to be able to react on her beneficially, but stranger things have happened; and if Europe follows the example of France in deterioration, and China continues to advance with the same rapidity, China might easily excel Europe in morals.
Let us first deal with the question from the military point of view. The military authorities who know the Chinese seem to be equally divided in opinion; many are confident that they are an unwarlike race, others maintain and bring evidence to prove that under competent officers they have great military qualities.