Lothrop Stoddard, A.M., Ph.D. (Harvard)
THE RISING TIDE OF COLOR
AGAINST WHITE WORLD-SUPREMACY
(1922)
PART I - The
Rising Tide of Color
CHAPTER I:
THE WORLD OF COLOR
THE man who,
on a quiet spring evening of the year 1914, opened his atlas to a political map
of the world and pored over its many-tinted patterns probably got one
fundamental impression: the overwhelming preponderance of the white race in the
ordering of the world's affairs. Judged by accepted canons of statecraft, the
white man towered the indisputable master of the planet. Forth from Europe's
teeming mother hive the imperious Sons of Japhet had swarmed for centuries to
plant their laws, their customs, and their battle-flags at the uttermost ends
of the earth. Two whole continents, North America and Australia, had been made
virtually as white in blood as the European motherland; two other continents,
South America and Africa, had been extensively colonized by white stocks; while
even huge Asia had seen its empty northern march, Siberia, pre-empted for the
white man's abode. Even where white populations had not locked themselves to
the soil few regions of the earth had escaped the white man's imperial sway,
and vast areas inhabited by uncounted myriads of dusky folk obeyed the white
man's will.
Beside the
enormous area of white settlement or control, the regions under non-white
governance bulked small indeed. In eastern Asia, China, Japan, and Siam; in
western Asia, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Persia; in Africa, Abyssinia, and
Liberia; and in America the minute state of Haiti: such was the brief list of
lands under non-white rule. In other words, of the 53,000,000 square miles
which (excluding the polar regions) constitute the land area of the globe, only
6,000,000 square miles had non-white governments, and nearly two-thirds of this
relatively modest remainder was represented by China and its dependencies.
Since 1914
the world has been convulsed by the most terrible war in recorded history. This
war was primarily a struggle between the white peoples, who have borne the
brunt of the conflict and have suffered most of the losses. Nevertheless, one
of the war's results has been a further whittling down of the areas standing
outside white political control. Turkey is to-day practically an Anglo-French
condominium, Persia is virtually a protectorate of the British Empire, while
the United States has thrown over the endemic anarchy of Haiti the aegis of the
Pax Americana. Study of the political map might thus apparently lead one to
conclude that white world-predominance is immutable since the war's ordeal has
still further broadened the territorial basis of its authority.
At this
point the reader is perhaps asking himself why this book was ever undertaken.
The answer is: the dangerous delusion created by viewing world affairs solely
from the angle of politics, The late war has taught many lessons as to the
unstable and transitory character of even the most imposing political
phenomena, while a better reading of history must bring home the truth that the
basic factor in human affairs is not politics, but race. The reader has already
encountered this fundamental truth on every page of the Introduction. He will
remember, for instance, how west-central Asia, which in the dawn of history was
predominantly white man's country, is to-day racially brown man's land in which
white blood survives only as vestigial traces of vanishing significance. If
this portion of Asia, the former seat of mighty white empires and possibly the
very homeland of the white race itself, should have so entirely changed its
ethnic character, what assurance can the most impressive political panorama
give us that the present world-order may not swiftly and utterly pass away?
The force of
this query is exemplified when we turn from the political to the racial map of
the globe. What a transformation! Instead of a world politically nine-tenths
white, we see a world of which only four-tenths at the most can be considered
predominantly white in blood, the rest of the world being inhabited mainly by
the other primary races of mankind - yellows, browns, blacks, and reds.
Speaking by continents, Europe, North America to the Rio Grade, the southern
portion of South America, the Siberian part of Asia, and Australasia constitute
the real white world; while the bulk of Asia, virtually the whole of Africa,
and most of Central and South America form the world of color. The respective
areas of these two racially contrasted worlds are 22,000,000 square miles for
the whites and 31,000,000 square miles for the colored races. Furthermore it
must be remembered that fully one-third of the white area (notably Australasia
and Siberia) is very thinly inhabited and is thus held by a very slender racial
tenure-the only tenure which counts in the long run.
The statistical
disproportion between the white and colored worlds becomes still more marked
when we turn from surveys of area to tables of population. The total number of
human beings alive to-day is about 1,700,000,000. Of these 550,000,000 are
white, while 1,150,000,000 are colored. The colored races thus outnumber the
whites more than two to one. Another fact of capital importance is that the
great bulk of the white race is concentrated in the European continent. In 1914
the population of Europe was approximately 450,000,000. The late war has
undoubtedly caused an absolute decrease of many millions of souls.
Nevertheless, the basic fact remains that some four-fifths of the entire white
race is concentrated on less than one-fifth of the white world's territorial
area (Europe), while the remaining one-fifth of the race (some 110,000,000
souls), scattered to the ends of the earth, must protect four-fifths of the
white territorial heritage against the pressure of colored races eleven times
its numerical strength.
As to the
1,150,000,000 of the colored world, they are divided, as already stated, into
four primary categories: yellows, browns, blacks, and reds. The yellows are the
most numerous of the colored races, numbering over 500,000,000. Their habitat
is eastern Asia. Nearly as numerous and much more wide-spread than the yellows
are the browns, numbering some 450,000,000. The browns spread in a broad belt
from the Pacific Ocean westward across southern Asia and northern Africa to the
Atlantic Ocean. The blacks total about 150,000,000. Their centre is Africa
south of the Sahara Desert, but besides the African continent there are
vestigial black traces across southern Asia to the Pacific and also strong
black outposts in the Americas. Least numerous of the colored race-stocks are
the reds-the "Indians" of the western hemisphere. Mustering a total
of less than 40,000,000, the reds are almost all located south of the Rio
Grande in "Latin America."
Such is the
ethnic make-up of that world of color which, as already seen, outnumbers the
white world two to one. That is a formidable ratio, and its significance is
heightened by the fact that this ratio seems destined to shift still further in
favor of color. There can be no doubt that at present the colored races are increasing
very much faster than the white. Treating the primary race-stocks as units, it
would appear that whites tend to double in eighty years, yellows and browns in
sixty years, blacks in forty years. The whites are thus the slowest breeders,
and they will undoubtedly become slower still, since section after section of
the white race is revealing that lowered birth rate which in France has reached
the extreme of a stationary population.
On the other
hand, none of the colored races shows perceptible signs of declining
birth-rate, all tending to breed up to the limits of available subsistence.
Such checks as now limit the increase of colored populations are wholly
external, like famine, disease, and tribal warfare. But by a curious irony of
fate, the white man has long been busy removing these checks to colored
multiplication. The greater part of the colored world is to-day under white
political control. Wherever the white man goes he attempts to impose the bases
of his ordered civilization. He puts down tribal war, he wages truceless combat
against epidemic disease, and he so improves communications that augmented and
better distributed food-supplies minimize the blight of famine. In response to
these life-saving activities the enormous death-rate which in the past has kept
the colored races from excessive multiplication is falling to proportions
comparable with the death-rate of white countries. But to lower the colored
world's prodigious birth rate is quite another matter. The consequence is a
portentous increase of population in nearly every portion of the colored world
now under white political sway. In fact, even those colored countries which
have maintained their independence, such as China and Japan, are adopting the
white man's life-conserving methods and are experiencing the same accelerated
increase of population.
Now what
must be the inevitable result of all this? It can mean only one thing: a
tremendous and steadily augmenting outward thrust of surplus colored men from
overcrowded colored homelands. Remember that these homelands are already
populated up to the available limits of subsistence. Of course present limits
can in many cases be pushed back by better living conditions, improved
agriculture, and the rise of modern machine industry such as is already under
way in Japan. Nevertheless, in view of the tremendous population increases
which must occur, these can be only palliatives. Where, then, should the
congested colored world tend to pour its accumulating human surplus, inexorably
condemned to emigrate or starve? The answer is: into those emptier regions of
the earth under white political control. But many of those relatively empty
lands have been definitely set aside by the white man as his own special
heritage. The upshot is that the rising flood of color finds itself walled in
by white dikes debarring it from many a promised land which it would fain
deluge with its dusky waves.
Thus the
colored world, long restive under white political domination, is being welded
by the most fundamental of instincts, the instinct of self-preservation, into a
common solidarity of feeling against the dominant white man, and in the fire of
a common purpose internecine differences tend, for the time at least, to be
burned away. Before the supreme fact of white political world-domination,
antipathies within the colored world must inevitably recede into the
background.
The
imperious urge of the colored world toward racial expansion was well visualized
by that keen English student of world affairs, Doctor E. J. Dillon, when he
wrote more than a decade ago: "The problem is one of life and death-a
veritable sphinx-question- to those most nearly concerned. For, no race,
however inferior it may be, will consent to famish slowly in order that other
people may fatten and take their ease, especially if it has a good chance to
make a fight for life." (E. J. Dillon, "The Asiatic Problem,"
Contemporary Review, February, 1908.)
This white
statement of the colored thesis is an accurate reflection of what colored men
say themselves. For example, a Japanese scholar, Professor Ryutaro Nagai,
writes: "The world was not made for the white races, but for the other
races as well. In Australia, South Africa, Canada, and the United States, there
are vast tracts of unoccupied territory awaiting settlement, and although the
citizens of the ruling Powers refuse to take up the land, no yellow people are
permitted to enter. Thus the white races seem ready to commit to the savage
birds and beasts what they refuse to intrust to their brethren of the yellow
race. Surely the arrogance and avarice of the nobility in apportioning to
themselves the most and the best of the land in certain countries is as nothing
compared with the attitude of the white races toward those of a different
hue." (Ryutaro Nagai in The Japan Magazine. Quoted from The American
Review of Reviews, July, 1913, p. 107.)
The bitter
resentment of white predominance and exclusiveness awakened in many colored
breasts is typified by the following lines penned by a brown man a British-educated
Afghan, shortly before the European War. Inveighing against our "racial
prejudice, that cowardly, wretched caste-mark of the European and the American
the world over," he exultantly predicts "a coming struggle between
Asia, all Asia, against Europe and America. You are heaping up material for a
Jehad, a Pan-Islam, a Pan-Asia Holy War, a gigantic day of reckoning, an
invasion of a new Attila and Tamerlane who will use rifles and bullets, instead
of lances and spears. You are deaf to the voice of reason and fairness, and so
you must be taught with the whirring swish of the sword when it is red."
(Achmet Abdullah, "Seen Through Mohammedan Spectacles," Forum,
October, 1914.)
Of course in
these statements there is nothing either exceptional or novel. The colored
races never welcomed white predominance and were always restive under white
control. Down to the close of the nineteenth century, however, they generally
accepted white hegemony as a disagreeable but inevitable fact. For four hundred
years the white man had added continent to continent in his imperial progress,
equipped with resistless sea-power and armed with a mechanical superiority that
crushed down all local efforts at resistance. In time, therefore, the colored
races accorded to white supremacy a fatalistic acquiescence, and, though never
loved, the white man was usually respected and universally feared.
During the
closing decades of the nineteenth century, to be sure, premonitory signs of a
change in attitude began to appear. The yellow and brown races, at least,
stirred by the very impact of Western ideas, measured the white man with a more
critical eye and commenced to wonder whether his superiority was due to
anything more than a fortuitous combination of circumstances which might be altered
by efforts of their own. Japan put this theory to the test by going sedulously
to the white man's school. The upshot was the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, an
event the momentous character of which is even now not fully appreciated. Of
course, that war was merely the sign-manual of a whole nexus of forces making
for a revivified Asia. But it dramatized and clarified ideas which had been
germinating half-unconsciously in millions of colored minds, and both Asia and
Africa thrilled with joy and hope. Above all, the legend of white invincibility
lay, a fallen idol, in the dust. Nevertheless, though freed from imaginary
terrors, the colored world accurately gauged the white man's practical strength
and appreciated the magnitude of the task involved in overthrowing white
supremacy. That supremacy was no longer acquiesced in as inevitable and hopes
of ultimate success were confidently entertained, but the process was usually
conceived as a slow and difficult one. Fear of white power and respect for
white civilization thus remained potent restraining factors.
Then came
the Great War. The colored world suddenly saw the white peoples which, in
racial matters had hitherto maintained something of a united front, locked in
an internecine death-grapple of unparalleled ferocity; it saw those same
peoples put one another furiously to the ban as irreconcilable foes; it saw
white race-unity cleft by political and moral gulfs which white men themselves
continuously iterated would never be filled. As colored men realized the
significance of it all, they looked into each other's eyes and there saw the
light of undreamed-of hopes. The white world was tearing itself to pieces.
White solidarity was riven and shattered. And fear of white power and respect
for white civilization together dropped away like garments outworn. Through the
bazaars of Asia ran the sibilant whisper: "The East will see the West to
bed! "
The chorus
of mingled exultation, hate, and scorn sounded from every portion of the
colored world. Chinese scholars, Japanese professors, Hindu pundits, Turkish
journalists, and Afro-American editors, one and all voiced drastic criticisms
of white civilization and hailed the war as a well-merited Nemesis on white
arrogance and greed. This is how the Constantinople Tanine, the most serious
Turkish newspaper, characterized the European Powers: "They would not look
at the evils in their own countries or elsewhere, but interfered at the
slightest incident in our borders; every day they would gnaw at some part of
our rights and our sovereignty; they would perform vivisection on our quivering
flesh and cut off great pieces of it. And we, with a forcibly controlled spirit
of rebellion in our hearts and with clinched but powerless fists, silent and
depressed, would murmur as the fire burned within: 'Oh, that they might fall
out with one another! Oh, that they might eat one another up!' And lo! to-day
they are eating each other up, just as the Turk wished they would."
(Quoted from The Literary Digest, October 24, 1914, p. 784.)
The
Afro-American author, W. E. Burghardt Dubois, wrote of the colored world:
"These nations and races, composing as they do a vast majority of
humanity, are going to endure this treatment just as long as they must and not
a moment longer. Then they are going to fight, and the War of the Color Line
will outdo in savage inhumanity any war this world has yet seen. For colored
folk have much to remember and they will not forget." (W. E. Burghardt
Dubois `'The African Roots of War," Atlantic Monthly, May, 1915.)
"What
does the European War mean to us Orientals?" queried the Japanese writer,
Yone Noguchi "It means the saddest downfall of the so-called western
civilization, our belief that it was builded upon a higher and sounder footing
than ours was at once knocked down and killed; we are sorry that we somehow
overestimated its happy possibility and were deceived and cheated by its
superficial glory. My recent western journey confirmed me that the so-called
dynamic western civilization was all against the Asiatic belief. And when one
does not respect the others, there will be only one thing to come, that is,
fight, in action or silence." (Yone Noguchi, "The Downfall of Western
Civilization," The Nation (New York), October 8, 1914.)
Such was the
colored world's reaction to the white death-grapple, and as the long struggle
dragged on both Asia and Africa stirred to their very depths. To be sure, no
great explosions occurred during the war years, albeit lifting veils of
censorship reveal how narrowly such explosions were averted. Nevertheless, Asia
and Africa are to-day in acute ferment, and we must not forget that this
ferment is not primarily due to the war. The war merely accelerated a movement
already existent long before 1914. Even if the Great War had been averted, the
twentieth century must have been a time of wide-spread racial readjustments in
which the white man's present position of political world-domination would have
been sensibly modified, especially in Asia. However, had the white race and
white civilization been spared the terrific material and moral losses involved
in the Great War and its still unliquidated aftermath, the process of racial
readjustment would have been far more gradual and would have been fraught with
far fewer cataclysmic possibilities. Had white strength remained intact it
would have acted as a powerful shock-absorber, taking up and distributing the
various colored impacts. As a result, the coming modification of the world's
racial equilibrium, though inevitable, would have been so graduated that it
would have seemed more an evolution than a revolution. Such violent breaches as
did occur might have been localized, and anything like a general race-cataclysm
would probably have been impossible.
But it was
not to be. The heart of the white world was divided against itself, and on the
fateful 1st of August, 1914, the white race, forgetting ties of blood and
culture, heedless of the growing pressure of the colored world without, locked
in a battle to the death. An ominous cycle opened whose end no man can foresee.
- Armageddon engendered Versailles; earth's worst war closed with an
unconstructive peace which left old sores unhealed and even dealt fresh wounds.
The white world to-day lies debilitated and uncured; the colored world views conditions
which are a standing incitement to rash dreams and violent action.
Such is the
present status of the world's race-problem, expressed in general terms. The
analysis of the specific elements in that complex problem will form the subject
of the succeeding chapters.
CHAPTER II:
YELLOW MAN'S LAND
YELLOW MAN'S
LAND is the Far East. Here the group of kindred stocks usually termed Mongolian
have dwelt for unnumbered ages. Down to the most recent times the yellows lived
virtually a life apart. Sundered from the rest of mankind by stupendous
mountains, burning deserts, and the illimitable ocean, the Far East constituted
a world in itself, living its own life and developing its own peculiar
civilization. Only the wild nomads of its northern marches-Huns, Mongols,
Tartars, and the like-succeeded in gaining direct contact with the brown and
white worlds to the West.
The ethnic
focus of the yellow world has always been China. Since the dawn of history this
immense human ganglion has been the centre from which civilization has radiated
throughout the Far East. About this "Middle Kingdom," as it sapiently
styled itself, the other yellow folk were disposed-Japanese and Koreans to the
east; Siamese, Annamites, and Cambodians to the south; and to the north the nomad
Mongols and Manchus. To all these peoples China was the august preceptor,
sometimes chastising their presumption, yet always instilling the principles of
its ordered civilization. However diverse may have been the individual
developments of the various Far Eastern peoples, they spring from a common
Chinese foundation. Despite modern Japan's meteoric rise to political mastery
of the Far East, it must not be forgotten that China remains not only the
cultural but also the territorial and racial centre of the yellow world.
Four-fifths of the yellow race is concentrated in China, there being nearly
400,000,000 Chinese as against 60,000,000 Japanese, 16,000,000 Koreans,
26,000,000 Indo-Chinese, and perhaps 10,000,000 people of non-Chinese stocks
included within China's political frontiers.
The age-long
seclusion of the yellow world, first decreed by nature, was subsequently
maintained by the voluntary decision of the yellow peoples themselves. The
great expansive movement of the white race which began four centuries ago soon
brought white men to the Far East, by sea in the persons of the Portuguese
navigators and by land with the Cossack adventurers ranging through the empty
spaces of Siberia. Yet after a brief acquaintance with the white strangers the
yellow world decided that it wanted none of them, and they were rigidly
excluded. This exclusion policy was not a Chinese peculiarity; it was common to
all the yellow peoples and was adopted spontaneously at about the same time. In
China, Japan, Korea, and Indo-China, the same reaction produced the same
results. The yellow world instinctively felt the white man to be a destructive,
dissolving influence on its highly specialized line of evolution, which it
wished to maintain unaltered. For three centuries the yellow world succeeded in
maintaining its isolation, then, in the middle of the last century, insistent
white pressure broke down the barriers and forced the yellow races into full
contact with the outer world.
At the
moment, the "opening" of the Far East was hailed by white men with
general approval, but of late years many white observers have regretted this
forcible dragging of reluctant races into the full stream of world affairs. As
an Australian writer, J. Liddell Kelly, remarks: "We have erred grievously
by prematurely forcing ourselves upon Asiatic races. The instinct of the
Asiatic in desiring isolation and separation from other forms of civilization
was much more correct than our craze for imposing our forms of religion,
morals, and industrialism upon them. It is not race-hatred, nor even
race-antagonism, that is at the root of this attitude; it is an unerring
intuition, which in years gone by has taught the Asiatic that his evolution in
the scale of civilization could best be accomplished by his being allowed to
develop on his own lines. Pernicious European compulsion has led him to abandon
that attitude. Let us not be ashamed to confess that he was right and we were
wrong." (J. Liddell Kelly, "What is the Matter with the
Asiatic?" Westminister Review, September, 1910.)
However,
rightly or wrongly, the deed was done, and the yellow races, forced into the
world-arena, proceeded to adapt themselves to their new political environment
and to learn the correct methods of survival under the strenuous conditions
which there prevailed. In place of their traditional equilibrated,
self-sufficient order, the yellow peoples now felt the ubiquitous impacts of
the dynamic Western spirit, insistent upon rapid material progress and
forceful, expansive evolution. Japan was the first yellow people to go
methodically to the white man's school, and Japan's rapid acquirement of the
white man's technology soon showed itself in dramatic demonstrations like her
military triumphs over China in 1894, and over Russia a decade later.
Japan's easy
victory over huge China astounded the whole world. That those "highly
intelligent children," as one of the early British ministers to Japan had
characterized them, should have so rapidly acquired the technique of Western
methods was almost unbelievable. Indeed, the full significance of the lesson
was not immediately grasped, and the power of New Japan was still
underestimated. A good example of Europe's underestimation of Japanese strength
was the proposal a Dutch writer made in 1896 to curb possible Japanese
aggression on the Dutch Indies by taking from Japan the island of Formosa which
Japan had acquired from China as one of the fruits of victory.
"Holland," asserted this writer, "must take possession of
Formosa." (Professor Schlegel in the Hague Dagblad. Quoted from The
Literary Digest., November 7, 1896, p. 24.) The grotesqueness of this dictum as
it appears to us in the light of subsequent history shows how the world has
moved in twenty-five years.
But even at
that time Japan's expansionist tendencies were well developed, and voices were
warning against Japanese imperialism. In the very month when our Hollander was
advocating a Dutch seizure of Formosa, an Australian wrote the following lines
in a Melbourne newspaper concerning his recent travels in Japan: "While in
a car with several Japanese officers, they were conversing about Australia,
saying that it was a fine, large country, with great forests and excellent soil
for the cultivation of rice and other products. The whites settled in
Australia, so thought these officers, are like the dog in the manger. Some one
will have to take a good part of Australia to develop it, for it is a pity to
see so fine a country lying waste. If any ill-feeling arose between the two
countries, it would be a wise thing to send some battleships to Australia and
annex part of it." (Audley Coote in the Melbourne Argus. Quoted from The
Literary Digest, November 7, 1896, p. 24.)
Whatever may
have been the world's misreading of the Chino-Japanese conflict, the same
cannot be said of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904. The echoes of that yellow
triumph over one of the great white Powers reverberated to the ends of the
earth and started obscure trains of consequences even to-day not yet fully
disclosed. The war's reactions in these remoter fields will be discussed in
later chapters. Its effect upon the Far East is our present concern. And the
well-nigh unanimous opinion of both natives and resident Europeans was that the
war signified a body-blow to white ascendancy. So profound an English student
of the Orient as Meredith Townsend wrote: "It may be taken as certain that
the victory of Japan will be profoundly felt by the majority of European
states. With the exception of Austria, all European countries have implicated
themselves in the great effort to conquer Asia, which has now been going on for
two centuries, but which, as this author thinks must now terminate.... The
disposition, therefore, to edge out intrusive Europeans from their Asiatic
possessions is certain to exist even if it is not manifested in Tokyo and it
may be fostered by a movement of which, as yet, but little has been said. No
one who has ever studied the question doubts that as there is a comity of
Europe, so there is a comity of Asia, a disposition to believe that Asia
belongs of right to Asiatics, and that any event which brings that right nearer
to realization is to all Asiatics a pleasurable one. Japanese victories will
give new heart and energy to all the Asiatic nations and tribes which now fret under
European rule, will inspire in them a new confidence in their own power to
resist, and will spread through them a strong impulse to avail themselves of
Japanese instruction. It will take, of course, many years to bring this new
force into play; but time matters nothing to Asiatics, and they all possess
that capacity for complete secrecy which the Japanese displayed."
[Meredith Townsend, Asia and Europe (fourth edition, 1911). From the preface to
the fourth edition pages xvii-xix.]
That
Meredith Townsend was reading the Asiatic mind aright seems clear from the
pronouncements of Orientals themselves. For example, BUDDHISM, of Rangoon,
Burma, a country of the Indo-Chinese borderland between the yellow and brown
worlds, expressed hopes for an Oriental alliance against the whites. "It
would, we think," said this paper, "be no great wonder if a few years
after the conclusion of this war saw the completion of a defensive alliance
between Japan, China, and not impossibly Siam-the formulation of a new Monroe Doctrine
for the Far East, guaranteeing the integrity of existing states against further
aggression from the West. The West has justified-perhaps with some reason -
every aggression on weaker races by the doctrine of the Survival of the
Fittest; on the ground that it is best for future humanity that the unfit
should be eliminated and give place to the most able race. That doctrine
applies equally well to any possible struggle between Aryan and
Mongolian-whichever survives, should it ever come to a struggle between the two
for world-mastery, will, on their own doctrine, be the one most fit to do so,
and if the survivor be the Mongolian, then is the Mongolian no 'peril' to
humanity, but the better part of it." (Quoted from The American Review of
Reviews, February, 1905, p. 219.)
The decade
which elapsed between the Russo-Japanese and European Wars saw in the Far East
another event of the first magnitude: the Chinese Revolution of 1911. Toward
the close of the nineteenth century the world had been earnestly discussing the
" break-up " of China. The huge empire, with its 400,000,000 of
people, one-fourth the entire human race, seemed at that time plunged in so
hopeless a lethargy as to be foredoomed to speedy ruin. About the apparently
moribund carcass the eagles of the earth were already gathered, planning a
"partition of China" analogous to the recent partition of Africa. The
partition of China, however, never came off. The prodigious moral shock of the
Japanese War roused China's lite to the imminence of their country's peril.
First attempts at reform wore blocked by the Dowager Empress, but her
reactionary lurch ended in the Boxer nightmare and the frightful Occidental
chastisement of 1900. This time the lesson was learned. China was at last
shaken broad awake. The Bourbon Manchu court, it is true, wavered, but popular
pressure forced it to keep the upward path. Every year after 1900 saw
increasingly rapid reform - reform, be it noted, not imposed upon the country
from above but forced upon the rulers from below. When the slow-footed Manchus
showed themselves congenitally incapable of keeping step with the quickening
national pace, the rising tide of national life overwhelmed them in the
Republican Revolution of 1911, and they were no more.
Even with
the Manchu handicap, the rate of progress during those years was such as to
amaze the wisest foreign observers. "Could the sage, Confucius, have
returned a decade ago," wrote that "old China hand," W. R.
Manning, in 1910, "he would have felt almost as much at home as when he
departed twenty-five centuries before. Should he return a decade hence he will
feel almost as much out of place as Rip Van Winkle if the recent rate of
progress continues." (W. R. Manning, "China and the Powers since the
Boxer Movement," American Journal of International Law, October, 1910.)
Toward the close of 1909 a close student of things Chinese, Harlan P. Beach,
remarked: "Those who, like myself, can compare the China of twenty-five
years ago with the China of this year, can hardly believe our senses."
(Quoted by Manning, supra.) It was on top of all this that there came the
revolution, a happening hailed by so sophisticated an observer as Doctor Dillon
as "the most momentous event in a thousand years." (E. J. Dillon,
"The Most Momentous Event in a Thousand Years," Contemporary Review,
December, 1911.) Whatever may have been the political blunders of the
revolutionists (and they were many), the revolution's moral results wore
stupendous. The stream of Western innovation flowed at a vastly accelerated
pace into every Chinese province. The popular masses wore for the first time
awakened to genuine interest in political, as distinguished from economic or
personal, questions. Lastly, the semi-religlous feeling of family kinship,
which in the past had been almost the sole recognized bond of Chinese race
solidarity, was powerfully supplemented by those distinctively modern concepts,
national self-consciousness and articulate patriotism.
Here was the
Far Eastern situation at the outbreak of the Great War - a thoroughly
modernized, powerful Japan, and a thoroughly aroused, but still disorganized,
China. The Great War automatically made Japan supreme in the Far East by
temporarily reducing all the European Powers to ciphers in Oriental affairs.
How Japan proceeded to buttress this supremacy by getting a strangle-hold on
China, every one knows. Japan's methods were brutal and cynical, though not a
whit more so than the methods employed by white nations seeking to attain vital
ends. And "vital" is precisely how Japan regards her hold over China.
An essentially poor country with a teeming population, Japan feels that the
exploitation of China's incalculable natural resources, a privileged position
in the Chinese market, and guidance of Chinese national evolution in ways not
inimical to Japan, can alone assure her future.
Japan's
attitude toward her huge neighbor is one of mingled superiority and
apprehension. She banks on China's traditional pacifism, yet she is too shrewd
not to realize the explosive possibilities latent in the modern nationalist
idea. As a Japanese publicist, Adachi Kinnosuke, remarks: "The Twentieth
Century Jenghiz Khan threatening the Sun-Flag with a Mongol horde armed with
Krupp guns may possibly strike the Western sense of humor. But it is not
altogether pleasing to contemplate a neighbor of 400,000,000 population with
modern armament and soldiers trained on the modern plan. The awakening of China
means all this and a little more which we of the present are not sure of. Japan
cannot forget that between this nightmare of armed China and herself there is
only a very narrow sea." (Adachi Kinnosuke, "Does Japanese Trade
Endanger the Peace of Asia? World's Work, April, 1909.) Certainly, "Young
China" has already displayed much of that unpleasant ebullience which
usually accompanies nationalist awakenings. A French observer, Jean Rodes,
writes on this point: "One of the things that most disquiet thinking men
is that this new generation, completely neglecting Chinese studies while
knowing nothing of Western science, yet convinced that it knows everything,
will no longer possess any standard of values, national culture, or foreign
culture. We can only await with apprehension the results of such ignorance
united with unbounded pride as characterize the Chinese youth of to-day."
(Jean Rodes in L'Asie Francaise, June, 1911.)
And another
French observer, Rene Pinon, as far back as 1905, found the primary school
children of Kiang-Su province chanting the following lines: "I pray that
the frontiers of my country become hard as bronze; that it surpass Europe and
America; that it subjugate Japan; that its land and sea armies cover themselves
with resplendent glory: that over the whole earth float the Dragon Standard;
that the universal mastery of the empire extend and progress. May our empire,
like a sleeping tiger suddenly awakened, spring roaring into the arena of
combats." [Rene Pinon, La Lutte pour le Pacifique" p. 152 (Paris,
1906)]
Japan's
masterful policy in China is thus unquestionably hazardous. Chinese national
feeling is today genuinely aroused against Japan, and resentment over Japanese
encroachments is bitter and wide-spread. Nevertheless, Japan feels that the
game is worth the risk and believes that both Chinese race-psychology and the
general drift of world affairs combine to favor her ultimate success. She knows
that China has in the past always acquiesced in foreign domination when
resistance has proved patently impossible. She also feels that her aspirations
for white expulsion from the Far East and for the winning of wider spheres for
racial expansion should appeal strongly to yellow peoples generally and to the
Chinese in particular. To turn China's nascent nationalism into purely
anti-white channels and to transmute Chinese patriotism into a wider
"Pan-Mongolism" would constitute a Japanese triumph of incalculable
splendor. It would increase her effective force manyfold and would open up
almost limitless vistas of power and glory.
Nor are the
Chinese themselves blind to the advantages of Chino-Japanese co-operation. They
have an instinctive assurance in their own capacities, they know how they have
ultimately digested all their conquerors, and many Chinese to-day think that
from a Chino-Japanese partnership, no matter how framed, the inscrutable
"Sons of Han" would eventually get the lion's share. Certainly no one
has ever denied the Chinaman's extraordinary economic efficiency. Winnowed by
ages of grim elimination in a land populated to the uttermost limits of
subsistence, the Chinese race is selected as no other for survival under the
fiercest conditions of economic stress. At home the average Chinese lives his
whole life literally within a hand's breadth of starvation. Accordingly, when
removed to the easier environment of other lands, the Chinaman brings with him
a working capacity which simply appalls his competitors. That urbane Celestial,
Doctor Wu-Ting-Fang, well says of his own people: "Experience proves that
the Chinese as all-round laborers can easily outdistance all competitors. They
are industrious, intelligent, and orderly. They can work under conditions that
would kill a man of less hardy race; in heat that would kill a salamander, or
in cold that would please a polar bear, sustaining their energies, through long
hours of unremitting toil with only a few bowls of rice." (Quoted by
Alleyne Ireland, "Commercial Aspects of the Yellow Peril," North
American Review, September, 1900.)
This Chinese
estimate is echoed by the most competent foreign observers. The Australian
thinker, Charles E. Pearson, wrote of the Chinese a generation ago in his
epoch-making book, "National Life and Character": "Flexible as
Jews, they can thrive on the mountain plateaux of Thibet and under the sun of
Singapore; more versatile even than Jews, they are excellent laborers, and not
without merit as soldiers and sailors; while they have a capacity for trade
which no other nation of the East possesses. They do not need even the accident
of a man of genius to develop their magnificent future." [Charles H. Pearson,
National Life and Character, p. 118 (2nd edition)]
And Lafcadio
Hearn says: "A people of hundreds of millions disciplined for thousands of
years to the most untiring industry and the most self-denying thrift, under
conditions which would mean worse than death for our working masses -- a
people, in short, quite content to strive to the uttermost in exchange for the
simple privilege of life." (Quoted by Ireland, supra.)
This
economic superiority of the Chinaman shows not only with other races, but with
his yellow kindred as well. As regards the Japanese, John Chinaman has proved
it to the hilt. Wherever the two have met in economic competition, John has won
hands down. Even in Japanese colonies like Korea and Formosa, the Japanese,
with all the backing of their government behind them, have been worsted. In
fact, Japan itself, so bitter at white refusals to receive her emigrants, has
been obliged to enact drastic exclusion laws to protect her working classes
from the influx of "Chinese cheap labor." It seems, therefore, a just
calculation when Chinese estimate that Japanese triumphs against white
adversaries would inure largely to China's benefit. After all, Chinese and
Japanese are fundamentally of the same race and culture. They may have their
very bitter family quarrels, but in the last analysis they understand each
other and may arrive at surprisingly sudden agreements. One thing is certain:
both these over-populated lands will feel increasingly the imperious need of
racial expansion. For all these reasons, then, the present political tension
between China and Japan cannot be reckoned as permanent, and we would do well
to envisage the possibility of close Chinese co-operation in the ambitious
programme of Japanese foreign policy.
This
Japanese programme looks first to the prevention of all further white
encroachment in the Far East by the establishment of a Far Eastern Monroe
Doctrine based on Japanese predominance and backed if possible by the moral
support of the other Far Eastern peoples. The next stage in Japanese foreign
policy seems to be the systematic elimination of all existing white holdings in
the Far East. Thus far practically all Japanese appear to be in substantial
agreement. Beyond this point lies a wide realm of aspiration ranging from
determination to secure complete racial equality and freedom of immigration
into white lands to imperialistic dreams of wholesale conquests and
"world-dominion." These last items do not represent the united
aspiration of the Japanese nation, but they are cherished by powerful circles
which, owing to Japan's oligarchical system of government, possess an influence
over governmental action quite disproportionate to their numbers.
Although
Japanese plans and aspirations have broadened notably since 1914, their
outlines were well defined a decade earlier. Immediately after her victory over
Russia, Japan set herself to strengthen her influence all over eastern Asia.
Special efforts were made to establish intimate relations with the other
Asiatic peoples. Asiatic students were invited to attend Japanese universities
and as a matter of fact did attend by the thousand, while a whole series of
societies was formed having for their object the knitting of close cultural and
economic ties between Japan and specific regions like China, Siam, the Pacific,
and even India. The capstone was a " Pan-Asiatic Association,"
founded by Count Okuma. Some of the facts regarding these societies, about
which too little is known, make interesting reading. For instance, there was
the "Pacific Ocean Society" ("Taheijoka"), whose preamble
reads in part: "For a century the Pacific Ocean has been a battle-ground
wherein the nations have straggled for supremacy. To-day the prosperity or
decadence of a nation depends on its power in the Pacific: to possess the
empire of the Pacific is to be the Master of the World. As Japan finds itself
at the centre of that Ocean, whose waves bathe its shores, it must reflect
carefully and have clear views on Pacific questions." (Quoted by
Scie-Ton-Fa, "La Chine et le Japon," Revue Politique Internationale,
September, 1915.)
Equally
interesting is the "Indo-Japanese Association," whose activities
appear somewhat peculiar in view of the political alliance between Japan and
the British Empire. One of the first articles of its constitution (from Count
Okuma's pen, by the way) reads: "All men wore born equal. The Asiatics
have the same claim to be called men as the Europeans themselves. It is
therefore quite unreasonable that the latter should have any right to predominate
over the former." (The Literary Digest, March 6, 1910, p. 429.) No mention
is made anywhere in the document of India's political connection with England.
In fact, Count Okuma, in the autumn of 1907, had this to say regarding India:
"Being oppressed by the Europeans, the 300,000,000 people of India are
looking for Japanese protection. They have commenced to boycott European
merchandise. If, therefore, the Japanese let the chance slip by and do not go
to India, the Indians will be disappointed. From old times, India has been a
land of treasure. Alexander the Great obtained there treasure sufficient to
load a hundred camels, and Mahmoud and Attila also obtained riches from India.
Why should not the Japanese stretch out their hands toward that country, now
that the people are looking to the Japanese? The Japanese ought to go to India,
the South Ocean, and other parts of the world." (The Literary Digest,
January 18, 1908, p. 81.)
In 1910,
Putnam Weale, a competent English student of Oriental affairs asserted:
"It can no longer be doubted that a very deliberate policy is certainly
being quietly and cleverly pursued. Despite all denials, it is a fact that
Japan has already a great hold in the schools and in the vernacular newspapers
all over eastern Asia, and that the gospel of 'Asia for the Asiatics' is being
steadily preached not only by her schoolmasters and her editors, but by her
merchants and peddlers, and every other man who travels." [B. L. Putnam
Weale, The Conflict of Color, pp. 145-6 (New York, 1910)]
Exactly how
much these Japanese propagandist efforts accomplished is impossible to say.
Certain it is, however, that during the years just previous to the Great War
the white colonies in the Far East were afflicted with considerable native
unrest. In French Indo-China, for example, revolutionary movements during the
year 1908 necessitated reinforcing the French garrison by nearly 10,000 men,
and though the disturbances were sternly repressed, fresh conspiracies were
discovered in 1911 and 1913. Much sedition and some sharp fighting also took
place in the Dutch Indies, while in the Philippines the independence movement
continued to gain ground.
What the
growing self-consciousness of the Far East portended for the white man's
ultimate status in those regions was indicated by an English publicist, J. D.
Whelpley, who wrote, shortly after the outbreak of the European War: "With
the aid of Western ideas the Far East is fast attaining a solidarity impossible
under purely Oriental methods. The smug satisfaction expressed in the West at
what is called the 'modernization' of the East shows lack of wisdom or an
ineffective grasp of the meaning of comparatively recent events in Japan,
China, eastern Siberia, and even in the Philippines. In years past the solidarity
of the Far East was largely in point of view, while in other matters the
powerful nations of the West played the game according to their own rules.
To-day the solidarity of mental outlook still maintains, while in addition
there is rapidly coming about a solidarity of political and material interests
which in time will reduce Western participation in Far Eastern affairs to that
of a comparatively unimportant factor. It might truly be said that this point
is already reached, and that it only needs an application of the test to prove
to the world that the Far East would resent Western interference as an
intolerable impertinence." (J. D. Whelpley, "East and West: A New
Line of Cleavage," Fortnightly Review, May, 1915.)
The scope of
Japan's aspirations, together with differences of outlook between various
sections of Japanese public opinion as to the rate of progress feasible for
Japanese expansion, account for Japan's differing attitudes toward the white
Powers. Officially, the keystone of Japan's foreign policy since the beginning
of the present century has been the alliance with England, first negotiated in
1902 and renewed with extensive modifications in 1911. The 1902 alliance was
universally popular in Japan. It was directed specifically against Russia and
represented the common apprehensions of both the contracting parties. By 1911,
however, the situation had radically altered. Japan's aspirations in the Far
East, particularly as regards China, were arousing wide-spread uneasiness in
many quarters, and the English communities in the Far East generally condemned
the new alliance as a gross blunder of British diplomacy. In Japan also there
was considerable protest. The official organs, to be sure, stressed the
necessity of friendship with the Mistress of the Seas for an island empire like
Japan, but opposition circles pointed to England's practical refusal to be
drawn into a war with the United States under any circumstances which
constituted the outstanding feature of the new treaty and declared that Japan
was giving much and receiving nothing in return.
The growing
divergence between Japanese and English views regarding China increased
anti-English feeling, and in 1912 the semi-official Japan Magazine asserted
roundly that the general feeling in Japan was that the alliance was a detriment
rather than a benefit going on to forecast a possible alignment with Russia and
Germany, and remarking of the latter: "Germany's healthy imperialism and
scientific development would have a wholesome effect upon our nation and
progress, while the German habit of perseverance and frugality is just what we
need. German wealth and industry are gradually creeping upward to that of Great
Britain and America, and the efficiency of the German army and navy is a model
for the world. Her lease of the territory of Kiaochow Bay brings her into
contact with us, and her ambition to exploit the coal-mines of Shantung lends
her a community of interest with us. It is not too much to say that German
interests in China are greater than those of any other European Power. If the
alliance with England should ever be abrogated, we might be very glad to shake
hands with Germany." (The Literary Digest, July 6, 1912, p. 9.)
The outbreak
of the European War gave Japan a golden opportunity (of which she was not slow
to take advantage) to eliminate one of the white Powers from the Far East. The
German stronghold of Kiaochow was promptly reduced, while Germany's possessions
in the Pacific Ocean north of the equator, the Caroline, Pelew, Marianne, and
Marshall island-groups, wore likewise occupied by Japanese forces. Here Japan
stopped and politely declined all proposals to send armies to Europe or western
Asia. Her sphere was the Far East; her real objectives were the reduction of
white influence there and the riveting of her control over China. Japanese
comment was perfectly candid on these matters. As the semi-official Japanese
Colonial Journal put it in the autumn of 1914: "To protect Chinese
territory, Japan is ready to fight no matter what nation. Not only will Japan
try to erase the ambitions of Russia and Germany; it will also do its best to
prevent England and the United States from touching the Chinese cake. The
solution of the Chinese problem is of great importance for Japan, and Great Britain
has little to do with it." (Quoted by Scie-Ton-Fa, supra.)
Equally
frank were Japanese warnings to the English ally not to oppose Japan's progress
in China. English criticism of the series of ultimatums by which Japan forced
reluctant China to do her bidding roused angry admonitions like the following
from the Tokio Universe in April, 1915: "Hostile English opinion seems to
want to oppose Japanese demands in China. The English forget that Japan has, by
her alliance, rendered them signal services against Russia in 1905 and in the
present war by assuring security in their colonies of the Pacific and the Far
East. If Japan allied herself with England, it was with the object of
establishing Japanese preponderance in China and against the encroachments of Russia.
To-day the English seem to be neglecting their obligations toward Japan by not
supporting her cause. Let England beware! Japan will tolerate no wavering; she
is quite ready to abandon the Anglo-Japanese alliance and turn to Russia-a
Power with whom she can agree perfectly regarding Far Eastern interests. In the
future, even, she is ready to draw closer to Germany. The English colonies will
then be in great peril." (Quoted by Scie-Ton-Fa, supra.)
As to the
imminence of a Russo-Japanese understanding, the journal just quoted proved a
true prophet, for a year later, in July, 1916, the Japanese and Russian
Governments signed a diplomatic instrument which amounted practically to an
alliance. By this document Russia recognized Japan's paramountcy over the bulk
of China, while Japan recognized Russia's special interests in China's Western
dependencies, Mongolia and Turkestan. Japan had thus eliminated another of the
white Powers from the Far East, since Russia renounced those ambitions to
dominate China proper which had provoked the war of 1904.
Meanwhile
the press campaign against England continued. A typical sample is this
editorial from the Tokio Yamato: "Great Britain never wished at heart to
become Japan's ally. She did not wish to enter into such intimate relations
with us, for she privately regarded us as an upstart nation radically different
from us in blood and religion. It was simply the force of circumstances which
compelled her to enter into an alliance with us. It is the height of conceit on
our part to think that England really cared for our friendship, for she never
did. It was the Russian menace to India and Persia on the one hand, and the
German ascendancy on the other, which compelled her to clasp our hands."
(The Literary Digest, February 12, 1916, pp. 369-70.)
At the same
time many good things were being said about Germany. At no time during the war
was any real hostility to the Germans apparent in Japan. Germany was of course
expelled from her Far Eastern footholds in smart, workmanlike fashion, but the
fighting before Kiaochow was conducted without a trace of hatred, the German
prisoners were treated as honored captives, and German civilians in Japan
suffered no molestation. Japanese writers were very frank in stating that, once
Germany resigned herself to exclusion from the Far East and acquiesced in
Japanese predominance in China, no reason existed why Japan and Germany should
not be good friends. Unofficial diplomatic exchanges certainly took place
between the two governments during the war, and no rancor for the past appears
to exist on either side to-day.
The year
1917 brought three momentous modifications into the world-situation: the
entrance of the United States and China into the Great War and the Russian
Revolution. The first two were intensely distasteful to Japan. The
transformation of virtually unarmed America into a first-class fighting power
reacted portentously upon the Far East, while China's adhesion to the Grand
Alliance (bitterly opposed in Tokio) rescued her from diplomatic isolation and
gave her potential friends. The Russian Revolution was also a source of
perplexity to Tokio. In 1916, as we have seen, Japan had arrived at a thorough
understanding with the Czarist regime. The new Russian Government was an
unknown quantity, acting quite differently from the old.
Russia's
collapse into Bolshevist anarchy, however, presently opened up new vistas. Not
merely northern Manchuria, but also the huge expanse of Siberia, an almost
empty world of vast potential riches, lay temptingly exposed. At once the
powerful imperialist elements m Japanese political life began clamoring for
"forward" action. An opportunity far such action was soon vouchsafed
by the Allied determination to send a composite force to Siberia to checkmate
the machinations of the Russian Bolsheviki, now hostile to the Allies and
playing into the hands of Germany. The imperialist party at Tokio took the bit
in its teeth, and, in flagrant disregard of the inter-Allied agreement, poured
a great army into Siberia, occupying the whole country as far west as Lake
Baikal. This was in the spring of 1918. The Allies, then in their supreme
death-grapple with the Germans, dared not even protest, but in the autumn, when
the battle-tide had turned in Europe, Japan was called to account, the United
States taking the lead in the matter. A furious debate ensued at Tokio between
the imperialist and moderate parties, the hotter jingoes urging defiance of the
United States even at the risk of war. Then, suddenly, came the news that Germany
was cracking, and the moderates had their way. The Japanese armies in Siberia
were reduced, albeit they still remained the most powerful military factor in
the situation
Germany's
sudden collapse and the unexpectedly quick ending of the war was a blow to
Japanese hopes and plans in more ways than one. Despite official felicitations,
the nation could hardly disguise its chagrin. For Japan the war had been an
unmixed benefit. It had automatically made her mistress of the Far East and had
amazingly enriched her economic life. Every succeeding month of hostilities had
seen the white world grow weaker and had conversely increased Japanese power.
Japan had counted on at least one more year of war. Small wonder that the
sudden passing of this halcyon time provoked disappointment and regret.
The above
outline of Japanese foreign policy reveals beneath all its surface mutations a
fundamental continuity. Whatever may be its ultimate goals, Japanese foreign
policy has one minimum objective: Japan as hegemon of a Far East in which white
influence shall have been reduced to a vanishing quantity. That is the bald
truth of the matter - and no white man has any reason for getting indignant
about it. Granted that Japanese aims endanger white vested interests in the Far
East. Granted that this involves rivalry and perhaps war. That is no reason for
striking a moral attitude and inveighing against Japanese
"wickedness," as many people are to-day doing. These mighty racial
tides flow from the most elemental of vital urges: self-expansion and
self-preservation. Both outward thrust of expanding life and counter-thrust of
threatened life are equally normal phenomena. To condemn the former as
"criminal" and the latter as "selfish" is either silly or
hypocritical and tends to envenom with unnecessary rancor what objective
fairness might keep a candid struggle, inevitable yet alleviated by mutual
comprehension and respect. This is no mere plea for "sportsmanship";
it is a very practical matter. There are critical times ahead; times in which
intense race-pressures will engender high tensions and perhaps wars. If men
will keep open minds and will eschew the temptation to regard those opposing
their desires to defend or possess respectively as impious fiends, the
struggles will lose half their bitterness, and the wars (if wars there must be)
will be shorn of half their ferocity.
The
unexpected ending of the European War was, as we have seen, a blow to Japanese
calculations. Nevertheless, the skill of her diplomats at the ensuing Versailles
Conference enabled Japan to harvest most of her war gains. Japan's territorial
acquisitions in China were definitely written into the peace treaty, despite
China's sullen veto, and Japan's preponderance in Chinese affairs was tacitly
acknowledged. Japan also took advantage of the occasion to pose as the champion
of the colored races by urging the formal promulgation of "racial
equality" as part of the peace settlement, especially as regards
immigration. Of course the Japanese diplomats had no serious expectation of
their demands being acceded to; in fact, they might have been rather
embarrassed if they had succeeded, in view of Japan's own stringent laws
against immigration and alien landholding. Nevertheless, it was a politic move,
useful for future propagandist purposes, and it advertised Japan broadcast as
the standard-bearer of the colored cause.
The notable
progress that Japan has made toward the mastery of the Far East is written
plainly upon the map, which strikingly portrays the broadening territorial base
of Japanese power effected in the past twenty-five years. Japan now owns the
whole island chain masking the eastern sea frontage of Asia, from the tip of
Kamchatka to the Philippines, while her acquisition of Germany's Oceanican
islands north of the equator gives her important strategic outposts in
mid-Pacific. Her bridge-heads on the Asiatic continent are also strong and well
located. From the Korean peninsula (now an integral part of Japan) she firmly
grasps the vast Chinese dependency of Manchuria, while just south of Manchuria
across the narrow waters of the Pechili strait lies the rich Chinese province
of Shantung, become a Japanese sphere of influence as a result of the late war.
Thus Japan holds China's capital, Peking, as in the jaws of a vice and can
apply military pressure whenever she so desires. In southern China lies another
Japanese sphere of influence, the province of Fukien opposite the Japanese
island of Formosa. Lastly, all over China runs a veritable network of Japanese
concessions like the recently acquired control of the great iron deposits near
Hankow, far up the Yangtse River in the heart of China.
Whether this
Japanese imperium over China maintains itself or not, one thing seems certain:
future white expansion in the Far East has become impossible. Any such attempt
would instantly weld together Japanese imperialism and Chinese nationalism in a
"sacred union" whose result would probably be at the very least the
prompt expulsion of the white man from every foothold in eastern Asia.
That is what
will probably come anyway as soon as Japan and China, impelled by overcrowding
and conscious of their united potentialities, shall have arrived at a genuine
understanding. Since population-pressure seems to be the basic factor in the
future course of Far Eastern affairs, it would be well to survey possible
outlets for surplus population within the Far East itself, in order to
determine how much of this race expansion can be satisfied at home, thereby
diminishing, or at least postponing, acute pressure upon the political and
ethnic frontiers of the white world.
To begin
with, the population of Japan (approximately 60,000,000) is increasing at the
rate of about 800,000 per year. China has no modern vital statistics, but the
annual increase of her 400,000,000 population, at the Japanese rate, would be
6,000,000. Now the settled parts of both Japan and China may be considered as
fully populated so far as agriculture is concerned, further extensive increases
of population being dependent upon the rise of machine industry. Both countries
have, however, thinly settled areas within their present political frontiers.
Japan's northern island of Hokkaido (Yezo) has a great amount of good
agricultural land as yet almost unoccupied, some of her other island
possessions offer minor outlets, while Korea and Manchuria afford extensive
colonizing possibilities albeit Chinese and Korean competition preclude a
Japanese colonization on the scale which the size and natural wealth of these
regions would at first sight seem to indicate. China has even more extensive
colonizable areas. Both Mongolia and Chinese Turkestan, though largely desert,
contain within their vast areas enough fertile land to support many millions of
Chinese peasants as soon as modern roads and railways are built. The Chinese
colonization of Manchuria is also proceeding apace, and will continue despite
anything Japan may do to keep it down. Lastly, the cold but enormous plateau of
Tibet offers considerable possibilities.
Allowing for
all this, however, it cannot be said that either China or Japan possess within
their present political frontiers territories likely to absorb those prodigious
accretions of population which seem destined to occur within the next couple of
generations. From the resultant congestion two avenues of escape will naturally
present themselves: settlement of other portions of the Far East to-day under
white political control, but inhabited by colored populations; and pressure
into accessible areas not merely under white political control, but also
containing white populations. It is obvious that those are two radically
distinct issues, for while a white nation might not unalterably oppose
Mongolian immigration into its colored dependencies, it would almost certainly
fight to the limit rather than witness the racial swamping of lands settled by
its own flesh and blood.
Considering
the former issue, then, it would appear that virtually all the peninsulas and
archipelagoes lying between China and Australia offer attractive fields for
yellow, particularly Chinese, race-expansion. Ethnically they are all colored
men's lands; politically they are all, save Siam under white control; Britain,
France, Holland, and the United States being the titular owners of these extensive
territories. So far as the native races are concerned, none of them seem to
possess the vitality and economic efficiency needed to maintain themselves
against unrestricted Chinese immigration. Whether in the British Straits
Settlements and North Borneo, French Indo-China, the Dutch Indies, the American
Philippines, or independent Siam, the Chinaman, so far as he has been allowed,
has displayed his practical superiority, and in places where, like the Straits
Settlements, he has been allowed a free hand, he has virtually supplanted the
native stock, reducing the latter to an impotent and vanishing minority. The
chief barriers to Chinese race-expansion in these regions are legal hindrances
or prohibitions of immigration, and of course such barriers are in their
essence artificial and liable to removal under any shift of circumstances. Many
observers predict that most of these lands will ultimately become Chinese. Says
Alleyne Ireland, a recognized authority on these regions: "There is every
reason to suppose that, throughout the tropics, possibly excepting India, the
Chinaman, even though he should continue to emigrate in no greater force than
hitherto, will gradually supersede all the native races." (Alleyne
Ireland, "Commercial Aspects of the Yellow Peril," North American
Review, September, 1900.) Certainly, if this be true, China has here a vast
outlet for her surplus population. It has been estimated that the undeveloped
portions of the Dutch Indies alone are capable of supporting 100,000,000 people
living on the frugal Chinese plane. Their present population is 8,000,000
semi-savages.
China's
possibilities of race-expansion in the colored regions of the Far East are thus
excellent. The same cannot be said, however, for Japan. The Japanese, bred in a
distinctively temperate, island environment, have not the Chinese adaptability
to climatic variation. The Japanese, like the white man, does not thrive in
tropic heat, nor does he possess the white man's ability to resist sub-Arctic
cold. Formosa is not in the real tropics, yet Japanese colonists have not done
well there. On the other hand, even the far-from-Arctic winters of Hokkaido
(part of the Japanese archipelago) seem too chilly for the Japanese taste.
Japan thus
does not have the same vital interest as China in the Asiatic tropics.
Undoubtedly they would for Japan be valuable colonies of exploitation, just as
they to-day are thus valuable for white nations. But they could never furnish
outlets for Japan's excess population, and even commercially Japan would be
exposed to increasing Chinese competition, since the Chinaman excels the
Japanese in trade as well as in migrant colonization. Japanese lack of climatic
adaptability is also the reason why Japan's present military excursion in
eastern Siberia, even if it should develop into permanent occupation, would
yield no adequate solution of Japan's population problem. For the Chinaman,
Siberia would do very well. He would breed amusingly there and would fill up
the whole country in a remarkably short space of time. But the Japanese
peasant, so averse to the winters of Hokkaido, would find the sub-Arctic rigors
of Siberia intolerable.
Thus, for
Japanese migration, neither the empty spaces of northern or southern Asia will
do. The natural outlets lie outside Asia in the United States, Australasia, and
the temperate parts of Latin America. But all these outlets are rigorously
barred by the white man, who has marked them for his own race-heritage, and
nothing but force will break those barriers down.
There lies a
danger, not merely to the peace of the Far Fast, but to the peace of the world.
Fired by a fervent patriotism; resolved to make their country a leader among
the nations; the Japanese writhe at the constriction of their present
race-bounds. Placed on the flank of the Chinese giant whose portentous growth
she can accurately forecast, Japan seas herself condemned to ultimate
renunciation of her grandiose ambitions unless she can somehow broaden the
racial as well as the political basis of her power. In short: Japan must find
lands where Japanese can breed by the tens of millions if she is not to be
automatically overshadowed in course of time, even assuming that she does not
suffocate or blow up from congestion before that time arrives. This is the
secret of her aggressive foreign policy, her chronic imperialism, her
extravagant dreams of conquest and "world-dominion."
The longing
to hack a path to greatness by the samurai sword lurks ever in the back of
Japanese minds. The library of Nippon's chauvinist literature is large and
increasing. A good example of the earlier productions is Satori Kato's brochure
entitled "Mastery of the Pacific," published in 1909. Herein the
author announces confidently: "In the event of war Japan could, as if aided
by a magician's wand, overrun the Pacific with fleets manned by men who have
made Nelson their model and transported to the armadas of the Far East the
spirit that was victorious at Trafalgar. Whether Japan avows it or not, her
persistent aim is to gain the mastery of the Pacific. Although peace seems to
prevail over the world at present, no one can tell how soon the nations may be
engaged in war. It does not need the English alliance to secure success for
Japan. That alliance may be dissolved at any moment, but Japan will suffer no
defeat. Her victory will be won by her men, not by armor-plates - things weak
by comparison." (The Literary Digest, November 13, 1909.)
The late war
has of course greatly stimulated these bellicose emotions. Viewing their own
increased power and the debilitation of the white world, Japanese jingoes
glimpse prospects of glorious fishing in troubled waters. The
"world-dominion" note is stressed more often than of yore. For
instance, in the summer of 1919 the Tokio Hochi, Count Okuma's organ, prophesied
exultantly: "That age in which the Anglo-Japanese alliance was the pivot
and American-Japanese co-operation an essential factor of Japanese diplomacy is
gone. In future we must not look eastward for friendship but westward. Let the
Bolsheviki of Russia be put down and the more peaceful party established in
power. In them Japan will find a strong ally. By marching then westward to the
Balkans, to Germany, to France, and Italy, the greater part of the world may be
brought under our sway. The tyranny of the Anglo-Saxons at the Peace Conference
is such that it has angered both gods and men. Some may abjectly follow them in
consideration of their petty interests, but things will ultimately settle down
as has just been indicated." (The Literary Digest, July 5, 1919, p. 31.)
Still more
striking are the following citations from a Japanese imperialist pronouncement
written in the autumn of 1916:
"Fifty
millions of our race wherewith to conquer and possess the earth! It is indeed a
glorious problem! ...
"To
begin with, we now have China; China is our steed! Far shall we ride upon her!
Even as Rome rode Latium to conquer Italy, and Italy to conquer the
Mediterranean; even as Napoleon rode Italy and the Rhenish States to conquer
Germany, and Germany to conquer Europe; even as England to-day rides her
colonies and her so-called 'allies' to conquer her robust rival, Germany - even
so shall we ride China. So becomes our 50,000,000 race 500,000,000 strong; so
grow our paltry hundreds of millions of gold into billions!
"How
well have done our people! How well have our statesmen led them! No mistakes!
There must be none now. In 1895 we conquered China - Russia, Germany, and
France stole from us the booty. How has our strength grown since then - and
still it grows! In ten years we punished and retook our own from Russia; in
twenty years we squared and retook from Germany; with France there is no need
for haste. She has already realized why we withheld the troops which alone
might have driven the invader from her soil! Her fingers are clutching more
tightly around her Oriental booty; yet she knows it is ours for the taking. But
there is no need of haste: the world condemns the paltry thief; only the
glorious conqueror wins the plaudits and approval of mankind.
"We are
now well astride of our steed, China; but the steed has long roamed wild and is
run down: it needs grooming, more grain, more training. Further, our saddle and
bridle are as yet mere makeshifts: would steed and trappings stand the strain
of war? And what would that strain be?
"As for
America - that fatuous booby with much money and much sentiment, but no
cohesion, no brains of government; stood she alone we should not need our China
steed. Well did my friend speak the other day when he called her people a race
of thieves with the hearts of rabbits. America, to any warrior race, is not as
a foe, but as an immense melon, ripe for the cutting. But there are other
warrior races - England, Germany - would they look on and let us slice and eat
our fill? Would they?
"But,
using China as our steed, should our first goal be the land? India? Or the
Pacific, the sea that must be our very own, even as the Atlantic is now
England's? The land is tempting and easy, but withal dangerous. Did we begin
there, the coarse white races would too soon awaken, and combine, and forever
immure us within our long since grown intolerable bounds. It must, therefore,
be the sea; but the sea means the Western Americas and all the islands between;
and with those must soon come Australia, India. And then the battling for the
balance of world-power, for the rest of North America. Once that is ours, we
own and control the whole - a dominion worthy of our race!
"North
America alone will support a billion people; that billion shall be Japanese
with their slaves. Not arid Asia, nor worn-out Europe (which, with its peculiar
and quaint relics and customs should in the interests of history and culture,
be in any case preserved), nor yet tropical Africa, is fit for our people. But
North America, that continent so succulently green, fresh, and unsullied -
except for the few chattering, mongrel Yankees - should have been ours by right
of discovery: it shall be ours by the higher, nobler right of conquest."
(The Military Historian and Economist, January, 1917, pp. 43-46.)
This apostle
of Japanese world-dominion then goes on to discuss in detail how his programme
can best be attained. It should be remembered that at the time he wrote America
was still an unarmed nation, apparently ridden by pacifism. Such imperialist
extravagances as the above do not represent the whole of Japan. But they do
represent a powerful element in Japan, against which the white world should be
forewarned.
CHAPTER III:
BROWN MAN'S LAND
BROWN MAN'S
LAND is the Near and Middle East. The brown world stretches in an immense belt
clear across southern Asia and northern Africa, from the Pacfic to the Atlantic
Oceans. The numbers of brown and yellow men are not markedly unequal
(450,000,000 browns as against 500,000,000 yellows), but in most other respects
the two worlds are sharply contrasted. In the first place, while the yellow
world is a fairly compact geographical block, the brown world sprawls half-way
round the globe, and is not only much greater in size, but also infinitely more
varied in natural features.
This
geographical diversity is reflected both in its history and in the character of
its inhabitants. Unlike the secluded yellow world, the brown world is nearly
everywhere exposed to foreign influences and has undergone an infinite series
of evolutionary modifications. Racially it has been a vast melting-pot, or
series of melting-pots, wherein conquest and migration have continually poured
new heterogeneous elements, producing the most diverse racial amalgamations. In
fact there is to-day no generalized brown type-norm as there are generalized
yellow or white type-norms, but rather a series of types clearly distinguished
from one another. Some of these types, like the Persians and Ottoman Turks, are
largely white; others, like the southern Indians and Yemenite Arabs, are
largely black; while still others, like the Himalayan and Central Asian
peoples, have much yellow blood. Again, there is no generalized brown culture
like those possessed by yellows and whites. The great spiritual bond is Islam,
yet in India, the chief seat of brown population, Islam is professed by only
one-fifth of the inhabitants.
Nevertheless,
there is a fundamental comity between the brown peoples. This comity is subtle
and intangible in character, yet it exists, and under certain circumstances it
is capable of momentous manifestations. Its salient feature is the instinctive
recognition by all Near and Middle Eastern peoples that they are fellow
Asiatics, however bitter may be their internecine feuds. This instinctive
Asiatic feeling has been noted by historians for more than two thousand years,
and it is just as true to-day as in the past. Of course it comes out most
strongly in face of the non-Asiatic - which in practice has always meant the white
man. The action and reaction of the brown and white worlds has, indeed, been a
constant, historic factor, the roles of hammer and anvil being continually
reversed through the ages. For the last four centuries the white world has, in
the main, been the dynamic factor. Certainly, during the last hundred years the
white world has displayed an unprecedentedly aggressive vigor, the brown world
playing an almost passive role.
Here again
is seen a difference between browns and yellows. The yellow world did not feel
the full tide of white aggression till the middle of the last century, while
even then it never really lost its political independence and soon reacted so
powerfully that its political freedom has to-day been substantially regained.
The brown world, on the other hand, felt the impact of the white tide much
earlier and was politically overwhelmed. The so-called "independence"
of brown states has long been due more to white rivalries than to their own
inherent strength. One by one they have been swallowed up by the white Powers.
In 1914 only three (Turkey, Persia, and Afghanistan) survived, and the late war
has sent them the way of the rest. Turkey and Persia have lost their
independence, however they may still be painted on the map, while Afghanistan has
been compelled to recognize white supremacy as never before. Thus the cycle is
fulfilled, and white political mastery over the brown world is complete.
Political
triumphs, however, of themselves guarantee nothing, and the permanence of the
present order of things in the brown world appears more than doubtful when we
glance beyond the map. The brown world, like the yellow world, is to-day in
acute reaction against white supremacy. In fact, the brown reaction began a
full century ago, and has been gathering headway ever since, moved thereto both
by its own inherent vitality and by the external stimulus of white aggression.
The great dynamic of this brown reaction is the Mohammedan Revival. But before
analyzing that movement it would be well to glance at the human elements
involved.
Four salient
groupings stand out among the brown peoples: India, Iran,
"Arabistßn," and "Turkestßn." The last two words are used
in a special sense to denote ethnic and cultural aggregations for which no
precise terms have hitherto been coined. India is the population-centre of the
brown world. More than 300,000,000 souls live within its borders - two-thirds
of all the brown men on earth. India has not, however, been the brown world's
spiritual or cultural dynamic, those forces coming chiefly from the brown lands
to the westward. Iran (the Persian plateau) is comparatively small in area and
has less than 15,000,000 inhabitants, but its influence upon the brown world
has been out of all proportion to its size and population. "Arabistßn"
denotes the group of peoples, Arab in blood or Arabized in language and
culture, who inhabit the Arabian peninsula and its adjacent annexes, Syria and
Mesopotamia, together with the vast band of North Africa lying between the
Mediterranean and the Sahara Desert. The total number of these Arabic peoples
is 40,000,000, three-fourths of them living in North Africa. The term
"Turkestßn" covers the group of kindred peoples, often called
"Turanians," who stretch from Constantinople to Central Asia, including
the Ottoman Turks of Asia Minor, the Tartars of South Russia and Transcaucasia,
and the Central Asian Turkomans. They number in all about 25,000,000. Such are
the four outstanding race-factors in the brown world. Let us now examine that
spiritual factor, Islam, from which the brown renaissance originally proceeded,
and on which most of its present manifestations are based.
Islam's
warlike vigor has impressed men's minds ever since the far-off days when its
pristine fervor bore the Fiery Crescent from France to China. But with the
passing cycles this fervor waned, and a century ago Islam seemed plunged in the
stupor of senile decay. The life appeared to have gone out of it, leaving
naught but the dry husks of empty formalism and soulless ritual. Yet at this
darkest hour a voice came crying from out the vast Arabian desert, the cradle
of Islam, calling the Faithful to better things. This puritan reformer was the
famous Abd-el-Wahab, and his followers, known as Wahabees, soon spread over the
length and breadth of the Mohammedan world, purging Islam of its sloth and
rekindling the fervor of olden days. Thus began the great Mohammedan Revival.
That
revival, like all truly regenerative movements, had its political as well as
its spiritual side. One of the first things which struck the reformers was the
political weakness of the Moslem world and its increasing subjection to the
Christian West. It was during the early decades of the nineteenth century that
the revival spread through Islam. But this was the very time when Europe,
recovering from the losses of the Napoleonic Wars, began its unparalleled
aggressions upon the Moslem East. The result in Islam was a fusing of religion
and patriotism into a "sacred union" for the combined spiritual
regeneration and political emancipation of the Moslem world.
Of course
Europe's material and military superiority were then so great that speedy
success was recognized to be a vain hope. Nevertheless, with true Oriental
patience, the reformers were content to work for distant goals, and the results
of their labors, though hidden from most Europeans, was soon discernible to a
few keen-sighted white observers. Half a century ago the learned Orientalist
Palgrave wrote these prophetic lines: "Islam is even now an enormous power,
full of self-sustaining vitality, with a surplus for aggression; and a struggle
with its combined energies would be deadly indeed.... The Mohammedan peoples of
the East have awakened to the manifold strength and skill of their Western
Christian rivals; and this awakening, at first productive of respect and fear,
not unmixed with admiration, now wears the type of antagonistic dislike, and
even of intelligent hate. No more zealous Moslems are to be found in all the
ranks of Islam than they who have sojourned longest in Europe and acquired the
most intimate knowledge of its sciences and ways.... Mohammedans are keenly
alive to the ever-shifting uncertainties and divisions that distract the
Christianity of to-day, and to the woeful instability of modern European
institutions. From their own point of view, Moslems are as men standing on a
secure rock, and they contrast the quiet fixity of their own position with the
unsettled and insecure restlessness of all else." (W. G. Palgrave, 'Essays
on Eastern Questions, pp. 127-131 (London, 1872).)
This
stability to which Palgrave alludes must not be confused with dead rigidity.
Too many of us still think of the Moslem East as hopelessly petrified. But
those Westerners best acquainted with the Islamic world assert that nothing
could be farther from the truth; emphasizing, on the contrary, Islam's present
plasticity and rapid assimilation of Western ideas and methods. "The
alleged rigidity of Islam is a European myth," (Theodore Morison,
"Can Islam Be Reformed?" Nineteenth Century, October, 1908.) says
Theodore Morison, late principal of the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College at
Aligarh, India; and another Orientalist, Marmaduke Pickthall writes:
"There is nothing in Islam, any more than in Christianity, which should
halt progress. The fact is that Christianity found, some time ago, a modus
vivendi with modern life, while Islam has not yet arrived thither. But this
process is even now being worked out." (Marmaduke Pickthall,
"L'Angleterre et la Turquie," Revue Politique Internationale,
January, 1914.)
The way in
which the Mohammedan world has availed itself of white institutions such as the
newspaper in forging its new solidarity is well portrayed by Bernard Temple.
"It all comes to this, then," he writes. "World-politics, as
viewed by Mohammedanism's political leaders, resolve themselves into a struggle
- not necessarily a bloody struggle, but still an intense and vital struggle
for place and power between the three great divisions of mankind. The Moslem
mind is deeply stirred by the prospect. Every Moslem country is in
communication with every other Moslem country: directly, by means of special
emissaries, pilgrims, travellers, traders, and postal exchanges; indirectly, by
means of Mohammedan newspapers, books, pamphlets, leaflets, and periodicals. I
have met with Cairo newspapers in Bagdad, Teheran, and Peshawar; Constantinople
newspapers in Basra and Bombay; Calcutta newspapers in Mohammerah, Kerbela, and
Port Said." (Bernard Temple, "The Place of Persia in World-Politics,"
Proceedings of the Central Asian Society, May, 1910.)
These
European judgments are confirmed by what Asiatics say themselves. For example,
a Syrian Christian, Ameen Rihani, thus characterizes the present strength and
vitality of the Moslem world: "A nation of 250,000,000 souls, more than
one-half under Christian rule, struggling to shake off its fetters; to
consolidate its opposing forces; replenishing itself in the south and in the
east from the inexhaustible sources of the life primitive; assimilating in the
north, but not without discrimination, the civilization of Europe; a nation
with a glorious past, a living faith and language, an inspired Book, an undying
hope, might be divided against itself by European diplomacy but can never be
subjugated by European arms.... What Islam is losing on the borders of Europe
it is gaining in Africa and Central Asia through its modern propaganda, which
is conducted according to Christian methods. And this is one of the grand
results of 'civilization by benevolent assimilation.' Europe drills the Moslem
to be a soldier who will ultimately turn his weapons against her; and she sends
her missionaries to awaken in the ulema the proselytizing evil." (Ameen
Rihani, "The Crisis of Islam," Forum, May, 1912.)