The Truth about China and Japan (Routledge Revivals) by Putnam Weale

Author:Putnam Weale [Weale, Putnam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780649517732
Google: nSCOswEACAAJ
Publisher: Trieste Publishing Pty Limited
Published: 2017-09-09T05:06:42+00:00

CHAPTER IV

THE PROBLEM OF PEKING

THE problem of Peking is so peculiar that no parallel case exists in any other part of the world. Turkey is sometimes quoted as a similar instance; but the differences between China and Turkey are greater than the points of resemblance. Turkey comprises a mixture of races; the Chinese are absolutely homogeneous. The rule of the Ottoman Turks was based on military conquest; the Manchus, who were their prototypes, were summarily ousted ten years ago, and for many a day prior to their actual collapse had not much more power than the errant descendants of Genghiz Khan. Then Turkey is so close to Europe that her problem is an European issue; China is so far distant that she is remote even to India. Turkey pretended to reform, and then surrendered to the Young Turks, who were virtually Young Germans. The Tu-chün, or military governors in China and their henchmen, may perhaps be held the equivalent of this truculent breed; yet even these semi-ignorant leaders pay homage to the literary traditions of the race, worship formality, and declare that they represent a transitional stage which will soon give way to a new brotherhood.

For the time being, however, what we have to-day, pending the settlement, is rule by velleities—i.e. by volition in its lowest form, which only takes on a positive character when a direct assault is made on the lares and penates of the office-holders. In the past it has been clearly shown how every time the defenders of the Republic have attempted to adopt definite formulæ in place of this obscurantism, they have been beaten into retirement in the provinces because they have lacked the necessary force to win. With this inchoate condition in the capital and with the chief cities held by military rule, watchful drifting has become the avowed policy. And although all Chinese know perfectly well that without organization, and without the supremacy of the civil authority, it is vain to hope for national solidarity or greatness, no single man has yet been able to effect any lasting improvement. Thus, although the empire has gone never to return, and although a definite and recognizable advance in ideas is generally admitted to have occurred throughout China, obscure causes which must be referred back to climate and soil, and to the city type, which a hundred city-bred generations have evolved, tend to perpetuate this political palsy and to make many foreign critics declare there is actual chaos and retrogression. That behind all this—deep buried in the twilight of a myriad homes—the supreme explanation is to be sought in the very mild impulses of the race, which are expressed in the quietist doctrines animating Chinese society, is the writer’s profound conviction. And so does it happen that the Chinese people have come to think that they have been caught in the Caudine Forks, and that it is the Japanese who are striving mightily to play the part of the Samnites and make them pass under the yoke.

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