China and the West

Russell, Bertrand. British folly in China [ID D28383].
London, February 8 (1927).
In all the long history of British blunders it would be difficult to parallel the present governmental policy in regard to China for immoral ineptitude. I say governmental policy, for the nation is emphatically not behind the Government as yet. One supposes that it will in time be influenced by means of a suitable diet of atrocities. It will be taught to believe that the Chinese eat corpses and mutilate children, and those who ask for evidence of these practices will be put in jail. As yet, however, feeling against China is confined to the Die-Hard section of the Conservative Party, and the Conservative Party, though a majority of Parliament, was a minority in the nation even in the 'Red Letter' election.
Labor, with the exception of a few leaders who have been hobbled, is vigorously and determinedly opposed to the policy of sending troops, and is demanding their recall in spite of discouragement from their own headquarters. Labor quite understands that what our Government dislikes about the Chinese Nationalists is their policy of favoring trade unionism and aiming at an increase in wages. Enormous and enthusiastic meetings are being held in every part of the country demanding the recall of the expeditionary force. Even the Liberals, taking their cue from Lloyd George, are exceedingly critical of the Government's action.
From the mere standpoint of British interests what has been done is so foolish that nothing but a lust for blood could have made anyone suppose it wise. The concessions which our foreign Office has offered to the Nationalist Government go beyond anything that would have been required to secure agreement if no forces had been dispatches. But because these forces are on their way, Mr. Chen rightly refuses to negotiate until this threat is withdrawn. The forces are being sent nominally to protect the International Settlement, but the Japanese, whose diplomacy is never caught napping, have intimated that they will not permit the troops to land in a region, where their rights are the same as ours, and where their citizens are not finding the need of armed protection. If the troops land on pure Chinese territory, this of course will be in itself an act of war, and will give legal validity to the protest of Dr. Wellington Koo on behalf of the Peking Government, which relies upon the Nine-Power Treaty and the Covenant of the League of Nations.
This protest and the dismissal of Sir Francis Aglen as Inspector General of the Maritime Customs Admiration are the first signs of the one good result to be expected of British folly, namely, the reunion of North and South in resistance to foreign aggression. It is to be expected that the reactionary generals, whom in spite of their illegalities and extortions the British Government is attempting to keep in power, will be abandoned by their own troops unless they make peace with the Nationalists. The British in China, absorbed as they are in ridge and polo, have not noticed that China has become a political nation, and have not stopped to reflect upon the asset which their policy affords to the Kuomintang in its party strife with Chinese conservatism. They have a curious inability to understand what sort of conduct people like and what sort they dislike. I listened the other night to an hour's address given to the Society for the Study of International Affairs, by a British diplomat lately returned from China, in the course of which he professed to explain why the British are not popular in China. He never even mentioned the massacres of Shanghai, Shameen, and Wanhsien, and when afterwards I asked him the reason for his omission he said that he did not consider they had been an important factor. The British in China are apparently unable to realize that Chinese civilians take no pleasure in being shot down treacherously without warning. Psychology is not taught at our English public schools or at Oxford.
The situation is of course one of the utmost gravity, for if once the troops land at Shanghai it is difficult to see how war can be avoided, unless by American or Japanese intervention, either of which our Government would presumably regard as an unfriendly act, though it would be welcomed by every sane man in Great Britain. If war breaks out it will entail the complete militarization of China and a prolonged struggle leading to the immediate cessation of the British-China trade, and an ultimate humiliation, even in a military sense, for though it may be easy to defeat Chinese armies it will be absolutely impossible to maintain control of China or any portion of it not within reach of naval guns.
The men to whom our Government is listening recall with pride our exploits in the Opium War, and point to the trade advantages thereby secured. They do not seem to realize that the republic of 1927 is different from the tottering Manchu empire of 1840. I could hardly have believed in the existence of such anachronistic ideas among persons with large interests in China had I not myself heard them expressed by such persons in debate.
Nor is the issue confined to China. Our Government contemplates breaking off diplomatic relations with Russia, and there is reason to think that the Poles are being incited to repeat their war of 1920. Our attempt to suppress China will of course have repercussions in India, and will increase the unrest in that country. In Great Britain itself a large proportion of those who fought in the Great War are determined never to fight again, whatever the issue. China is distant, and cannot be made to seem truly menacing.
The nation will not therefore throw itself into a struggle in the Far East with the wholeheartedness which it showed during the Great War. Unless our Government quickly comes to its senses, I foresee the loss of our Indian Empire and the accession to power in this country of a Labor Party with a very different temper from that of our Government of 1924. For the world at large the insanity of our present Government is likely to be a boon, but for England it is a disaster of the first magnitude.