China and the West

Russell, Bertrand ; Russell, Dora. Force in China : letter to the editor [ID D28420].
Sir, It becomes increasingly difficult to read with patience your commentaries and warnings on the present situation in China. Is it not time that all people of humane ideals and aims were frankly told that the dispatch of the large forces that have gone to China is not only likely but probably intended, to provoke a war between us and the Chinese, in which there would not be a shadow of right or justification on our side, nor any possible final issue but shameful and deserved defeat, involving the almost complete loss of our already fast diminishing trade with the Chinese. In these circumstances all those who do not demand the immediate recall of all British forces from China, and the recognition of Cantonese rights in all provinces where the Cantonese Government has jurisdiction, are doing a grave disservice, not only to the English people, but also even to the misguided British merchants out in China, who still hope to extend their trade at the bayonet point as they did at the time of the opium wars.
Not long since you were urging the Government to explain the Wanhsien incident. No English explanation has been given ; and now you speak of the necessity of large forces in order to avoid a 'repetition of the Wanhsien fiasco'. In what did the fiasco consist – in the fact that not more than one thousand Chinese were killed, and not more than one thousand Chinese houses destroyed ? Surely Mr. Chen's 'rodomontade' on Imperialism has a considerable 'bearing on the existing situation', when he is faced by the dispatch of more troops by a Power which has not hesitated to bombard without compensation or apology an open unfortified town. This act is against the laws of warfare, even where we at war with the Chinese.
The lives and persons of British nationals are in no danger. Persons of other nationality are walking about and doing business freely. It must be admitted, of course, that they have not seen fit to take part in the recent shooting of Chinese as we have done. But it is time that the six thousand odd British in Shanghai faced the situation like the British gentlemen they claim to be. They are free to return to England, or to move northward if they do not like the Cantonese regime.
The Cantonese are the accepted and functioning Government now of nine provinces, practically all th4e South and West of China. The treaty rights, about which we generously offer to 'negotiate', were force on China by war. No self-respecting Chinese Government could continue to accept them, and our trade and prestige in China stand to gain by their immediate abandonment. There is nothing outrageous or 'impossible' in the whole of the Cantonese demands. They are modern people, ready for peace and trade. They have not taken, nor will they take, unless bitterly provoked, the life of any foreigner not engaged in war with them. In fact they are a model of sweet reasonableness, in comparison with what the English would be like, had Chinese gunboats sailed up the Thames for a lark and bombarded Reading and Oxford.
Unless this Government is severely handled, telegraph agencies will soon be busy manufacturing 'riots in Shanghai', and the British troops privily engaged in the Chinese civil war, on the side of the North against Canton.
[Mr. and Mrs. Russell appear to have written their letter before Sir Austen Chamberlain spoke at Birmingham last Saturday. After reading his speech, would they still suggest that the Shanghai Defence Force is 'probably intended to provoke a war between us and the Chinese' ? Ed., Nation].