China and the West

Letter from John Dewey to Albert C. Barnes
135 Morrison St Dec 39 [29, 1920] | Peking
Dear Barnes, …
I dont wonder that you are suspicious of the Consortium, but you can judge of the situation here if I say that so far as I can see it is the best thing in sight for China, in fact the only thing in sight politically. Its very questionable however whether it will ever really function, but its failure will be more due to its good points than its bad ones. There are three great things agt its operation. Its a combination of finance and politics. Politically it is distinctly anti-japanese in the sense of being a measure to check the japanese aggressions which have been going on so uninterruptedly for the last six years. Apart from the Monroe doctrine, China is the only country so far as I can see where the U S has had a continuous foreign policy—the socalled Open Door, no further parttitions, no further spheres of influence. The Consortium politically speaking is a tool of this idea But at the same time it is financial ad must give an attractive opening to American money. Its doubtful whether these two things can be made to lie down together; certainly there is something of a campaign agt the C already as being too "idealistic." The second force agt is international jealousies. Of course the Japanese know it will curb their designs, but the France and Gt Britain know also it is in pursuance of the distinctly American policy, John Hay etc, and will add to American prestige and influence in China, and if successful will destroy in the end the whole sphere of influence of partitition. Also they are now too hard up to have money to invest and their obvious policy is to stall, and prevent the thing working till they can come back. So they will work together with Japan more or less to put monkey wrenches into the machine. The third reason agt is is in-||ternal. Aside from the natural general fear of foreign control, there is the opposition of corrupt officials to the fact that all expenditures under the loans will be subject to expert foreign auditing, and opposition of Chinese bankers, since by making hand to motuh loans as at present they get from twenty to forty per cent interest—in some extremely corrupt cases even more—but two per cent a month is considered quite legitmate. How the Consortium can survive all these difficulties its hard to see. There is one thing in its favor—the desperate condition of things here. I doubt [a]fter seeing things here the generalizations of fluent radicals about finance being internationalized. Maybe it would be here if there were a common agreement to do it at the expense of China, but as long as the interest of the U S is against a break up of China, finance cant be internationalized here—unless the U S is powerful enough and der emined enough to lay down the law. Probably the Steel trust will control the next administration and that is mainly pro-Japanese, as industrialism is do much further advanced there. The Morgan interests for some reason arent tied up with Japan, At least they havent been, and I suspect T L [financier Thomas Lamont] is somewhat influenced by a little oldfashioned American patriotism which in this case brings him out on the comparatively right side.
Thank you for the c[o]pies of the correspondence you sent. Her letter was too brief for me to get a clear insight, but there were certainly plenty of signs of poetic spirit, and your reply was a rare combination of friendliness and straightforwardness. The journals came with your Cezanne article and we were glad to see it in print.
I was awfully glad about you[r] suggestion of Hobson [probably John A. Hobson] for China; I dont know why his name had escaped me. The Chinese have a fatuous devotion to their old teachers—which accounts for a good deal of my own reception here—and unfortunately there is a man—I never met him—with a good deal of influence who once studied in Germany under Eucken, and they seem bound to invite that mass of flabby decay. ItHe is so dam old maybe he cant come; no one of the men I know take any stock in him, but the man who is booming him has influence with theose who put up the money. Then there is a strong pro german feeling in China, so they want a German. I belive they asked Einstein, but he declined. Intellectually of course he is as respectable as Eucken is the reverse, but he would have been clear over their heads. Russell gave a public lecture on Relativity the other day, and while like everything he does it was a masterpiece of cl[e]ar[n]ess yet no one in the audience || except two or three professors of math and physics knew what any of it was about. Hobson is the right combination of theory and practise for them; as I wr[o]te before they are a little crazy now on the[o]ry, What is truth? What is religion? What is democracy? these are typical questions, and then right in the middle will be a fairly specific question like [w]hat is instinct? and apparently they dont see why one question cant be disposed of as well as another in a paragraph. I was invited to speak on religion and declined and the secy of the student society which invited me came around to see me and naively said they wanted to get the question settled while Russell and I were in the country. Of course it isnt all as bad as this, but in a way its typical. Russell gave out an interview in which he remarked that in the Western world no one had any faith any longer in the "wise men" but China was still in the stage where it beleived that a wise man could come along and settle its difficulties and questions. He got ion to the weak points of the Chinese in much shorter time than I did. He is extremely s[e]nsitive, as his Russian articles show, since he was only there six weeks and had never been before and didnt know the language. However he is constitutionally in opposition; he could write a wonde[r]ful critique on either heaven or hell after a short stay in either. A young Chinese expressed what I called his mathematical detachment by saying he gave very simple reasons for very complicated conditions. I fancy thisat is the mathemetical psyhcology—the ability to ignore contexts and select just what is directly relevant to the point in hand. If you meant that I envy him this gift you are right, for to my own psychology in spite of my shematic logical tendencies everything comes complicated end first, and I have to proceed consciously thru a tot of negations to untangle anything—to him it comes fairly clearly at the beginning I think. But if you mean that what is nearest my hearts desire it his ability to reach the liberal masses, why it only shows [ in ink] you dont get the psychology of the specialist. Even Wm James who is as much greater an artist than R as R is than me, says somewhere that he thinks when he writes of some twenty men, [ink comma] whose approval he would like—I havent the exact number but that makes no difference. Russell soon begins a new course on Analysis of Matter to go with his Analysis of Mind course. He told some one that Einstein had largely upset his prior phil of matter—that is one wonderful thing about R, he gets in opposition to himself as easily as to the rest of the world—this doesnt mean he is grouchy personally, on he contrary, he unusally agrreable. But he has simple intellectual tests and nothing naturally comes up to themir requirements. The war and Russia have affected such a senstive mind naturally. He thinks civilization is doomed to go to sleep like the old Roma world, he gives it only two centuries more of existence at the outside. Maybe hes right, but I cant see or feel it, but I can see how differently the world must look to one who seen at first hand the European debacle. He says Russian civilization which was tenuous and exotic, but still the finest in quality in the world has been destroyed, he seems to think permanently whoever comes out on top. He has a kind of dillemma, either aristocracy and injustice and civilization, or equality, (justice) and no civilization. That carries his simplification a little further than he does. But apparently he knows what justice is, namely equality, and I cant even fancy anything being as simple as that…
Sincerely, [John Dewey]
Wytter Bynner the poet has been over here. He is taking back a lot of cheap Chinese paintings, the kind that can be bought for a few dollars apiece, Mex. I cant imagine he wants them all for himself, and it made me wonder whther there was a business market for such things. If there is maybe I would try a venture to help pay expenses For a thousand dollars Mex I could esaily get two hundred pcitures, none very old, and none by masters of course, but having a certain Chinese charm and a technique as far as it goes. Do you know whether such things sell now in U S? The real Sungs are hard to get and up in the thousands.