China and the West

Dewey, John. The Far Eastern deadlock [ID D28484].
The key to peace in the Far East exists at the present time in America. That much is fairly certain. But it is doubtful whether anyone knows just where the key is to be found and whether anyone knows well enough what it looks like to recognize it if he stumbles upon it. The lock, however, is clear. It is the relations of Japan and America. For at present the relations of the United States to China and Siberia, so far as larger matters are concerned, are not direct but through Japan. There are two keys which are being tried which certainly will not fit; the third key we may call a statesmanlike policy, while admitting this to be the x whose value is to be found. The two courses most in evidence and most talked about, which are bound to result in making affairs worse, are buying Japan off and nagging her.
The policy of keeping peace between Japan and America by bribing Japan or buying her off has had of late a number of eminent representatives—though naturally they have not called their plea by these bald words in public—possibly not within the recesses of their own minds have they named it so frankly. The steps of the argument are these. Japan has a small territory and a large and rapidly increasing population; seven hundred thousand per annum has been the favorite propagandist figure. She also has a shortage of raw materials and of food supplies. An outlet of population is imperatively demanded. The 'white' countries, having land to spare, refuse to admit the Japanese as immigrants. The alternative, necessary to the peace of the world, is expansion upon the continent of Asia and such command of the raw, natural resources of Asia as will enable Japan to develop stable industrialism at home, and increased industry that will take up the slack caused by increase of population. Japan, moreover, is an enterprising, efficient, educated modem nation, with capacity for organization, with respect for law and for government, with a reasonably honest civil service. She is, therefore, admirably suited to take up the Yellow Man's Burden in Siberia and China, countries where government is flouted and corrupt, and which are in no sense as yet fitted to become equal partners in the society of nations in either business or politics. Moreover, as respects China, there is unity of culture, some say of race; the Japanese understand the Orientals of Asia and what is good for them as no white race does—and so on to the end of the chapter.
The moral is clear. The world in general and America in particular should look with a benevolent neutrality upon the efforts of Japan to establish herself on the continent of Asia, whether in Siberia, Manchuria or Shantung. So speeches and articles always end with a vague plea for that desirable something called a sympathetic understanding of Japan and her serious problems, and with an assurance that, having been in Japan, the speaker or writer knows from personal intercourse with the real leaders of Japan that she desires above all things in the world the friendliest relations with the United States, and only waits the word from America to go ahead—upon just what course is not stated. There is usually also a vague intimation that Japan, being 'a proud and sensitive nation', will arm and bring on war with the United States if she is pressed too hard and made desperate by lack of outlet and lack of necessary economic resources. Through the whole argument runs a subtle intimation that we can avoid all trouble with Japan by permitting or encouraging her to divert her energies into Asia. Sometimes there is an incidental suggestion that, as Japan will need foreign capital in her Asiatic expansion, the United States can with no trouble to herself come in also for part of the material rewards of such a course.
This is the policy which I call buying Japan off. Its chief significance is not due to the fact that it is advanced by men of some eminence in America—and also by certain Englishmen. It is significant because it reflects the propaganda so accurately that in reading it one gets to know the mind of official and commercial Japan. The visitor may think he has evolved this policy for himself. But anyone long resident in the Far East can almost guess the names of the persons that have been talked with, and can retrace every step of the confidential disclosures and the hesitant suggestions by which the eminent and much entertained foreign guest has been led to make his 'discovery' of the way to enduring good relations between Japan and America.
The policy is adapted to keeping relations between Japan and America amicable for a time. It gives Japan what she wants, in comparison with which the Californian issue is a rattle for a baby. It relieves the United States of diplomatic anxieties for a time, and enables the stream of after-dinner speeches to continue in an increasing flood of gush. But from the standpoint of a settlement of the serious problems of the Far East it is a fraud. It represents an aggravation of the problems, the sure road to an ultimate unsettlement which may conceivably involve the whole world. Such matters as the claims of an unrestricted growth of population, due to a low standard of living and artificially stimulated by the government, to rule the fate of a continent may be passed over. So may the fact that the first and only official census taken by Japan shows the gain for the last year to be four instead of the seven hundred thousand always advertised.
We also glide over the fact that Shantung is already over-populated, and that Japanese make poor colonists for settling in undeveloped countries and bearing the hardships of Siberia or even Manchuria. We may even slur over the fact that there is already no obstacle to Japanese immigrants going into the unoccupied parts of Asia, as European immigrants go to Canada or the United States—namely as individuals and not as an advance guard of a foreign empire, emissaries of national aggression.
But we cannot pass over the accompaniments and consequences of this latter fact. The persons who repeat the plea of Japan for a free hand on the Asiatic continent, as a means of maintaining good relations and promoting order, efficiency and progress, overlook the fundamental fact of the situation. Japanese methods on the continent have been such as to arouse the profound distrust and hostility of every people with whom the Japanese have come into contact. This fact cannot be got out of the way by references to the backwardness and inefficiency of the native inhabitants. Admitting the most exaggerated statements made by apologists for Japan's course in regard to the administrative and economic superiority of the Japanese over the Chinese and Siberian Russians, it remains a fact that the operations of the Japanese upon the continent are of the exact nature which all over the world have sowed the seeds of ultimate war.
Americans may sometimes wonder in a perplexed way about the contrary reports and views of travellers in the Far East and conclude that the latter become pro- or anti-Japanese for temperamental or accidental reasons. Here is the explanation. Those who have not gone further than Japan realize Japan as a fact; the continent is still a place on the map, an impersonal factor in an intellectual calculation. Those who with eyes and ears half-open have stayed upon the continent realize the condition which has been created by Japanese methods. Apologists may more or less successfully explain away details one by one, accompanied by vague admissions of wrong deeds in the past committed by wicked militarists. But the vast continental fact remains. One may get himself to a point where his subconscious premise is that China and Russia ought to submit willingly to Japan on account of the latter's superiority. This is going far. But even if they ought, they won't. Because they won't, the peace of the Far East is subject to an explosion which may involve the world.
The other dominant fact in the situation is that the United States has no need of buying Japan off. British statesmen seem to feel differently about the need for the British Empire to become a tacit accomplice of Japan. It is arguable that they are guessing wrong. But, in any case, the United States, though she has the Philippines, has no India and no Hong-Kong. War deliberately entered into by Japan against the United States is unthinkable, as unthinkable as between the United States and Colombia. This extreme statement is made advisedly. Individuals in Japan commit hari-kari, but not the nation, and every intelligent person in Japan knows that for Japan an aggressive war with America would be national suicide. They did not know it before the last war; but then the demonstration was more than Euclidean in its rigor. When one thinks of how the United States was taxed in the last war, in spite of its railways, its financial resources and its raw materials, the idea of Japan, with its few narrow gauge railways, few forests, few mines, relatively few factories and shortage of food supply, waging a successful war with any first class industrial Power is simply silly.
At present, having spent her war gains in enterprises in China which are not yet remunerative, and in Siberia—where they will never be remunerative until Kolchak comes to life and successfully resurrects the Omsk government—and having increased her already burdensome taxation to the stretching point, Japan is on her back financially. If she gets control of the manpower and natural resources of the continent, the case will be different. But, short of that time, which, of course, is artificially hastened by encouraging Japan to exploit Asia for her own benefit, any war between Japan and America will be the result of a series of accidents due to drifting and not to the deliberate choice of the rulers of Japan. There is at least one exception to every 'never'. The exception in this case is that militarists threatened with downfall at home might try to restore their prestige and power by the last desperate gamble of war.
The fact that in order to save ourselves we do not need to buy Japan off, does not imply that we should treat her truculently or irritatingly. There is some danger of our adopting this policy, which will open no locks. I do not mean that we should ever adopt nagging deliberately as a policy; but failure to work out a clear constructive course may practically amount to it. Drifting and diplomatic opportunism making a separate issue out of every matter which comes up; never facing fundamental issues so as to arrive at an understanding regarding them, comes in the end to an irritating course of mutual pin-prickings and blockings which is the most dangerous of all courses. This seems to be the state of affairs into which we are getting, leaving principles in a twilight of purposeful ambiguity such as now exists about the Open Door and the Lansing-Ishii agreement. Dealing with each case of friction which arises, and which in reality comes under these principles, is the sure way to reduce our international relations to a kind of continuous subdued duel, with all the rancor and misunderstandings thereby generated.
Our true policy I have called x. It is not easily discoverable even as regards a statement in words, to say nothing of practical execution. But it does not lie in smooth and flattering words, which gloss over realities, any more than it does in spite, suspicion and nagging. Now is the time of all times to search for and enter upon a definite policy. Japan is practically isolated among the nations, and, what is more, she is beginning to realize it. She is also experiencing the sobering reaction that comes after a prolonged intoxication. She will be lucky, according to all accounts, if she gets off with her present depression, and does not come a greater smash. There is probably more talk about liberalism than there is effective reality; but there is a promising beginning of sentiment if not of active policy, especially in the younger generation. The talk is a sign of a new sensitiveness to the world’s opinion.
Above all, Japan realizes her actual dependence upon the United States, a dependence rarely recognized in the United States because it is so out of all proportion to our dependence upon Japan. The dependence is not exhausted in the statistics of international markets and the fact that we are the customer who keeps her industries going. Japan realizes the extent to which her career in China is connected with the ideas and policies of America. She really needs the moral support of the United States to 'go ahead' in any proper sense of that word.
Let me cite as evidence a fact which may not seem important but which, I am convinced, is of great import. Of late, Japanese liberals and Japanese Christians have made repeated, almost continuous, attempts to approach American missionaries and educators, and native Christians in China. They have insisted upon the reformed intentions of the present Japanese Ministry and have almost begged this element in China to take the lead in acting as mediators, appealing to every sentimental principle of good-will and Christian love. Now it is safe to say—and one does not rely wholly upon internal evidence—that this move is not directed primarily at China. China is still despised as weak, negligible. It is directed toward America. Japanese accusations against missionaries of misleading the Chinese and Koreans and stirring up trouble are mostly trumped up. But Japanese fear of the effects in the United States of the reports sent there by missionaries and Y.M.C.A. workers concerning the state of things in China and Korea, Siberia and Manchuria, is perfectly genuine. They estimate that the change of opinion about Japan which they know has taken place in America, the growing dislike of Japan as militaristic and ruthlessly imperialistic is largely due to this influence. They want, in effect, this body to act as mediators between Japan and the public opinion of the United States, having become seriously troubled by the growing power of the latter in the world in general and in China in particular.
In the search for an x of American policy which will be the key to the lock, there are certain known quantities. One is that every appeal to American sympathy on the ground of the growing liberalism of Japan should meet with neither credulity nor cynicism, but with a request to know what this liberalism is doing, especially what it is doing about China and Siberia. And we should not be content with generality; we should insist on details. Prominent among the details should be facts regarding what the great industrial and financial interests are actually doing in relation to the government at home and developments in China. What are the Okuras, the Mitsubishis, the Mitsuis, the Yokohama Specie Bank doing? It is all very well to talk about the power of militarism in Japan and the desire of the liberals to curb it; but there is no country in the world where financial interests are more concentrated, more powerful or in closer and more direct connection with the government. Why are these interests not using their power to curb and direct the policy of the government? Is it because, while deploring this policy for foreign consumption, they have striven to profit by it in China and Siberia?
One thing more. There are signs that the present Chinese government now recognizes that the Twenty-one Demands and the treaties which grew out of them are more important than the Shantung decision, not because the latter is not important but because it is an effect of the former affair. This government is likely soon to approach the Japanese government with a request for cancellation of these treaties. The attitude of the Japanese government and people toward this request will be an acid test of their professions regarding a change of policy and heart. The public opinion of the United States ought to be thrown openly, unanimously and intelligently in support of the request. There is no possible settlement of the problem of the peace of the Far East till the slate is wiped clean of these treaties. Till they are out of the way, all professions of reform and better relations will only create new suspicions in China, and every act will be seen to be merely a manoeuvring for an improved strategic position. The first move in breaking the existing deadlock is to obliterate the treaties connected with the Twenty-one Demands. Any sincere friend of Japanese liberalism will try to make it clear to his Japanese friends that this is the first step in effective Japanese-American cooperation, because it is the precondition of any act on the part of the United States which would not make us the guilty accomplice of Japan and a partner with Japan in the fear and dislike with which she is now regarded. The cancellation of everything connected with the Twenty-one Demands is the only way to put the relations of Japan and China upon a friendly footing. Securing this friendly relation between these two Oriental countries should be the animating purpose of American opinion and action. Then the lock will begin to give.