China and the West

Dewey, John. A parting of the ways for America [ID D28492].
I
The realities of American policy in China and toward China are going to be more seriously tested in the future than they ever have been in the past. Japanese papers have been full of protests against any attempt by the Pacific Conference to place Japan on trial. Would that American journals were full of warnings that America is on trial at the Conference as to the sincerity and intelligent goodwill behind her amicable professions. The world will not stop with the Pacific Conference; the latter, however important, will not arrest future developments, and the United States will continue to be on trial till she has established by her acts a permanent and definite attitude. For the realities of the situation cannot be exhausted in any formula or in any set of diplomatic agreements, even if the Conference confounds the fears of pessimists and results in a harmonious union of the powers in support of China’s legitimate aspirations for free political and economic growth.
The Conference, however, stands as a symbol of the larger situation; and its decisions or lack of them will be a considerable factor in the determination of subsequent events. Sometimes one is obliged to fall back on a trite phrase. We are genuinely at a parting of the ways. Even if we should follow in our old path, there would none the less be a parting of the ways, for we cannot consistently tread the old path unless we are animated by a much more conscious purpose and a more general and intelligent knowledge of affairs than have controlled our activities in the past.
The ideas expressed by an English correspondent about the fear that America is soon to be an active source of danger in the Far East are not confined to persons on foreign shores. The prevailing attitude in some circles of American opinion is that called by President Hibben cynical pessimism. All professed radicals and many liberals believe that if our course has been better in the past it has been due to geographical accidents combined with indifference and with our undeveloped economic status. Consequently they believe that since we have now become what is called a world-power and a nation which exports instead of importing capital, our course will soon be as bad as that of any of the rest of them. In some quarters this opinion is clearly an emotional reaction following the disillusionments of Versailles. In others, it is due to adherence to a formula: nothing in international affairs can come out of capitalism and America is emphatically a capitalistic country. Whether or not these feelings are correct, they are not discussable; neither an emotion nor an absolute formula is subject to analysis.
But there are specific elements in the situation which give grounds for apprehension as to the future. These specific elements are capable of detection and analysis. An adequate realization of their nature will be a large factor in preventing cynical apprehensions from becoming actual. This article is an attempt at a preliminary listing, inadequate, of course, as any preliminary examination must be. While an a priori argument based on a fatalistic formula as to how a “capitalistic nation” must conduct itself does not appeal to me, there are nevertheless concrete facts which are suggested by that formula. Part of our comparatively better course in China in the past is due to the fact that we have not had the continuous and close alliance between the State Department and big banking interests which is found in the case of foreign powers. No honest well-informed history of developments in China could be written in which the Russian Asiatic Bank, the Foreign Bank of Belgium, the French Indo-China Bank and Banque Industrielle, the Yokohama Specie Bank, the Hongkong-Shanghai Bank, etc., did not figure prominently. These banks work in the closest harmony, not only with railway and construction syndicates and big manufacturing interests at home, but also with their respective foreign offices. It is hardly too much to say that legations and banks have been in most important matters the right and left hands of the same body. American business interests have complained in the past that the American government does not give to American traders abroad the same support that the nationals of other states receive. In the past these complaints have centred largely about actual wrongs suffered or believed to have been suffered by American business undertakings carried on in a foreign country. With the present expansion of capital and of commerce, the same complaints and demands are going to be made not with reference to grievances suffered, but with reference to furthering, to pushing American commercial interests in connection with large banking groups. It would take a credulous person to deny the influence of big business in domestic politics. As we become more interested in commerce and banking enterprises what assurance have we that the alliance will not be transferred to international politics?
It should be noted that the policy of the open door as affirmed by the great powers—and as frequently violated by them—even if it be henceforth observed in good faith, does not adequately protect us from this danger. The open door policy is not primarily a policy about China herself but rather about the policies of foreign powers toward one another with respect to China. It demands equality of economic opportunity for different nations. Were it enforced, it would prevent the granting of monopolies to any one nation: there is nothing in it to render impossible a conjoint exploitation of China by foreign powers, an organized monopoly in which each nation has its due share with respect to others. Such an organization might conceivably reduce friction among the great powers, and thereby reduce the danger of future wars—as long as China herself is impotent to go to war. The agreement might conceivably for a considerable time be of benefit to China herself. But it is clear that for the United States to become a partner in any such arrangement would involve a reversal of our historic policy in the Far East. It might be technically consistent with the open door policy, but it would be a violation of the larger sense in which the American people has understood and praised that ideal. He is blind who does not see that there are forces making for such a reversal. And since we are all more or less blind, an opening of our eyes to the danger is one of the conditions of its not being realized.
One of the forces which is operative is indicated by the phrase that an international agreement on an economic and financial basis might be of value to China herself. The mere suggestion that such a thing is possible is abhorrent to many, especially to radicals. There seems to be something sinister in it. So it is worth explaining how and why it might be so. In the first place, it would obviously terminate the particularistic grabbing for 'leased' territory, concessions and spheres of influence which has so damaged China. At the present time, the point of this remark lies in its implied reference to Japan, as at one time it might have applied to Russia. Fear of Japan's aims in China is not confined to China; the fear is widespread. An international economic arrangement may therefore be plausibly presented as the easiest and most direct method of relieving China of the Japanese men-ace. For Japan to stay out would be to give herself away; if she came in, it would subject Japanese activities to constant scrutiny and control. There is no doubt that part of the fear of Japan regarding the Pacific Conference is due to a belief that some such arrangement is contemplated. The case is easily capable of such presentation as to make it appeal to Americans who are really friendly to China and who haven't the remotest interest in her economic exploitation.
The arrangement would, for example, automatically eliminate the Lansing-Ishii agreement with its embarrassing ambiguous recognition of Japan's special interests in China.
The other factor is domestic. The distraction and civil wars of China are commonplaces. So is the power exercised by the military governors and generals. The greater one's knowledge, the more one perceives how intimately the former evil is dependent upon the latter. The financial plight of the Chinese government, its continual foreign borrowings which threaten bankruptcy in the near future, depend upon militaristic domination and wild expenditure for unproductive purposes and squeeze. Without this expense, China would have no great difficulty henceforth in maintaining a balance in her budget. The retardation of public education whose advancement—especially in elementary schools— is China's greatest single need is due to the same cause. So is the growth in official corruption which is rapidly extending into business and private life.
In fact, every one of the obstacles to the progress of China is connected with the rule of military factions and their struggles with one another for complete mastery. An economic international agreement among the great powers can be made which would surely reduce and possibly eliminate the greatest evils of 'militarism'. Many liberal Chinese say in private that they would be willing to have a temporary international receivership for government finance, provided they could be assured of its nature and the exact date and conditions of its termination—a proviso which they are sensible enough to recognize would be extremely difficult of attainment. American leadership in forming and executing any such scheme would, they feel, afford the best reassurance as to its nature and terms. Under such circumstances a plausible case can be made out for proposals which, under the guise of traditional American friendship for China, would in fact commit us to a reversal of our historic policy.
There are radicals abroad and at home who think that our entrance into a Consortium already proves that we have entered upon the road of reversal and who naturally see in the Pacific Conference the next logical step. I have previously stated my own belief that our State Department proposed the Consortium primarily for political ends, as a means of checking the policy pursued by Japan of making unproductive loans to China in return for which she was getting an immediate grip on China's natural resources and preparing the way for direct administrative and financial control when the day of reckoning and foreclosure should finally come. I also said that the Consortium was between two stools, the financial and the political and that up to the present its chief value had been negative and preventive, and that jealousy or lack of interest by Japan and Great Britain in any constructive policy on the part of the Consortium was likely to maintain the same condition. I have seen no reason thus far to change my mind on this point, nor in regard to the further belief that probably the interests of China in the end will be best served by the continuation of this deterrent function. But the question is bound to arise: why continue the Consortium if it isn't doing anything? The pressure of foreign powers interested in the exploitation of China and of impatient American economic interests may combine to put an end to the present rather otiose existence led by the Consortium. The two stools between which the past action of the American government has managed to swing the Consortium may be united to form a single solid bench.
At the risk of being charged with credulous gullibility, or something worse, I add that up to the present time the American phase of the Consortium hasn't shown perceptible signs of becoming a club exercised by American finance over China's economic integrity and independence. I believe the repeated statements of the American representative that he himself and the interests he represents would be glad if China proved her ability to finance her own public utilities without resorting to foreign loans. This belief is confirmed by the first public utterance of the new American minister to China who in his reference to the Consortium laid emphasis upon its deterrent function and upon the stimulation it has given to Chinese bankers to finance public utilities. And it is the merest justice to Mr. Stevens, the American representative, to say that he represents the conservative investment type of banker, not the 'promotion' type, and that thus far his great concern has been the problem of protecting the buyer of such securities as are passed on by the banks to the ultimate investor—so much so that he has aroused criticism from American business interests impatient for speedy action. But there is a larger phase of the Consortium concerning which I think apprehensions may reasonably be entertained.
Suppose, if merely by way of hypothesis, that the American government is genuinely interested in China and in making the policy of the open door and Chinese territorial and administrative integrity a reality, not merely a name, and suppose that it is interested in doing so from an American self-interest sufficiently enlightened to perceive that the political and economic advancement of the United States is best furthered by a policy which is identical with China's ability to develop herself freely and independently: what then would be the wise American course? In short, it would be to view our existing European interests and issues (due to the war) and our Far Eastern interests and issues as parts of one and the same problem. If we are actuated by the motive hypothetically imputed to our government and we fail in its realization, the chief reason will be that we regard the European question and the Asiatic problem as two different questions, or because we identify them from the wrong end.
Our present financial interest in Europe is enormous. It involves not merely foreign governmental loans but a multitude of private advances and commitments. These financial entanglements affect not merely our industry and commerce but our politics. They involve much more immediately pressing concerns than do our Asiatic relations, and they involve billions where the latter involve millions. The danger under such conditions that our Asiatic relations will be sacrificed to our European is hardly fanciful.
To make this abstract statement concrete, the firm of bankers, J- P. Morgan & Co., which is most heavily involved in European indebtedness to the United States, is the firm which is the leading spirit in the Consortium for China. It seems almost inevitable that the Asiatic problem should look like small potatoes in comparison with the European one, especially as our own industrial recuperation is so closely connected with European relations, while the Far East cuts a negligible figure. To my mind the real danger is not that our big financial interests will determine to set out upon selfish exploitation of China: intelligent self-interest, tradition and the fact that our chief asset in China is our past freedom from a predatory course, dictate a course of cooperation with China. The danger is that China will be subordinated and sacrificed because of primary preoccupation with the high finance and politics of Europe, that she will be lost in the shuffle.
The European aspect of the problem can be made more concrete by reference to Great Britain in particular. That country suffers from the embarrassment of the Japanese alliance. She has already made it sufficiently clear that she would like to draw America into the alliance, making it tripartite, since that would be the easiest way of maintaining good relations with both Japan and the United States. There is no likelihood that any such step will be consummated. But British diplomacy is experienced and astute. And by force of circumstances our high finance has contracted a sort of economic alliance with Great Britain. There is no wish to claim superior virtue for America or to appeal to the strong current of anti-British sentiment. But the British foreign office exists and operates apart from the tradition of liberalism which has mainly actuated English domestic politics. It stands peculiarly for the Empire side of the British Empire, no matter what Party is in the saddle in domestic affairs. Every resource will be employed to bring about a settlement at the Pacific Conference which, even though it includes some degree of compromise on the part of Great Britain, will bend the Asiatic policy of the United States to the British traditions in the Far East, instead of committing Great Britain to combining with the United States in making a reality of the integrity of China to which both countries are nominally committed. It does not seem an extreme statement to say that the immediate issues of the Conference depend upon the way in which our financial commitments in Europe are treated, either as reasons for our making concessions to European policy or on the other hand as a means of securing an adherence of the European powers to the traditional American policy.
A publicist in China who is of British origin and a sincere friend of China remarked in private conversation that if the United States could not secure the adherence of Great Britain to her Asiatic policy by persuasion (he was deploring the Japanese alliance) she might do so by buying it—through remission of her national debt to us. It is not necessary to resort to the measure so baldly suggested. But the remark at least suggests that our involvement in European, especially British, finance and politics may be treated in either of two ways for either of two results.
In this article I have set forth as conservatively as possible some of the reasons which seem to justify reasonable apprehension regarding our course at the Conference and in the future. In a further article I shall set forth the reasons for hoping that our ways will not part in this direction, and the main factor that seems to me involved in our deliberate entrance upon a better course.
II
That the Chinese people, generally speaking, has a less antagonistic feeling towards the United States than towards other powers seems to me an undoubted fact. The feeling has been disturbed at divers times by the treatment of the Chinese upon the Pacific coast, by the exclusion act, by the turning over of our interest in the building of the Peking-Canton (or Hankow) railway to a European group, by the Lansing-Ishii agreement, and finally by the part played by President Wilson in the Versailles decision regarding Shantung. Those disturbances in the main, however, have made them dubious as to our skill, energy and intelligence rather than as to our goodwill. Americans, taken individually and collectively, are to the Chinese—at least such was my impression—a rather simple folk, taking the word in its good and its deprecatory sense. In noting the Chinese reaction to the proposed Pacific Conference, it was interesting to see the combination of an almost unlimited hope that the United States was to lead in protecting them from further aggressions and in rectifying existing evils, with a lack of confidence, a fear that the United States would have something put over on it.
Friendly feeling is, of course, mainly based upon a negative fact, the fact that the United States has taken no part in 'leasing' territories, establishing spheres and setting up extra-national postoffices. On the positive side stands the contribution made by Americans to education, especially medical and that of girls and women, and to philanthropy and relief. Politically, there are the early service of Burlingame, the open door policy of John Hay (though failure to maintain it in fact while securing signatures to it on paper has a great deal to do with the Chinese belief in our defective energy) and the part played by the United States in moderating the terms of the settlement of the Boxer outbreak, in addition to a considerable number of minor helpful acts. China also remembers that we were the only nation to take exception to the treaties embodying the Twenty-one Demands. While our exception was chiefly made on the basis of our own interests which these treaties might injuriously affect, a sentiment exists that the protest was a pledge of assistance to China when the time should be opportune for raising the whole question. And without doubt the reservation made on May 16, 1915, by our State Department is a strong card at the forthcoming Conference if the Department wishes to play it.
From the American standpoint, the open door principle represents one of the only two established principles of American diplomacy, the other being, of course, the Monroe Doctrine. In connection with sentimental or idealistic associations which have clustered about it, it constitutes us in some vague fashion, in both Chinese and American public opinion, a sort of guardian or at least spokesman of the interests of China in relation to foreign powers. Although, as was pointed out in a former article, the open door policy directly concerns other nations in their relation to China rather than China herself, yet the violation of the policy by other powers has been so frequent and so much to the detriment of China, that American interest, prestige and moral sentiment are now implicated in such an enforcement of it as will redound to the advantage of China.
Citizens of other countries are often irritated by a suggestion of such a relationship between the United States and China. It presents itself as a proclamation of superior national virtue under cover of which the United States aims to establish its influence in China at the expense of other countries. The irritation is exasperated by the fact that the situation as it stands is an undoubted economic and political asset of the United States in China. We may concede without argument any contention that the situation is not due to superior virtue but rather to contingencies of history and geography—in which respect it is not unlike many things that pass for virtues with individuals. The contention may be admitted without controversy because it is not pertinent to the main issue. The question is not so much how the state of affairs came about as what it now is, how it is to be treated and what consequences are to flow from it. It is a fact that up to the present the intelligent self-interest of America has coincided with the interests of a stable, independent and progressive China. It is also a fact that American traditions and sentiments have gathered about this consideration so that now there is widespread conviction in the American people of moral obligations of assistance and friendly protection owed by us to China. At present, no policy can be entered upon that does not bear the semblance of fairness and goodwill. We have at least so much protection against the dangers discussed in the prior article.
Among Americans in China and presumably at home there is a strong feeling that we should adopt stronger and more positive policies for the future than we have maintained in the past. This feeling seems to me fraught with dangers unless we make very clear to ourselves in just what respects we are to continue and make good our traditional policy in a more positive manner. To some extent our past policy has been one of drifting. Radical change in this respect may go further than appears upon the surface in altering other fundamental aspects of our policy. What is condemned as drifting is in effect largely the same thing that is also praised as non-interference. A detailed settled policy, no matter how 'constructive' it may appear to be, can hardly help involving us in the domestic policies of China, an affair of factions and a game which the Chinese understand and play much better than any foreigners. Such an involvement would at once lessen a present large asset in China, aloofness from internal intrigues and struggles.
The specific protests of Chinese in this country—mainly Cantonese—against the Consortium seem to me mainly based on misapprehension. But their general attitude of opposition nevertheless conveys an important lesson. It is based on a belief that the effect of the Consortium will be to give the Peking government a factitious advantage in the internal conflict which is waging in China, so that to all intents and purposes it will mark a taking of sides on our part. It is well remembered that the effect of the 'reorganization' loan of the prior Consortium—in which the United States was not a partner—was to give Yuan Shih-kai the funds which seated him, and the militarist faction after him, firmly in the governmental saddle. Viewing the matter from a larger point of view than that of Canton vs. Peking, the most fundamental objection I heard brought by Chinese against the Consortium was in effect as follows: The republican revolution in China has still to be wrought out; the beginning of ten years ago has been arrested. It remains to fight it out. The inevitable effect of increased foreign financial and economic interest in China, even admitting that its industrial effect was advantageous to China, would be to create an interest in stabilizing China politically, which in effect would mean to sanctify the status quo, and prevent the development of a revolution which cannot be accomplished without internal disorders that would affect foreign investments unfavorably. These considerations are not mentioned for the sake of throwing light on the Consortium: they are cited as an illustration of the probability that a too positive and constructive development of our tradition of goodwill to China would involve us in an interference with Chinese domestic affairs injurious to China's welfare, to that free and independent development in which we profess such interest.
But how, it will be asked, are we to protect China from foreign depredations, particularly those of Japan, how are we to change our nominal goodwill into a reality, if we do not enter upon much more positive and detailed policies? If there was in existence at the present time any such thing as a diplomacy of peoples as distinct from a diplomacy of governments, the question would mean something quite different from what it now means. As things now stand the people should profoundly distrust the politicians' love for China. It is too frequently the reverse side of fear and incipient hatred of Japan, colored perhaps by anti-British feeling.
There should be no disguising of the situation. The aggressive activities of other nations in China, centring but not exhausted at this time in Japan, are not merely sources of trouble to China but they are potential causes of trouble in our own international relationships. We are committed by our tradition and by the present actualities of the situation to attempt something positive for China as respects her international status. To live up to our responsibility is a most difficult and delicate matter. We have on the one side to avoid getting entangled in quasi-imperialistic European policies in Asia, whether under the guise of altruism, of putting ourselves in a position where we can exercise a more effective supervision of their behavior, or by means of economic expansion. On the other side, we have to avoid drifting into that kind of covert or avowed antagonism to European and Japanese imperialism which will only increase friction, encourage a combination especially of Great Britain and Japan—or of France and Japan—against us, and bring war appreciably nearer.
We need to bear in mind that China will not be saved from outside herself. Even if by a successful war we should relieve China from Japanese encroachments, from all encroachments, China would not of necessity be brought nearer her legitimate goal of orderly and prosperous internal development. Apart from the question of how far war can now settle any fundamental issues without begetting others as dangerous, there is the fact that China of all countries is the one where settlement by force, especially by outside force, is least applicable and most likely to be enormously disserviceable. China is used to taking time for her problems: she can neither understand nor profit by the impatient methods of the western world which are profoundly alien to her genius. Moreover, a civilization which is on a continental scale, which is so old that the rest of us are parvenus in comparison, which is thick and closely woven, cannot be hurried in its development without disaster. Transformation from within is its sole way out, and we can best help China by trying to see to it that she gets the time she needs in order to effect this transformation, whether or not we like the particular form it assumes at any particular time.
A successful war in behalf of China would leave untouched her problems of education, of factional and sectional forces, of political immaturity showing itself in present incapacity for organization. It would affect her industrial growth undoubtedly, but in all human probability for the worse, increasing the likelihood that she would enter upon an industrialization which would repeat the worst evils of western industrial life without the immunities, resistances and remedial measures which the west has evolved. The imagination cannot conceive a worse crime than fastening western industrialism upon China before she has developed within herself the means of coping with the forces which it would release. The danger is great enough as it is. War waged in China's behalf by western powers and western methods would make the danger practically irresistible. In addition we should gain a permanent interest in China which is likely to be of the most dangerous character to ourselves. If we were not committed by it to future imperialism, we should be luckier than we have any right to hope to be. These things are said against a mental protest to admitting even by implication the prospect of war with Japan, but it seems necessary to say them.
These remarks are negative and vague as to our future course. They imply a confession of lack of such wisdom as would enable me to make positive definite proposals. But at least I have confidence in the wisdom and goodwill of the American and other peoples to deal with the problem, if they are only called into action. And the first condition of calling wisdom and goodwill into effective existence is to recognize the seriousness of the problem and the utter futility of trying to force its solution by impatient and hurried methods. Pro-Japanese apologetics is dangerous; it obscures the realities of the situation. An irritated anti-Japanism that would hasten the solution of the Chinese problem merely by attacking Japan is equally fatal to discovering and applying a proper method.
More specifically and also more genetically, proper publicity is the greatest need. If, as Secretary Hughes has intimated, a settlement of the problems of the Pacific is made a condition of arriving at an agreement regarding reduction and limitation of armaments, it is likely that the Conference might better never be held. In eagerness to do something which will pass as a settlement, either China's—and Siberia's—interests will be sacrificed in some unfair compromise, or irritation and friction will be increased—and in the end so will armaments. In any literal sense, it is ridiculous to suppose that the problems of the Pacific can be settled in a few weeks, or months—or years. Yet the discussion of the problems, in separation from the question of armament, may be of great use. For it may further that publicity which is a precondition of any genuine settlement. This involves public diplomacy. But it also involves a wider publicity, one which will enlighten the world about the facts of Asia, internal and international.
Scepticism about Foreign Offices, as they are at present conducted, is justified. But scepticism about the power of public opinion, if it can be aroused and instructed, to reshape Foreign Office policies means hopelessness about the future of the world. Let everything possible be done to reduce armament, if only to secure a naval holiday on the part of the three great naval powers, and if only for the sake of lessening taxation. Let the Conference on Problems devote itself to discussing and making known as fully and widely as possible the element and scope of those problems, and the fears—or should one call them hopes?—of the cynics will be frustrated. It is not so important that a decision in the American sense of the Yap question be finally and forever arrived at, as it is that the need of China and the Orient in general for freer and fuller communications with the rest of the world be made clear—and so on, down or up the list of agenda. The commercial open door is needed. But the need is greater that the door be opened to light, to knowledge and understanding. If these forces will not create a public opinion which will in time secure a lasting and just settlement of other problems, there is no recourse save despair of civilization. Liberals can do something better than predicting failure and impugning motives. They can work for the opened door of open diplomacy, of continuous and intelligent inquiry, of discussion free from propaganda. To shirk this responsibility on the alleged ground that economic imperialism and organized greed will surely bring the Conference to failure is supine and snobbish. It is one of the factors that may count in leading the United States to take the wrong course in the parting of the ways.