China and the West

Dewey, John. China and disarmament [ID D28493].
In cordially acceding to the request of the editor of the Chinese Students' Monthly to say a few words about the coming Pacific Conference, I do so more because I am glad of an opportunity to give expression to my interest in China than because I feel I have anything to add to what is already matter of general discussion and knowledge. It is quite clear that the difficulties which will face the Conference are enormous. In the United States as well as in Great Britain and Japan there are those who feel that the limitation of armaments is the most important matter, and that it was an unwise move to complicate that difficulty by introducing the discussion of such a vexed problem as the conflict of international policies in the Far East. There are others (with whom I find myself in sympathy) who regard the adjustment of policies as the fundamental issue, who feel that even a sweeping reduction of armaments will not of itself materially improve international relations although it may relieve the burden of taxation; who feel that if a settlement of policies is attained, the causes of competition in armament will be largely eliminated; and that the growth of peaceful domestic sentiment and opinion in each country will compel retrenchment, when once the grounds for mutual suspicion and fear are done away with. Then there is a large number in every country which looks upon the whole matter with what President Hibben of Princeton has well termed 'cynical pessimism'. Some are influenced by the disillusionment which followed the Versailles peace treaties. They believe that each country is going in to get what it can for itself in the way of aggrandizement, and they have no faith that diplomatists who represent the present political order will accomplish anything constructive. Then there are the economic radicals who believe that the rivalry of powers is the necessary expression of the existing capitalistic system, and that it is absurd to look for any real amelioration as long as capitalism is powerful.
This division of public sentiment creates an atmosphere which adds to the difficulties of a successful outcome. I am not writing in this vein, however, to encourage despair, but to suggest one direction in which the Conference may be a success, a direction which it seems to me is of chief importance for China. It is possible that a by-product of the Conference may be more valuable than any direct results which will be obtained. I mean by this a better understanding, a greater knowledge of the conditions which obtain in the Far East. In spite of the fact that the world seems to be suffering from a kind of moral fatigue as a result of the overstrain of the war, I believe that a new social consciousness is gradually forming in every country, a new type of liberal and international thought, and that this new consciousness is going to have more and more influence in shaping the international conduct of every nation.
It is not necessary to point out how awakened American public opinion is regarding everything which concerns China as compared with a few years ago. I am not enough of an inflamed patriot to assume that all of this awakening takes a form which is good for my own country or in the long run for China. Some of it, unfortunately, is mainly negative, an accompaniment of rivalry with and fear and suspicion of Japan as a potential rival, economic and naval. But with the mass of the American people, it is the product I think of real interest in the Chinese people, sympathy for them, and a wish that they have an opportunity to work out their own destiny free from that external interference which in the past has been such an unhappy feature of the intercourse of the world's great powers with China. Now this more sensitive feeling about justice for China is not confined to the United States. I believe that it is rapidly growing in England and will become more articulate as soon as the subsidence of war passions permits a revival of political liberalism in Great Britain. In Japan there is a growing section of the population which is uneasy about the past policy of Japan toward China and who wish to bring about its revision. It is still comparatively unorganized and almost impotent against the power of the forces represented by the Imperial General Staff. But the feeling is there and is constantly growing in strength especially in the younger generation.
Now one great opportunity presented by the Conference is that of enlightening and to some extent crystallizing this sentiment and opinion in all countries. Even in Japan a favorite phrase in connection with the Conference is the need of laying all the cards on the table. What we may call the educative effect of the Conference, the indirect effect of its discussions in bringing conditions and issues to light, may in the long run outweigh the actual success of the Conference with respect to its direct and avowed aims. I do not say this to minimize the importance of the direct aims nor because I believe that failure is inevitable with respect to them. There are rather two motives for emphasizing this phase of the matter. Other more competent persons will deal with the direct military, naval and political issues, and this educative aspect of the matter may easily be slurred over. And also this phase of the matter is the one, it seems to me, which is the most natural concern of the body of Chinese students and shows where their influence can be most useful in connection with the Conference. The world has had altogether too much propaganda of late, and I should be sorry to write anything which would encourage more of a bad thing. But there is an opportunity for Chinese students to help the world, at least the American part of it, understand better the difficulties and problems of China, internal and foreign, and in a truthful way to develop intelligent sympathy with an international policy of justice toward weak nations in general and China in particular. There are some who think that our new interest in China is because Americans want to displace other nations in order to play a greater part there itself. I hope this isn't true; I do not believe it is true. But if there is any such danger, the Conference provides an opportunity for Chinese students to present the rights of China to its own independent development and self-determination, free from intervention and tutelage which is professedly benevolent as well as free from interference which is openly hostile.